Last night, the Fan wrote about the start the Florida Marlins have had this season. I also extolled the virtues of their pitching performance thus far. And last night's post spoke of the great start by Roger Clemens. The Florida Marlins continued to prove the point tonight and the performance of Dontrelle Willis is worth talking about.

Willis had a terrific rookie season even though he faded late in the summer and into the post-season. When he had a rough Spring Training, the Fan was ready to Mark Fidrych the man. But Willis was brilliant his first start pitching seven and two thirds innings without giving up a run and sure enough, tonight, he has shut out the Expos through the first five innings as the Marlins are leading, 11-0.

But the most fun statistic of Dontrelle's performance is that the pitcher has batted three times tonight and in those three at bats, has a single, a double and a three run homer! Has a pitcher ever hit for the cycle? Willis will not get there as his manager wisely took him out after five successful shutout innings and an eleven run lead.

Even more fun than tonight's hitting statistic for Dontrelle Willis is that Dontrelle also went three for three his first game this season! So, not only is Willis perfect with his ERA after two starts, but his batting average is perfect too! I can just hear Mel Allen somewhere saying: "How about that."

Also off to an excellent start this season is Kevin Brown. Brown won his third straight decision tonight to obtain win number 200 of his career. Of course, the Fan has to mention that all three of Brown's victories have been against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. That's the first time since 1951 that a pitcher has won his first three decisions all against the same team. Brown certainly seems to be the horse the Yankees needed to replace Clemens.

Adding another log to the bonfire of opinion that says the Yankees can unfairly buy too many top players, four Yankee pitchers have reached important milestones in their last eight months. Three pitchers have reached their two hundredth win (David Wells, Mussina, Kevin Brown) and, of course, Roger Clemens won his three hundredth game and reached 4000 strikeouts.