In contrast to almost all the National League contenders, the Red Sox and the A's are doing what they need to do to contend.

The Red Sox, after a tough Oakland series, didn't get down and came back to sweep one of the best teams in the AL. And they beat the Mariners in convincing fashion after scrapping for wins in the two close games to start the series. First, Derek Lowe became the ace that he was last year and today, one of the best ever, Pedro Martinez, shut the veteran Mariners down for one run each game.

And what an acquisition David Ortiz has been. You have to wonder what the Twins were thinking to let this guy go. Only 27 years old, Ortiz is coming into his own in a park where he can either pull the ball out or knock it against that big green wall. Of David's 95 hits, 56 of them have been for extra bases. His 74 RBI in 99 games projects out to 120 RBI for a season if he played every day. He has already surpassed his career record for doubles with 34, triples with 2 and he's already tied his season high for homers. The guy has done everything you could ask him to do. And he's only cost the Red Sox $1.25 million.

The batting race tightened up in the Red Sox/Mariner series as well. The Red Sox kept Ichiro in check most of the series and now the great hitter is down to .331. Garciaparra is up to .325 and Mueller is batting .328. Garciaparra has already won one batting title and Mueller has been consistent throughout the season. The batting race is just one more fun one to watch the rest of the year.


I simply do not understand how the A's can pull off the kind of runs in the second half every year like they do. Every first half they look terrible and it looks like they will have an off year. Now they've come roaring back and amazingly, the A's and the Mariners are tied with the exact same record in the AL West. Didn't the Mariners have an eleven game lead at one point?

You can't ask for a better pennant race down the stretch as the Red Sox, the Mariners and the A's all have identical records. Only two of those teams will make it to the playoffs if the Yankees maintain their current play. The Yankees have won nine of eleven and have not shown any let up at all. The AL Central winner will have at least ten less wins than the three teams mentioned at the top of this paragraph. Amazing.


The playoffs are all about matchups. The Yankees don't match up well against either the Mariners or the A's. The Red Sox match up better against Seattle (in fact, they own them) but not against the A's. The A's don't match up well with the Mariners. The Yankees match up better with Boston. Who wins the races down the stretch will make a serious impact on which team makes it to the World Series.


In the meantime, the Phillies continue to look like a jet with only one engine as they are 9-12 in August. The Phillies will not make the playoffs and Larry Bowa will not be managing this team next season. The Fan is on a crusade. Boone got taken care of in Cincinnati and Bowa is next in the Fan's sights. This team will not contend with him in charge. Can you imagine where this team would be if Scott Rolen wasn't run out of town by Bowa?


Poor Jeff Weaver. He came in to pitch in the eighth inning against the Orioles with the Yankees up 3-1 and after getting his first out, gave up a homerun to Larry Bigbee. Weaver found out what the "yank" in Yankees stood for. On the flip side, struggling closer, Mariano Rivera pitched a perfect inning and a third for the save. Pettitte got the win and is now 16-7. The Yankees have to sign this free agent at the end of the year!

All baseball fans and human beings had to feel a tinge of sadness along with the thrill of the great performance given by Yankees pitcher, Jose Contreras against the Orioles today. The victory certainly seems to mean that Jeff Weaver has officially lost any shot at ever being a meaningful pitcher for the Yankees.

Weaver has gone in two short years from being the best Tigers pitcher to being the worst Yankee pitcher. How and why did that happen? Was it bad coaching? Bad luck? Unknown injuries? Or is it that baseball is a lot like golf--it's all a mind game. Weaver would be well at this point to move on from the Yankees and get a fresh start elsewhere. One also wonders if he could also use a sports psychologist to restore his confidence.

Weaver heads a list of players who could use a change of scenery. Joe Torre is likely to continue to support pitching Weaver except in long games where the Yankees are being blown out. Sterling Hitchcock is going to benefit from being let go to another team and another chance and Weaver could/should be next.

I don't know if Pat Burrell and Jose Mesa need a change of scenery or a change in who manages the team. The Fan has watched several involving the Phillies and the Fan would be a nervous wreck playing for Larry Bowa. Contrast his style with Tony Pena for the Kansas City Royals. Pena has just as much fire as Bowa for winning but does so with a positive attitude and an understanding of human nature. Bowa reminds me more of Billy Martin who either pushed a player or broke them depending on their makeup.

Lou Piniella has that fire too and can explode into rages as good as Bowa's but Piniella has won every where he's gone so he has to be a major motivator too. For those of you who thought he was too harsh to Ben Grieve, you may have been right...for Ben Grieve, but a similar player with Grieve's personality is Jon Olerud and Pineilla never tried to change Olerud's style of play. The Grieve blowup makes Ben another player who could probably use another place to play.

Another player who could use a change of scenery is Bobby Higginson. Higginson has hit over 25 homers four times in his career and has driven in over a hundred runs twice. And that was all for bad ballclubs. It seems like he is sleepwalking. Good players are good players because they love the competition. It has to have taken a toll on his interest in pushing himself from day to day. By the way, the Tigers broke an eleven game losing streak today.

A change of location can really help a player in a rut. Mike Hampton is the number one example. Colorado was not conducive to his style of pitching and another organization (the Braves) took an interest in him and right now is the hottest pitcher in the league.

The Minnesota Twins had everything right where they wanted. They were playing division rivals, Kansas City, at home in their little ballpark with a chance to really make a statement. The Royals were ripe for collapse, on the ropes and gasping. The Twins won the first game. So far...so good. Then they lost last night in a good pitching duel. No problem. Win Saturday and the Twins would still make a statement. They even had Jose Lima starting for the Royals as he is going in the Lima direction shown the last three seasons of his major league career.

And true to form, they whacked Lima around for ten hits in four innings. The trouble was that they only scored three runs. Ten hits to score three run? In four innings? That's 2.25 baserunners per inning and managed only three runs? They only knocked three more hits for the final five innings and didn't score any more runs. The Royals won 4-3. When the chips are on the line and the contenders are rushing towards September, you have to have a guy step up and get the big hit. The Twins just haven't had that guy.

You have to wonder if the 7-0 start was as good as it will get for Lima. It was fun while it lasted, but it was too good to be true. Well, it was true, but it was too good to last.

Three other teams that are staggering in this pennant race are the Marlins, the Mariners and the Astros. Seattle's lead over Oakland is down to two games even though the A's are only playing .500 ball the last two weeks.

The Marlins could have zoomed by the Phillies as the Phillies sat on the wildcard lead despite loss after loss. The Marlins have now lost five straight. They have pitched fairly well but have stopped hitting. All the losing by the wildcard leaders means that the Diamondbacks are slithering back into the race. I'm a Fan more than I am anything else and I'd rather see brown shoes at a formal occasion than see the Diamondbacks winning the wildcard.

The Red Sox have responded to adversity and beat the Mariners again today. The win was not pretty as their closer, Kim, again looked shaky in the last inning and allowed the Mariners to tie the game. But Kim and Mike Timlin held the Mariners there and the Red Sox put it away in the bottom of the tenth.

Now that the Yankees have lost two straight and are now leading the Red Sox by "only" five games, I wonder if Steinbrenner will start calling the red phone again. The man has the patience of a sled dog in Florida.


And finally tonight, the Fan sends condolences to the Bonds family as Bobby lost his battle today and died. Though I never did get over you coming to the Yankees at the expense of my Bobby Murcer, you were a good man and a great talent and gave us the best player of our generation. Rest in peace, Bobby B.

The incredible and interesting playoff races continued tonight as Oakland, St. Louis, Houston and Minnesota all lost their games and Philadelphia, Boston, Kansas City and the American's League's Chicago team all won.

The Cubs are beating Schilling and the Diamondbacks, 3-0 in the sixth inning as Sammy Sosa has already hit two homers and Carlos Zambrano has not yet given up a hit. Sammy now has thirty homers and over eighty RBI for the season.

Two homers were also hit by our friend, Pat Burrell, as he went three for four and was instrumental in bringing the Phillies from behind to win the game. In the process, they shut down Albert Pujols hitting streak as he went "Oh for Five."

The Marlins are winning early against the Giants as Cabrera singled and Gonzalez homered to plate two. Dontrelle Willis is pitching for the Marlins and has given up one run in four full innings.

The Red Sox beat Seattle as Jeff Suppon pitched a good game and Manny Ramirez hit his 31st homer. The Red Sox are now tied again with Oakland for the wildcard race. Oakland got a big blow today as ace, Mark Mulder, learned that he had a stress fracture in his hip and will be out for the rest of the season. Mulder had won fifteen games for the A's this year so that's a big loss.

Zambrano now has a no-hitter through seven!

...

Oh man. I knew Shea Hillenbrand would break it up! The no-hitter was broken up with two outs in the eighth inning. The Flagrant Fan was hoping...

With the Royals loss and the Twins win, those two teams are now tied. If Chicago wins, the White Sox will be in first by half a game. That's the bad news for the Royals. The good news is that they almost came back from way behind today to win in the ninth AND they have been counted out for dead a month ago and stormed back. We'll have to see which way they go this time. This Fan's sad opinion is that this is the beginning of the end of a great run.

The Cubs have bounced back tonight behind the brilliance of Mark Prior. If the 6-0 score (eighth inning) holds up, the Cubs will be only a half a game behind Houston. The Cardinals are losing huge, 13-0, so they will not be taking advantage of the opportunity to inch closer.

The Phillies are getting trounced by Milwaukee again and the more I see this collapse, the more I believe that there is no way that Larry Bowa will survive as manager. And with the talent they have, I wouldn't be surprised if it happens soon.

The Marlins, a half a game behind the Phillies are beating Colorado 1-0. That would not be considered a safe lead in Coors (obviously). Cabrera is two for two and has driven in the only run. Mike Redman is pitching very well again tonight.

Barry Bonds game winning homer last night reminded me of The Natural, one of the best baseball movies of all time. I will say this to you one more time: We are watching history folks. Sixty years from now, people will be asking you if you ever saw him play. The two best players ever: 1. The Babe. 2. Barry Bonds.


And now it's time for the Fan's favorite boxscore players and how they've fared the last seven days:

- Karim Garcia. Garcia has captured my fancy with his big week for the Yankees. Now I wonder why he sat today! Garcia came up to the plate thirteen times last week and had four walks and five hits (a tidy little .694 OBP!) with three homers, a double and seven RBI.

- Rocco Baldelli. Baldelli is the model of consistency. He batted .300 exactly for the week and is at exactly .300 for the year. What is promising is that his OBP seems to rise every week so that means he's getting more selective.

- Coco Crisp. Crisp didn't describe Coco's batting last week as he only hit .182 last week to pull his season average down to .262. His OBP is down to .301, which is very poor for a leadoff guy.

- Hank Blalock. Blalock batted a consistent .292 for the week with a homer, two doubles and seven RBI. He is now at .317 for the season with 21 homers and 72 RBI. His season OBP is .374. Excellent.

- Mark Teixeira. Teixeira struggled last week, batting only .192 but he did have three doubles and three RBI. He is batting a decent .250 for his rookie season with 19 homers and 61 RBI. Watch out next year!

- Michael Young. Young had a good week, batting .313 with a homer and three RBI. More importantly, he scored nine runs from the leadoff spot and now has scored 87 runs for the season to go along with his .310 batting average with 11 homers and 61 RBI.

- Pat Burrell. Burrell didn't make progress as it appeared he might as he batted only .182 for the week and shrunk back down to .201 for the year.

- Miguel Cabrera. The youngster had a great week as he batted .429 for the week with nine hits in twenty-four at bats. Cabrera had a double, a triple and two homers and drove in six runs. He's also improving his patience and walked four times last week.

- Jose Reyes. Reyes was as good as Cabrera as he had eleven hits in twenty-seven at bats for a week's average of .407. The twenty year old is now batting .308 in his rookie season.


Mark Prior is the man. He is the Cy Young Award winner this year and looks as dominant as Roger Clemens in his young years.

The Royals loss to the Yankees tonight combined with Chicago and Minnesota wins brought those two winning teams to within one game of the Royals. Watching the Royals is like watching that marathon runner in the Olympics who led the whole race and then staggered around the track at the very end while those behind passed to victory. This Fan hopes it doesn't end like that but the signs are there.

The White Sox and Twins both have winning records since the AllStar break while the Royals are a few games under .500. The question will continue to be if the Royals have enough pitching to get the job done. As much as it's painful to say so, it doesn't look like it.

The Phillies, who have 27 straight games without a day off, lost to a Brewer team they have to beat. It's hard to figure how this team can look so poor on some nights and like World Champions the next. I have some doubts on whether Bowa is the right manager for this team.

Fortunately, the Phillies are being mirrored by the Marlins who are not taking advantage of the opportunity. The Marlins are losing 7-1 tonight in Colorado. Colorado is not a place I'd want to travel if I was in the midst of a wildcard race.

Billy Wagner is in for the ninth inning of a slugfest between the Cubs and Astros that the Astros are leading 12-8. Sammy Sosa has gone suddenly cold as he only has five hits in his last seven games (for a .217 average over that span). Sammy just flew out to end the game with runners on second and third. Game over. The Astros win. The Cubs are now one and a half games back.

The Cardinals are winning big over Pittsburgh so they will leap frog over the Cubs and stay a game behind the Astros.

Bobby Valentine made a great comment on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" concerning the Astros veteran players. He basically said that they look like they lack spirit and fun and play all their games with a grim determination. That is a feeling I have had without being able to verbalize it. A friend of mine at work says that if it isn't fun, it's not worth doing. It doesn't look fun for the Astros. Valentine has really impressed me with his observations.

It appears that after getting to within two games of the .500 mark that the Orioles have either run out of gas or have quit on Hargrove. The last few times I've seen them play it looked like they were sleepwalking. Tonight their uninspired play led to a gimme run as they threw the ball all over the place on a play where they had a Devil Ray player caught dead between third and home. The Orioles are now ten games below .500.

If there are any further questions as to whether or not Barry Bonds is the National League's most valuable player, please review the recent series sweep of his team by the Montreal Expos during his absence. Bonds, who has been with his ailing father, is expected to play Thursday night but has to heavy heart as Bobby Bonds is seriously ill with a variety of ailments.

In the four games against the Expos, the Giants managed only four runs on six extra base hits (no homers) while leaving 32 runners on base. They only managed 24 hits during the four game set or an average of six hits a game. Without Bonds, the Giants are the Tigers with better pitching.


The Yankees ended Lima Time rocking Jose for six runs in four innings. Lima lost for the first time this year. The loss is a bad start for an important Royals week where they face the Yankees three times before closing the week with a four game series at Minnesota. The Royals loss combined with tonight's White Sox win lowers the Royals' division lead to two games.

Karim Garcia had three RBI for the Yankees and could be a key slugger for New York down the stretch. Dellucci is a nice player but has never hit for much in his short career and the Yankees could use big production from Garcia down the stretch and into the playoffs. Garcia is batting .333 since joining the Yankees and has big time power potential.

The Yankees have their biggest division lead over Boston of the year at five games. I wouldn't count the Red Sox out yet though as the two teams will face each other over a dozen times down the stretch.


In battles of the lower end of the divisions, Texas and Detroit are in the bottom of the sixteenth inning as neither team has scored a run since Detroit tied the game in the ninth inning. Either that's a lot of good relief pitching or a lot of bad hitting. A-Rod is oh for six.

Tampa Bay and Cleveland are also in the fourteenth inning as the Devil Rays scored a run in the top of the eleventh only to see the Indians tie it in the bottom of that same frame.

Hey! At least those teams are battling hard with nothing to lose but the ballgame.

What is amazing about MLB pennant and wildcard races is how much the teams involved are spinning their wheels. If one team were to put a winning streak together, they would blow the race apart. But it just isn't happening.

Take, for example, the National League Central Division race. Houston is leading the division by a half a game and have lost six of their last ten games. Pitching and spotty hitting has been a problem for them. Pitching problems in their starting ranks are a result of key injuries. While you can't plan against something like that, their great bullpen is also a concern due to overwork.

Meanwhile, the Cubs and Cardinals had a great opportunity to capitalize on the Astros' misfortune but both teams have only won half of their last ten games. The Cubs aren't hitting well and the Cardinals aren't pitching well.

The wildcard leaders, Philadelphia and Florida, aren't exactly taking charge either. The Marlins have won seven of ten to get back in the race after a tough streak but the Phillies have only been a .500 team for quite a long time. The Phillies are sabotaged by difficulties in closing games.

Tonight is a great example for the Phillies. Leading 6-3 going into the ninth, Jose Mesa--who has an ERA of 6.10 and has given up 1.7 baserunners per inning this season--came in and gave up four baserunners and a run. Mike Williams came in to fortunately get the final out. But when your main closer has an ERA over six and your backup closer has an ERA over five, then you sweat every close game. Fortunately for the Phillies, Thome and Burrell are starting to come on strong.

The Marlins seem to have an edge with good starting pitching and good relief pitching. They also have great clutch hitting but good pitching can shut them down.

In the American League Central Division race, the three teams involved are also treading water. The leading Royals are holding on by winning only five of their last ten. Their pitching is suspect and sometimes it seems as if they are winning with mirrors.

The White Sox, who made a major charge to get into the race are slipping back the other way. They have lost six of ten and have now lost Billy Koch. That may be a blessing though as Koch simply hasn't done the job. In the amazing statistic of the week, Koch leads the team with only eleven saves. Contrast that to the Braves and Dodgers who both have save leaders with over forty saves!

For all the talk of Frank Thomas not making the AllStar team, he seems to be clogging up the middle of the lineup. Batting only .259, Thomas only has 66 RBI, a paltry amount considering he has 28 homers. Ordonez and Valentin seem to be the leaders of that club and they better start righting that ship before it sinks.

The Twins seemed to be coming on strong, but coming on strong only means winning six of their last ten. That's not enough to get the job done. I seriously doubt the Twins pitching can get them where they want to go.

The top two American League wildcard teams are also spinning on idle. The A's have only won five of their last ten and the Red Sox have won only four of ten. Then again, that seems to be a result of the two teams playing each other and playing even. Do the Red Sox have enough pitching? Do the A's have enough hitting?

Part of the explanation for all the above mediocrity is the improved play of the "also-rans" of baseball. Last place Texas has won seven of its last ten. Next to last place Cleveland has won eight of their last ten. The Devil Rays have won more games than they have lost for three straight weeks.

In the National League, the last place Mets have won seven of ten but are the only bottom division team in the league with a winning record.

The real reason for the lack of clear leadership in the races is the current schedule. When the teams in each division playing each other nearly two dozen times, all they do is take turns knocking each other off.

On one hand, the close races lend excitement to the game and keep fan interest involved. On the other hand, it's sort of like watching two fat has-been heavyweight boxers stumbling through fifteen excruciating rounds.

One of the nicest stories in MLB this year is Rod Beck. Beck is remembered as "Gasoline Beck" by Red Sox fans in 2001 because they weren't aware that he was pitching with a blown out elbow. All they saw were six saves and five blown saves.

After the 2001 season, Beck had Tommy John surgery and missed the 2002 season. Since Beck is right-handed and since he was 34, he didn't receive a major league offer for 2003. But Beck knew he could still pitch and ended up in Iowa, pitching for their minor league team as he lived in a motor home behind centerfield. For a terrific article on Beck's minor league start to this season, please go to:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2003/0515/1554407.html

When the Padres lost Trevor Hoffman for the season, they tried a couple of different options and none panned out. Finally they gave Rod Beck a call. All he's done since then is win two of his three decisions and convert sixteen out of sixteen save chances to go along with a 1.82 ERA.

Beck's success, along with other great stories like Chris Hammond for the Braves last year, are what make baseball unique and so very much fun to follow. Go Rod Go!

Aaron Boone came up to bat for the Yankees in the top of the ninth with the Yankees down a run to the Orioles. The Yankees had runners on first and second with one out. Boone was mired in a terrible slump as he started his Yankee career with six hits in fifty-one at bats (a .117 batting average!). The Yankees' bullpen blew a great performance by Roger Clemens the previous half inning, denying Clemens his 305th win. This was the time for Boone to come through.

Boone pulled the first pitch hard foul down the third base line--no balls, one strike. Boone took the next pitch the opposite way and the ball hit inches right of the right field foul line. Typical for a man in a slump to just miss a game tying double. Boone then took a slider outside. And then a pitch came pouring in towards Boone's hands. Boone brought his hands in and swung quickly. The ball jumped off his bat and flew down the left field line. The third base umpire ran down the line...and called it foul.

Boone jumped into the air and ran across the diamond--a stupid move fortunate not to be noticed. The Yankees screamed. When you're batting .117, this is the worst thing that can happen for the new guy in an embarrassing starting slump. Fortunately for baseball, the umpires consulted and the home plate umpire overruled the call--by the replay correctly--and Boone became a New York Yankee with a game winning three run homer.

Lost in the shuffle of the hour long ninth inning (Rivera again struggled in the ninth but got the save with one run scored) was a curious call from Torre to the Yankee bullpen an out into the eighth inning after Clemens struck out the first batter. Torre brought in Jesse Orosco, who looked every month of his forty-seven years and blew the win. The Yankees better hope Gabe White will join the club soon and save Torre from making that mistake again.


Sammy Sosa single-handedly beat the Dodgers for the second time in a week as he collected both RBI in a 2-1 complete game win for Mark Prior. Prior looks so good it's scary. Sosa now has 78 RBI in his 97 games. The Cubbies are back on top of their division by a half a game. As Mel Allen would have said: "How about that."


Randy Johnson, like Mariano Rivera, just isn't the same pitcher this year. The Braves hacked him up tonight for seven runs to push his season record to 3-5 with a 5.05 ERA after ten starts.


The Cleveland Indians beat Tampa Bay tonight 1-0 to improve their record to 8-2 in the last ten games. C.C. Sabathia pitched a complete game shutout to improve his record to 11-7 with a 3.28 ERA. With Hafner and Broussard blossoming as rookie hitters and pitchers like Sabathia and Anderson, the Indians are going to be a really good team in a couple of years.


The White Sox are suddenly tumbling again as they have lost three in a row. This is such a strange and exciting season as both Central Divisions in both leagues feature teams flip flopping back and forth in the standings. Between the Central Divisions and the wildcard races in both leagues, it's going to be an exciting last forty games of this season.

The Cubs and Red Sox both faced crisis coming into their respective series. The Cubs had just lost two of three from the Dodgers and had fallen two and a half games behind the Astros and further out in the wildcard race. The Red Sox started their series in Oakland after losing two of three to the Orioles.

Both teams left those losing series in a bad way and now had to begin series against important opponents. The Cubs had to face the Astros who were on top in the Central Division. The Red Sox had to play Oakland, their closest wildcard competitor. And both teams took it on the chin their first games by tidy pitching performances. Oakland's Tim Hudson handcuffed the Red Sox for a complete game shutout, out-pitching Pedro Martinez. Wade Miller outpitching the Cubs' Kerry Wood in a one run performance.

By then, Boston was tied with Oakland for the wildcard and the Cubs were three and a half back of the Astros. The Red Sox continued to struggle and lost the next game to Oakland and for the first time, the Red Sox trailed the wildcard race. Cub fans and the Red Sox nation groaned: "Here we go again. Another late season swoon."

But the Cubs roared back and won the next three games against Houston and the Red Sox won convincingly yesterday and came from behind today with a ninth inning Manny Ramirez bomb and won in extra innings with more Bill Mueller heroics.

Now the Cubs are only a half a game back of the Astros and only two and a half off the wildcard race. The Red Sox are back a game ahead of the A's in their wildcard race. These are fun teams with a lot of spirit and a lot of passionate players. The Cubs won't quit with Dusty Baker in the dugout and their hard nosed pitching and the Red Sox are playing more as a team than any team in long time Boston memory.

Personally, I don't believe the Astros can stay in the race. Their starters have been in and out with injuries and inconsistencies all year long and their bullpen has to be pretty gassed as they pitch tough games every day. Jimy Williams is a staff killer and Houston won't be any different.

The Cubs, then, will only have to worry about the resurgent Cardinals who are capable of anything with Pujols and Edmunds in the lineup.
The Cardinals were also given a big shot in the arm by two straight excellent starts by fill in starter: Garrett Stephenson. The Cubs have a lot of work to do but they showed character as did the Red Sox, by not folding when they most certainly could have.

Baseball excitement is back in Florida and in Kansas City. At this point in the season, the Marlins must look forward to extra inning games as they always seem to hit a homerun to win the game. It happened again tonight as Mike Mordecai became the latest improbable hero as he pinch ran for Mike Lowell and then came up in eleventh inning and put the game away with only his second homerun of the year. It's wonderful to see.

Even more exciting is to watch the Royals play. Fans are now starting to pack the stands and Tony Pena is some kind of manager and motivator. The Yankees hit a buzz saw and were murdered tonight 11-0. Watching the game, I couldn't help but feel good for that organization as the players are all pulling for each other and the fans are going crazy. Now that Mike Sweeney is back (four RBI tonight), their offense is even better and there is a possibility that they could actually pull this off.

The top three teams in the NL Central are now a game and a half apart. Houston, who lost two out of three to the Cubbies, are a game up on the Cardinals (who lost tonight to the Pirates) and a game and a half up on the suddenly surging Cubs.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays had the best record in the AL East for the second week in a row. Lou Piniella is really getting a lot out of his players and could actually turn around a dead organization by his will alone. They aren't an easy win anymore.

And now for the Fan's favorite boxscore players and their last seven games:
- Rocco Baldelli. Baldelli batted .304 for the week to keep his season average at an even .300. I hope he ends up over the mark since he has been over .300 all year.
- Luis Matos. Kind of a new favorite for the Fan, Matos came from nowhere to join Melvin Mora (who I hope comes back soon) at the top of the Orioles batting success. Matos had kind of a quiet week as he batted .290 in 31 at bats. He did drive in five runs for the week.
- Coco Crisp. Kookoo for Coco Crisp had a tough week in some respects as he only batted .219 in 32 at bats. But he did score seven runs in the seven days and he hit two homeruns. Crisp is now batting .269 for the season.
- Hank Blalock. I haven't understood what Showalter has been doing with Blalock as he hasn't been in the lineup regularly and is up and down in the batting order. Maybe because of that, Blalock only batted .250 last week but he did manage four RBI. Blalock is still a solid .319 for the season.
- Laynce Nix. The football star with the baseball uniform batted .421 last week with a homer and four RBI. His season average is now .269.
- Mark Teixeira. Mark had a tough week, batting only .214, but he did have a homer and four RBI.
- Mike Lowell. Lowell is an inspirational story who is doing what star players do: Lead their teams during pennant races. Lowell batted .355 last week with eight RBI. He now has 98 RBI for the season!
- Miquel Cabrera. Cabrera was out-classed last week as he only batted .160 for the week with nine strikeouts in twenty-five at bats. His season average is down to .242.
- Pat Burrell. Well...we've been following the travails of Burrell this season and I finally have good news to report. Pat batted .400 last week! His OBP was over .500 and he had two homers a triple and four RBI. His batting average for the season is now a whopping .206. But, what has gone unnoticed is that his OBP for the year is a respectable .319.
- Jose Reyes. Reyes had another outstanding week as he batted .350 for the week to raise his season average to .300. This guy is going to be special.
- Bo Hart. Bo knows fielding but his batting has turned noticeably south. He sunk under .300 for the first time this season as he batted only .214 last week with nine strikeouts in seven games. He did score five runs though and made more highlight shows with his fielding.
- Sean Burroughs. Jeff's son had his second tough week as he only batted .235 last week with only one extra base hit. His season average is now at .283.

Congratulations to Mike Piazza for his five RBI performance in his first game back from a long injury shelving. Congrats also go to Wilson Alvarez, once a star, who has battled major injuries and has an ERA under 3.00 for the Dodgers while giving up only 1.07 hits and walks per nine innings.

Have you ever watched a game where there was a batter on first or first and second and no outs and the manager calls for the next batter to bunt? Have you ever yelled at the T.V. when it happens something like, "What the hell are you thinking!" There is a fascinating Web page (http://www.users.nac.net/blacksaturn/rhoids2000/baseball/inningStateMatrix.htm) that gives a statistical overview of whether it's a good idea to bunt in certain situations. Here's a breakdown in plain English:

If there is a runner on first base and nobody out, then, according to the matrix set up on this Web page, there is an expectation of scoring 0.98 runs that inning. If you bunt that batter to second and now have one out, you have the exact same expectation (0.98)!

If you take the same scenario but this time making it first and second with no outs, there is an expectation of scoring 1.6 runs that inning. If you bunt the runners over to second and third and now have one out, there is an expectation of scoring 1.5 runs in that inning. So you've lost something there!

The above situations assume the bunt is successful. If in the first scenario, the bunt is unsuccessful and now there is a runner on first still but now with one out, the run expectation drops to 0.60. In the second scenario where the runners stay on first and second and now the bunt fails so there is one out, the run expectation drops back to 0.98 again. Fascinating!

I'm not smart enough to figure out all the writer is saying, but batting average does seem to play a part in the decision making process. According to the writer, the break even point for batting average: "Unless the batter when swinging away can achieve the singles outcome at least 29.2% (batting average = .292) the expected outcome favors bunting."

There is also another statistical nugget listed on the page that lists a success rate of 77% on stolen bases as the break even point on whether you should steal or not. Rickey Henderson was successful nearly 81% of his career so you can assume that his attempts were always helping the team. But the year he set the MLB record with 130 steals (1982 - 21 years ago!), he was thrown out 42 times for a success rate at a little over 75%. According to the statistical guru on the Web page, he didn't help his team that year. He did score 119 runs that season making his run expectation rate at 0.46 which seems to bear that out. Very interesting stuff if you like this sort of thing.

If you really are a mathematician and hunger for more of this stuff, see the following page: http://www.lunasoft.com/baseball/expectedruns.html

The bottom line for a Fan like me is that I'm happy as a cat in a tunafish factory if the stolen base or the bunt is successful and leads to runs and yell like anything at the manager if the opposite happens.

The Fan has a real dilemma tonight. Readers of previous posts have noted that the Fan is a serious Yankee fan and has been since Horace Clarke played second base at the Stadium...the OLD Yankee Stadium. But the Yankees are playing the Royals and I'd really like to see the Royals win their division. A Royals division win would be great for baseball and a great story.

At the same time, the Red Sox are playing the A's out in Oakland and quite frankly, a Yankee playoff series with Oakland, Seattle or the Red Sox would be difficult. But given my druthers, I'd rather face the Red Sox because they don't play the defense that Seattle does and the Red Sox don't pitch as well as Oakland can.

At this moment, the Royals are up on the Yanks by one in the eighth and Tim Hudson and the A's are up 2-0 on Pedro and the Red Sox. The Yankee pitching staff is starting to unravel a bit and the Red Sox great offense has sputtered against some really good pitching.

Oops! The Royals now have a three run lead as Hammond, Orosco and Prinz (the former Diamondback pitcher?? Where did he come from?) couldn't hold the Royals down and Sweeney, who is finally back, just broke the inning open with a two run double.

Oops again! The Yankees have pounced on struggling Royals' reliever, Mike McDougal for two runs, but now have two outs as Posada hit into his 401st double play of the year. The game is now over. Royals win...mixed feelings...


Raul Mondesi has accused the Yankees of trading him because they are anti-Dominican players. Oh please! They traded him because his average dropped from .320 at the end of April to the .250's by August. And then he didn't like being pinch hit for (so much for being a team player) so he left the Stadium. When asked, Soriano--also from the Dominican--basically said that he didn't know what Mondesi was talking about.

Peter Gammons has got to be one of the most unbiased writer of the game when it comes to international players and he has always been all over Mondesi. The man has talent rarely seen in MLB but has never driven in one hundred runs despite playing for good offenses wherever he's played.

I watched Mondesi play quite a few games for the Yankees and he could turn it on any time he wanted but rarely did. He hustled when he wanted but turned his mind off when he wasn't interested. Concerning Mondesi, the Yankees have to feel like the family that had another family steal their nasty dog. Whew! Glad that happened!

One more Yankee note: Aaron Boone has started his Yankee career with four hits in thirty-seven at bats. Yeesh!

Fallen Angels. The Anaheim Angels lost again today to bring their record since the AllStar break to a Tigers-like 5-20. That is five wins and twenty losses. Such a record wouldn't be newsworthy except for the fact that the Angels are the World Champions.

Last year, the Angels were the "Angels With Dirty Faces" as they dove, bunted, ran and scrapped their way into the World Series. The defied all then opinion by beating the Yankees in the first playoff series and then winning the American League title. The little team that could then went on and beat the Giants in the World Series. It was an amazing run that started after the AllStar game last year.

A team hasn't fared this poorly after a World Series win since the dismantling of the Florida Marlins after their series win. Upon contemplation of the team's fall, it seems logical that a team that won with passion and spirit more than with talent would falter badly when that passion finally hits a wall. Injuries and sagging performances were that wall and it's now starting to spin the team downward quickly.

Let's start with the injuries. Darin Erstad has been injured twice and hasn't been a factor all year. Troy Glaus went on the disabled list at the end of July. Brad Fullmer went on the disabled list at the end of June. That's three really good hitters from their lineup. And Troy Percival has had hip problems despite having another good year.

And then there are performances by core players that are well below that of last year. Pitcher Kevin Appier was a solid starting pitcher for the Angels for two years with a winning record and an ERA under 4.00. This year, his ERA was at 5.63 when he was released. Mickey Calloway, another starter who helped the Angels down the stretch had a 6.81 ERA before he too was released.

John Lackey was 9-4 last year with a 3.66 ERA and started Game 7 of the World Series! This year, he is 7-10 with an ERA of 5.60. Jarrod Washburn was 18-6 last year with a 3.15 ERA. This year he is 9-11 with a 4.51 ERA. And now comes news that his start today was scrapped as his right elbow is hurting. The Angels' relief pitching has been excellent again, but their starters just can't get it done.

But pitching isn't their only problem. The hitting, from the infield especially, has not been what it was:
2002 2003
Eckstein .297 107 runs .253 52 runs
Kennedy .312 .268
Spiezio .285 .259

Even the Rally Monkey was fired according to the ESPN commercial!


Sammy Sosa personally defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers and Kevin Brown today. Brown only gave up five hits but two of them were homers to Sosa who now has 28 for the year. Keep in mind that Sammy missed at least a third of the year and is within seven homers of the leader, Barry Bonds!

As impressive in that game was Mark Prior who dominated, giving up only one run on five hits. Then again...it was the Dodgers, one of the worst hitting teams in baseball. Even so, a complete game five hitter is a complete game five hitter.

Could this be it? Could this be the time we've all been waiting for? What am I talking about? Pat Burrell hit two homers today and went three for four with three RBI. Burrell entered the game batting .196 and the slugger had endured being pinch hit for, double-switched with a pitcher and not even starting. Today he started...and stayed in the game...the whole game. And because of it, the Phillies came from behind and beat the Giants.

Burrell came up in the eighth with the Phillies down a run and hit a shot to left to tie the game. Then in the tenth inning, with Jim Thome on base, Burrell won the game with a two-run homer also to left. Way to go, Pat! We've been waiting for you!

And this kind of production is just in time as the Phillies have really been struggling and needed a big win. The Marlins are breathing down their backs for the wildcard and the Phillies' ace starting pitchers had been knocked around the past few games. Heck, Burrell even went over the Mendoza line with his performance today.


The wealth of amazing rookies this year continues as the Kansas City Royals, desperate and scratching and clawing to stay at the top of their division lost Jose Lima to a muscle pull. When Lima went down, they reached into their farm system and didn't get a turkey. Jimmy Gobble won his second straight start in as many appearances and after two games, has an ERA of 0.78. He didn't walk anyone and let in one run for the game.

What a great lift Gobble's starts have to be for the Royals along with the activation of their only star, Mike Sweeney. The Royals have to hope they hang on and that the White Sox will cool off.

It's a fun and exciting time to be a Texas Rangers fan. There is so much for the fans to look forward to. Tonight in the first inning of their game with Toronto, Hank Blalock, the terrific second year player, hit a homer. Palmeiro got a hit a couple of batters later and then heralded rookie, Mark Teixeira, hit a two run homer. A revitalized Shane Spencer hit a single and then the Rangers' newest phenom, Laynce Nix hit a two run homer.

R.A. Dickey, another rookie for the Rangers, picked up his sixth win and new closer, Francisco Cordero, picked up his seventh save. Yes, this is an exciting and promising time to be a Rangers fan.

I hope Palmeiro declines the trade because the youngsters need veteran professionals to lead the way and you can't do better there than a future Hall of Famer like Rafael. If anyone crucifies Palmeiro for turning down the trade like they did Gonzalez, then they are pointing at the wrong guy. As I have said before, Texas made the deal with the no-trade clause, now they have to deal with it. Who can blame a guy for not wanting to upset his family's stability at the end of his career.

Buck Showalter deserves all the credit for letting the young kids play. Showalter could have played with his veterans and played for a .500 record. Instead, he played the kids and stuck with them through the young mistakes and the too-many strikeouts. His patience and intelligence has ensured a great future for the team. Which is logical as he did the same things for the Yankees and the Diamondbacks.


I might have to eat my words on the Armando Benitez/Jeff Nelson trade. Two days ago, I cried, "DOH!" at the trade but after two straight Nelson holds and Rivera saves, it's beginning to look a lot like 1998 again. Time will tell. The other story of the game was Nick Johnson who makes the Yankees' offense work. Tonight he was four for five with five RBI including a grand slam.

Bill Mueller had a tough night for the Red Sox. The Red Sox most valuable player (Nomar fans might disagree) went 1-9 in the double-header loss to the tough new Orioles and made a critical fielding error that cost the second game. Ouch.

Since Thursday night is usually the Fan's night off, let's take a quick look around the majors tonight:

- The Cubbies, who looked dead and out of the race have won eight of ten and are back to within two games of the Astros. Houston has sputtered and let them back in the race.

- Speaking of the Astros, the Mets beat them tonight. You have to give a lot of credit to the Mets as they haven't quit and Jose Reyes has brought excitment and spring to that team. Reyes was two for four tonight with his ninth stolen base. The 20 year old is now batting .296.

- Albert Pujols knocked in his 100th RBI tonight as the Cardinals dented the Marlins hopes of closing in the wildcard with a 3-0 win. The Marlins only had four hits off of on-again-and-off-again Brett Tompko.

- The Phillies made sure they are waiting for the Marlins (and others) as they too lost to Colorado.

- The Kansas City Royals are starting to wilt with their injuries and their lead over the White Sox is down to a half a game. Those pesky Devil Rays beat them 3-2.

- It was like old times as Jeff Nelson relieved Mike Mussina (well, that part's different) to get the hold and Rivera got the save as the Yankees beat Texas on a grand slam by Enrique Wilson, of all people. Rivera did give up a run on two hits though and seems shakey.

- Oakland had a chance to gain on the Mariners as Cleveland shut out the Mariners 3-0. The A's were beat by the Tigers as Barry Zito lost to the last place team.

- The Red Sox kept pace with New York by beating up on the fading World Champions, 9-3. Mueller and company had another big night at the plate and slower than Wakefield, John Burkett won to up his record to 9-5.

The hottest hitter in baseball right now? Would you believe Tony Clark of the Mets? I wouldn't believe it either except I keep seeing his homers in the boxscore. Yup, he hit another one tonight.

I don't get the trade. I do, but I don't. The trade of Armando Benitez for Jeff Nelson makes sense for Seattle. The Mariners have an injured closer and they trade a player who was openly critical of the Mariner organization. The trade makes all kinds of sense for the Mariners. But it makes no sense at all for the Yankees.

The Yankees trade a thirty year old arm that is one of the premier closers in baseball for a thirty-six year old arm that can't match Benitez statistics with a Frisbee. Perhaps the Yankees are trying to reach back for a proven formula of their championship seasons by bringing Nelson back to set up Rivera. Nelson performed flawlessly in that role in his Yankee career. But that was a few years ago. And he has never gone a season without some sort of physical problem.

This trade simply makes no sense from the Yankees perspective. In many ways, with Benitez, the Yankees had a setup man that was scarier than their closer. The Yankees closer is struggling right now. Benitez was excellent insurance and a solid performer. We'll see what happens IF the Yankees make the playoffs AND if they have to face Seattle somewhere along the way.


In happier news, Dontrelle Willis pitched eight innings, gave up only three runs and improved his rookie record to 11-2 tonight with a win over wildcard rival, St. Louis. Willis had a rough first inning and then was untouchable the rest of the way. There are few stories this year as much fun and as exciting as the year this Marlins' pitcher is having.

Florida is now only a game behind the Phillies in the wildcard race. The season the Marlins have put together is, along with the Kansas City Royals, one of the best stories in baseball. The Red Sox and the A's are neck and neck for the AL wildcard. Both teams still have a great chance to win their respective divisions.


It's time to look at the Fan's favorite boxscore players and how they have performed the last seven games:
- Coco Crisp. Coco had gone loco the last time we looked but came back to earth this week with only five hits in twenty-four at bats. His season average is still a respectable .289 and he did hit a homer tonight that do not factor into above stats.
- Rocco Baldelli. Baldelli also had a tough week batting .194 with only six hits in thirty-one chances. His season average dipped below .300 for the first time all season. I hope he bounces back over that mark soon.

My favorite young Texas Rangers players:
- Hank Blalock. Blalock beat Rivera and the Yankees tonight and continued his .350 batting for the last seven days. Blalock is back up to .321 for the season with 19 homers and 63 RBI. In a very positive statistic, he is also getting more patient at the plate as he walked five times last week.
- Shane Spencer. My old friend batted .313 last week with three RBI. It appears that his new batting coach believes in Spencer and is making adjustments that could get Spencer back to where he was when he started his career with a bang for the Yankees.
- Mark Teixeira. Teixeira is the hottest of the Rangers batting .391 with three homeruns and seven RBI. His strikeouts are down and his walks are up.
- Michael Young. Young had a bad week as he batted only .185. But he still hit four extra base hits and is fielding his position with passion and flair.

- Pat Burrell. Burrell has gone beyond the Phillies wish to keep waiting for him. He has been pinch hit for, benched, double-switched for pitchers. It's obvious that the Phillies patience is over. Burrell had only two hits in only fourteen at bats last week (.143) and remains below the dreaded Mendoza line for the season.
- Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera also had a tough week (a common theme this week?). He was only three for seventeen with nine strikeouts. Still, he drove in four runs with those three hits and has 29 RBI in just 38 games. Cabrera is now batting .250 in his young big league career.
- Jose Reyes. Ahh! The young Mets' shortstop was a phenomenal .423 last week with 11 hits in 26 at bats. He scored six runs and stole three bases. He is now batting .292 in the first year of his promising career.
- Bo Hart. The Cardinal second baseman bounced back this week batting .333 with two homers, six runs scored and seven RBI. He is a sparkling fielder and is very entertaining to watch.
- Albert Pujols. Pujols "only" batted .348 this past week. The third year player is batting .372 with 30 homers and 99 RBI.
- Sean Burroughs. Burroughs is spinning around a little bit, batting .259 this past week with only one extra base hit and three RBI. He's still batting a solid .285 for the season.

Tonight, Roger Clemens took the mound for the Yankees after a tough three game series in Oakland where Miguel Tejada beat the Yankees twice in the ninth inning. Clemens needed a big game after the swirl of second guessing (including the Fan's) of Torre's decision making process that probably cost the Yankees the third game. The old man was coming off of his first nine inning shutout in years. Could he deliver?

That question was in doubt in the fourth inning with the Yankees leading 5-1. Alex Rodriguez started the fourth with a single. The next batter, Rafael Palmiero, singled to send Rodriguez to third. Clemens then walked Mark Teixeira to load the bases with no outs. The game hung in the balance.

The next batter was old friend, Shane Spencer, who has been hitting well. Clemens went with his still dominating fastball and Spencer popped up in the infield. Laynce Nix was next and the youngster was overpowered by the old man and struck out swinging on a 94 MPH fastball right down the middle.

The next batter was Ramon Nivar, a slap hitter. Slap hitters are always the bane of hard throwers. It doesn't matter to a slap hitter how hard you throw. They just want to get the bat on the ball anyway and run. Clemens got two strikes on him and Nivar fouled off the next few pitches. Clemens then heaved one more fastball and Nivar, the slap hitter, slapped it up the middle. It was headed for centerfield and two runs. But the old man snagged it with a lunge and threw Nivar out easily at first. Game over.

Clemens, who seems so relaxed now that he has reached all of his goals, has pitched sixteen innings in his last two starts and has only given up two runs. The Rangers had been pounding the ball, but not on this night. On this night, the old man showed why he is a Hall of Famer and who will end his career this year the way he started it twenty years ago...with a winning record and overpowering stuff. This is a career of legend and there's only a few more pages to be written.


To give Torre some credit, the manager made a great lineup change and put Jeter at the top of the lineup and moved the struggling Soriano down to seventh. Soriano's OBP has sunk to the .330 mark and he was becoming a liability up there. Jeter has responded by hitting .360 in his last seven games with an OBP of .429! Jeter is now batting .326 for the year with an OBP of .395. This move makes a lot of sense as Jeter has a lifetime OBP of .386 and has eleven leadoff homers in his career.

Torre has also put Giambi back at first base and is DHing Johnson. Giambi responded by going three for four with an amazingly crushed homerun in the upper deck of the stadium. Some players just can't DH and Giambi seems to be one of them.

Would you have guessed that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had the best record in the AL East last week? Everyone knew that the Devil Rays (it's a stupid idea to have a baseball team with two words for its name) would finish last in the division. But if you have followed the career of Lou Piniella, you also knew that they wouldn't be a pushover either. They may lose their share of games, but they will win their share too and unlike last year, they are playing almost .500 ball against the AL East. If Piniella was managing the Blue Jays (another stupid two word team name) this year, they would still be in the wildcard hunt.

By the way, there are four two word team names and they are all in the American League. But we'll leave the Red Sox and the White Sox alone since their respective names are almost a hundred years old.

Kansas City is leading the White Sox in the ninth so if that score holds on, the Royals will have met the first challenge of what has become a very entertaining rivalry. Tony Pena has done an amazing job managing this team of no names, especially when you consider that Mike Sweeney, their only top player, has been out for two months. They remind me of the '96 Yankees when they didn't have any leaders in the top categories but won because they believed that they would. Those were back in the days when Torre was fearless and didn't pull triggers that shouldn't be pulled. But, alas, I have strayed off topic.

The Royals were in a nip and tuck game and only led by a run going into the ninth, but in a real display of the team's character, knew they needed more and scored three more runs and now lead by four. Wouldn't it be great if the Royals lasted and made the playoffs? The Royals did win the game tonight.

The Dodgers fired hitting coach, Jack Clark, today. It's obvious that you can't fire the players that are batting a collective .244 as a team so you might as well fire the hitting coach. Clark played fifteen years in the majors and piled up 700 extra base hits in his career to go with a lifetime OBP of .379. That's a guy who knew something about hitting. The lack of hitting isn't always bad coaching as it is the lack of talent.

Two things are abundantly clear from the outcome of the Yankees/A's game in which the A's rallied to beat the Yankees 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth. The first thing that is clear is that by the Fan's count, Joe Torre has lost three games for the Yankees by over-managing. Andy Pettitte had totally shut the A's down for eight innings, giving up only one hit and no runs. He had thrown 116 pitches, which isn't much for him. Pettitte walked the first batter in the ninth and before you could say, "Torre, sit down," Pettitte was out of the game and Rivera was in.

Pettitte had only given up one hit all game. One. Any other manager would have left him in there. Instead, Torre brought in Rivera. As mentioned in these archives before, most of Rivera's blown saves have come when he did not start the inning and there's a runner on base. For some reason, Rivera does not do well in those situations. His earned run average is double with men on base and here is one more stat to use as an example: Rivera has struck out 25 batters in 21+ innings with the bases empty. He has only struck out 14 batters in 23+ innings with runners on base.

Sure enough, two hits later, he blew the save. The first hit was by Eric Chavez who is batting .208 against lefties. Wouldn't Pettitte have had a better chance against Chavez? The bottom line here is that a pitcher who pitches that well deserves to finish the game and Torre hit the panic button and in this writer's opinion, lost the game.

The second thing that is terribly clear is that Rivera, at this point in his career, needs a second pitch. For all the years he was the best closer in the game, he was throwing that cutter at 95 to 97 MPH. Now he is throwing it 91 to 94 MPH. That is all the difference in the world. It's still an effective pitch, but you don't see him putting guys away and breaking as many bats. His earned run average (ERA) is terrific as is his walks and hits per inning. Rivera doesn't feel invincible any more and he needs another mean pitch to compliment the cutter.


O! Baseball fans! Glory in watching three of the best sluggers of all time tonight do what they have done for so long. Barry Bonds opened the floodgate for the Giants' offense by hitting a two run single with the bases loaded. The two RBI were numbers 1722 and 1723. Sammy Sosa won the Cubs game with homerun number 522. Sosa has hit fourteen homers since July 1 to lead the league in that category. And finally, Rafael Palmeiro hit homerun number 517 and added to his 1650 RBI. To borrow a phrase from the PGA commercials: "These guys are good."


I read today with interest how umpire Tim Welke admitted that he blew the call that cost the Rockies their game the other night. First, it is admirable that Welke was man enough to admit the mistake. But the Rockies are justified when watching the replay in asking how Welke could have gotten it wrong in the first place. Umpiring across the majors has been terribly spotty and the fans are getting restless about it. Here are a couple of examples:

- Several times this year, pitchers have been tossed out of games after beanball warnings even though the pitches they threw to hit the batters were curve balls and change-ups. Come on people! Can't a MLB umpire recognize a curveball?
- The game tonight between the Giants and Reds was blown open because the home plate umpire didn't give the Reds' pitcher, Jimmy Haynes, a third call strike that was clearly in the strike zone.
- Too many confrontations between the ump and a player or manager has been provoked and prolonged by the umpire. I have hated that for years and it should NEVER happen.
- And of course, the strike zone has been a mess all year. There has been no rhyme or reason for the lack of integrity of the major league strike zone.

In a game where it didn't appear that the Boston Red Sox brought their A game, the Orioles and revitalized Pat Hentgen won a close game 2-1. As posted earlier, the Orioles have become an entertaining game. The Fan was sad to see Ponson get traded to the Giants because the O's have a chance to be a very good team next year.

With Hentgen and Johnson, the team has a pretty good pitching staff and their offense is doing the job. Ponson would have given them four solid starters next year. Mike Hargrove should be considered for Manager of the Year.

Texas hit seven homeruns tonight as Todd Greene and Mark Teixeira each hit two. Teixeira now has seventeen homers and is proving manager Showalter's strategy of letting the young guys play. Showalter has done a great job of putting his young players on the field and the likes of Teixeira, Blalock, Young, Nix and Greene, Showalter is building the fundamentals and building a contender just like he did in Arizona and New York. The Fan hopes that Showalter gets the chance to take his team into the championship this time.

Derek Jeter has been huge for the Yankees the past month and has shown why he is the leader of that club. Tonight, when Tim Hudson looked lights out, Jeter hit a double that drove in a run to tie the game.

The Yankees finished a sweep of the finished Angel team for a great start to their western road trip. The Yankees can only hope that they don't meet the A's though in the playoffs as they don't match up well and it's doubtful they can squeak past the A's in the playoffs like they have in years past.

Important wins tonight: The Cubs in a marathon over the Diamondbacks and the Phillies--with a great performance by Millwood--over the Padres.

The Cincinnati Reds finished their flurry of trades by sending Aaron Boone to the Yankees for the Yankees best pitching prospect. That's a good move for the Reds who get a great prospect and dump Boone who found himself in an impossible position as the son of the manager who just got fired.

I'm torn about the trade off of Boone for Ventura. In a short playoff series, you're looking for two things from an experienced player: a clutch glove and a clutch bat. Ventura doesn't hit much for average during the season anymore but his fielding is consistently excellent and in a short series, his experience gave him an edge in the clutch.

Boone on the other hand, is six years younger and seems to be peaking as a player. He has double the homers of Ventura and seems more durable. But he is playing his second best position as second base is where he is a better player.

Bottom line is that the Yankees have a third baseman that will produce for a number of years and lose a third baseman who was an impact fielder and a good clutch hitter with an inviting right field porch in Yankee Stadium.


The Red Sox reaquired Jeff Suppon years after they gave up on him as a young prospect. In 1995, Suppon was the next Red Sox big thing but things didn't turn out that way and the Red Sox traded him to KC after the 1997 season. Suppon is having a good season and is a big step up from Ramiro Mendoza in the starting rotation. The Red Sox did give up their best prospect to get him which scares Red Sox fans and makes them think about Jeff Bagwell.


The Giants got the pitcher they wanted in Baltimore's Ponson. A fourteen gave winner, Ponson will really help the Giants. However, the Giants gave up a lot in Damian Moss, Kurt Ainsworth and a minor leaguer.

What is going on in Cincinnati? Bobby Valentine spoke for me last night when stating that he didn't think the Reds had a clue what they were doing.

I agree with the Boone firing. I disagree with the Bowdan firing as he has brought that team some great young players without spending a lot of money. Trading Scott Williamson to the Red Sox was curious as he was one of their few pitching highlights. The deal is even more curious since Williamson was only making $1.6 million. What other closer can you find out there to give you twenty plus saves for that kind of money?

Then today, the Reds traded their hottest hitter, Jose Guillen to Oakland (another great move by the A's). The articles on the deal called it a salary dump. Salary dump? Guillen has bounced around for six year and several teams. How much money could he be making? And he was batting .337 with a slugging percentage over .600 (very Sosa-like!).

So why would you trade him? The only reason I can come up with is payback for the griping he did earlier in his season when he wasn't playing much. The Reds got Aaron Harang, who until last year was considered a great prospect. Harang was really hit hard in his brief stint in the major leagues in this his rookie season. I just don't understand this one. Maybe Harang can regain his promise for the Reds.


Bill Mueller's two grand slams, one from each side of the plate, was a great story last night. His year is storybook already and his game was the climax of the story. The only chink in the Red Sox armor right now seems to be Ramiro Mendoza as the fifth starter. His ERA is now over seven.


Those of you who were fortunate to watch the Inside Sports Center program last night should have gotten a new appreciation for what it takes to put that kind of show together. With all the juggling that goes on in that show, you appreciate the on-air talent even more than you did before. They are amazing. And amazing also describes the complete team process it takes to make that show happen. That was TV at its best last night.

It's time to look at the Fan's favorite boxscore players and how they did the last seven games.

Texas has become my favorite boxscore team. Now I follow Teixeira, Blalock, Michael Young, Shane Spencer and Laynce Michael Nix (their latest rookie gem).
- Blalock: .357 for the week with two homers, six RBI and kept his season average up to a solid .317.
- Teixeira: Had a tough week only going 3 for 26 (.115!) bringing his average down to .250. But he is two for two tonight with a homer and three RBI.
- Young: .355 for the week with 11 more hits and 9 runs scored. His season average is now .322.
- Nix: Nix batted .267 in his first full week in the majors. He had two homers and hit his third tonight with three RBI.
- Spencer: The Fan's old Yankee friend hit .412 last week with 8 RBI in 7 games. He's now a respectable .270 in 237 at bats.

The Marlins are my second favorite boxscore team:
- Dontrelle Willis: 13 innings, 1-0, 7 hits, 13 strikeouts with a 1.45 ERA. He is now 10-2 for the season!
- Mike Lowell: Batted .412 the past seven games with a homer and 7 RBI. He now has 29 homers and 87 RBI for the season.
- Miguel Cabrera: .414 for the week with 2 homers and 9 RBI! In his first 122 MLB at bats, he's up to .267 with six homers and 26 RBI in 33 games. Eighteen of his first 32 major league at bats have been for extra bases.

The rest of my favorite boxscore players:
- Sean Burroughs. Sean struggled again last week, batting only .188 with no extra base hits. His first season average is still a respectable .288 in 333 MLB at bats.
- Luis Matos. The Baltimore outfielder has his first bad week, batting only .160. His season average is down to .341 which I'd take anytime.
- Melvin Mora went 1 for 19 for the week after getting hit in the face by a batted ball. It's a real shame after the year he was having. I hope that he can get the groove back as he is still batting a solid .325.
- Albert Pujols. Pujols only hit .423 for the week. Sheesh, the man is amazing. He had another six RBI to bring his total to 98.
- Bo Hart. The human highlight film has stopped hitting. He hit .214 last week and his OBP was .267, which is terrible for a leadoff batter. The Cardinals should move him to seventh or eigth in the lineup for a while. The Cards should try Renteria at leadoff.
- Pat Burrell. Burrell hit .250 for the week! He managed to get his average just a nose above the Mendoza line.
- Rocco Baldelli. Rocco had a great week as he batted .375 with 2 homers, 2 doubles and 9 RBI. His season average is now at .307.
- Coco Crisp. Coco hit .355 last week and is now up to .291 for the year. Go Coco Go!
- Jose Reyes. Reyes has done well enough that the Mets traded away the previous starting shortstop, Rey Sanchez. Reyes is hitting a respectable .264 in his first big league season.

In the age of the homerun and the era of big innings and team Earned Run Averages over five, the Dodgers and Tigers may well be two of the worst hitting teams in history. Both teams have a team On Base Percentage (OBP) under .300. How bad is that? It's so bad that the Red Sox team BATTING AVERAGE is ABOVE the Tigers team OBP and just below the Dodgers!

Both teams strike out one out of every five at bats and the glaring stat is that the Dodgers have only 244 walks all season. The Arizona Diamondbacks are not exactly powdering the ball but have a hundred more walks than the Dodgers. And since the Dodgers don't hit many homers, not having many runners on base makes it impossible to manufacture runs. You can't manufacture if you don't have raw material to work with.

The Tigers are fighting the first year Mets team as the worst in history. It took them nearly thirty games to get their team batting average over .200 and at .233, they haven't exactly lit it up since. Looking at their lineup, there doesn't seem to be much going on there at all.

The Dodgers tried to boost their offense. They brought in Rickey Henderson and Jeremy Burnitz. Burnitz has done well with three homers but the Dodgers sat Henderson after just a few games because he was only hitting .188. Geez, he just got there. Let him get his feet wet! Rickey did hit two homers while in there and can still make things happen.

Shawn Green has had a surprisingly poor power season and only has eleven homers. There is some history to this. Shawn isn't a big powerful guy and his homers were the result of a great, sweet swing. But skinny guys like him don't last that long as sluggers. Don Mattingly and Bobby Murcer are two great examples. It doesn't take much for a skinny homerun hitter to go from forty homers to warning track fly balls and "just missed the pitch" popups.

And yes, the Dodgers were shut out tonight and managed only three hits.


Trot Nixon of the Boston Red Sox is finally living up to his number one draft selection ten years ago. After two solid, but unspectacular seasons (except for some clutch hitting against the Yankees), Nixon is batting a hefty .322 with an OBP over .400. He is a good outfielder and a fiery, hard-nosed player, but now he is a force in the lineup. At 29, he could be coming into his own in much the same way that Luis Gonzalez did for the Diamondbacks. It will be interesting to see if this is a career year for Nixon or if this is the start of a great run justifying his first selection so many years ago.

The Reds finally fired Bob Boone as manager and more surprisingly, Jim Bowden as general manager. Boone and Bowden's final legacy was a lack of continuity and performance pitching which has effectively wasted the development of good young batters who, upon occasion, can really tear up the baseball.

But it wasn't just pitching that killed Boone and Bowden's tenure, it was the lack of cohesiveness in their offensive approach. Austin Kearns, Adam Dunn, Sean Casey, Aaron Boone (who you wonder how he will handle this event), D'Angelo Jiminez, Jose Guillen and Griffey and Larkin when healthy are a great core for a ball club that should have won a ton of games. Griffey's injuries somewhat hampered continuity but that doesn't explain the constant lineup changes and rearranges that were a hallmark of the club.

But it remained the pitching that constantly defeated the Reds. And it wasn't for a lack of talent. Some organizations can take the talent and develop the talent to better and more consistent performance. This one never did. And Boone's notoriously quick hooks didn't help matters as his games always featured four or five pitchers.

This team is better than it has played and hopefully, like the Marlins and like the Royals, a change in leadership will spark better performance. Cincinnati is a great baseball town with a lot of great baseball history. Hopefully, this will be the start of a resurrection in this franchise.


The Reds without Boone won their first game in the post-Boone era against the Phillies who have picked a disappointing time to nosedive, losing six of their last ten. Their once large Wildcard lead is now down to just one game over the Marlins and two over the Diamondbacks. The Marlins won again tonight and are on a great roll with the emergence of Cabrera, the return of Mike Lowell and the pitching of Redmon, Beckett and Willis. The Phillies are in danger of falling off the table.

One good note for the Phillies is that Pat Burrell is hitting better and finally got over the .200 hump for the season.

Watching the Yankees lose to the Red Sox tonight reminds me that several times this year I have written how Joe Torre over-manages and then overly relies on just a few of his bullpen pitchers. Grady Little on the other hand, used his bullpen more wisely and that was the story of the game and the series.

First, let's discuss Torre's decisions. The Red Sox are the best hitting team in baseball. All weekend long I kept thinking that the Red Sox might have the best top to bottom lineup I've ever seen. There are no holes and no weaknesses. That being said, you have a pitcher who hasn't had much success this year handcuffing the Red Sox with only two hits while allowing no runs. Weaver gets the first out and then walks a batter and hits the next one.

In my mind, he's still your man because the double-play is still in order and Jason Veritek is a much better hitter right-handed and had to bat left against Weaver. He is also the only Yankee pitcher, and one of the few pitchers all year, that has handcuffed that great lineup. Torre should have left Weaver in there for one more batter. He didn't and brought in Jeff (feather ball) Hammond. Ballgame over.

Watching the Red Sox tonight was impressive. The lineup speaks for itself. The bullpen looks solid. But what is more evident than anything else is how close they are as a team and how emotionally they are playing. I've never seen a baseball team that hugs each other more than the Red Sox. They seem to pull for each other and root for each other. I can't imagine this team with Carl Everett still playing outfield for them. If the Red Sox pull it off and make it to the playoffs and beyond, they deserve to win because they really are a team. Heck, even Manny Ramirez looks like family.


Sammy Sosa hit his 521st homerun today to tie Willie McCovey and Ted Williams on the all-time list. Sosa's current run is remarkable and furious and indicitive of the fury of his career. Sammy is batting over .300 and is up to 22 homers and 61 RBI after missing a quarter of the season. Way to go, Sammy!


The top stories tonight to the Fan were the fifteenth straight win by Roy Halladay and the seventh straight win by Royals' pitcher, Jose Lima. Halladay has been outstanding and if he holds up should easily win the Cy Young award. I remember when he first came up and the Yankees used to cuff him around. Not anymore.

Jose Lima's rise back to top form has been remarkable. Starting a few years ago with Houston, Lima became the easiest pitcher to hit in baseball. After a year when he went 21-10, Lima put three of the worst years of pitching history together with ERA's of 6.65, 5.54 and 7.77 together. His three year record was 19-40! Right now he is 7-0 with a 2.37 ERA. Remarkable...and fun...and another reason why MLB is the best game there is.

How do the Oakland A's develop better pitching than anyone else in baseball? We all know about Zito, Mulder and Hudson. Add one more cog in that impressive machine: Rich Harden. Harden--considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball--made his major league debut against the hot Kansas City Royals and pitched seven innings, giving up only one run. He didn't get a decision on a game the Athletics won.

Tonight he again pitched seven innings and only gave up (yup) one run to the California Angels (who are drying up faster than twinkies in the Florida sun). A ground ball pitcher, Harden has now pitched fourteen innings in the big leagues and given up just two runs. That is a 1.29 ERA. How do the A's do it and why can't other teams?

The Red Sox evened up their series with the Yankees by breaking a 4-4 tie in the ninth with a single by super-pickup, David Ortiz. The Sox have a big edge in the finale tomorrow as the Yankees are throwing Jeff Weaver. The Red Sox hung in there nicely as they almost threw the game away with two errors that allowed the Yankees to tie the game.

The Yankees Norm Johnson is back in their lineup and is picking up where he left off. He had a hit and an RBI tonight and a walk. The man knows how to get on base. There is one problem though with his addition. He is the better fielding first baseman between he and Jason Giambi. But Giambi struggled earlier in the year in the DH role and is 0-6 since Johnson returned and returned Giambi to the DH. Giambi was the hottest hitter on the team before the switch.

Giambi might be one of those players who just doesn't thrive as a DH. Frank Thomas of Chicago is the same way. He struggled as a DH. Once Chicago put in in the field, he's put up AllStar (Hall of Fame?) numbers.


Speaking of the Hall of Fame, the tandom of Gary Carter and Eddie Murray is a good one. Murray was one of the most prolific RBI men in the history of the game. Very few players in history have more career RBI to go along with Murray's 500+ homers. Carter's entrance is a sign that the Hall of Fame voting is working correctly. There was some fear that Carter would be overlooked, but he is one of the better catchers to play the game. Starting his career in Montreal didn't help Carter to gain nationwide attention.

But that attention came to Carter while playing for the Mets. Carter was an ever present yapping machine while with the Mets. He talked to anyone as often as he could. Hey...being a good self-promoter is not a bad thing.


The Hall of Fame is also inducting Bob Uecker for his broadcasting career. Uecker was a lousy player and a good broadcaster/actor/personality. That being the case, shouldn't Phil Rizzuto be in the Hall of Fame? Rizzuto was an important cog in the Yankee machine and he's been a beloved broadcaster. Uhh...umm...I just looked at Rizzuto's stats and he is ALREADY in the Hall of Fame. How did I miss that?

The Yankees and the Red Sox played a nail biter tonight. No surprise there. The Red Sox weren't impressed with Mariano Rivera and cuffed him around. Not a stretch there either as three of Rivera's last six blown saves have been to the Red Sox. He blew the save tonight too. But the Yankees won the game. To the teeth gnashing of Red Sox fans everywhere, that wasn't a surprise either.

Both starting pitchers walked more batters than expected. Pedro gave up four walks and David Wells, who had walked only six batters all year, walked five tonight. The walks weren't due to wildness however. The home plate umpire, Dana Demuth, had a four inch strike zone. His umpiring for the night was a joke. Pedro at one point made enough gestures to get thrown out of most games. Demuth, to his only credit of the night, did not toss him. Because of Pedro's gestures, the highlight shows focused on Pedro getting squeezed. In truth, Wells was squeezed far worse.

You have to feel badly for Jeremy Giambi. The lesser famous of the two Giambi brothers has had a miserable year and has been broken down to pinch hitting duties made the last out with the Red Sox runners on first and second. Most will forget that Kevin Millar struck out on a pitch over his head before that. The Red Sox left twelve men on base for the night.

The saga of the Yankees and Byung-Hyun Kim continued as Kim took the loss for his fourth straight ninth inning loss to the Yankees going back to the Arizona/Yankee World Series.

Old man, Jesse Orosco, came in for the Yankees in the seventh inning and got both of his batters in a tight situation. Win another one for the old guys.


In other games, Braves' reliever, John Smoltz, blew his first save of the year as the Expos came back and beat the Braves.

The Cubs took a big game from the Astros despite Sosa striking out three times in three chances. Moises Alou was the hero.

The Florida Marlins scored eight runs in the late innings to come from behind and beat the Phillies. Dontrelle Willis pitched great for the Marlins and gave up only one run in six innings but did not get the decision as his bullpen couldn't hold the score.


And finally: Despite the fact that Bobby Bonds was the player traded to the Yankees to displace the Fan's beloved Bobby Murcer, and despite the fact that Barry Bonds isn't the most beloved player in baseball, the Fan has to send warm thoughts to Bobby, Barry and their family as Bobby had heart surgury as he fights cancer. The Fan sends warm thoughts and heartfelt wishes that Bobby Bonds makes a full recovery.

Hello! The Fan takes Thursday nights off. You can catch the Fan six nights a week. See you Friday night!

It was a good day for old players. The Cubs picked up Kenny Lofton from the Pirates and the Yankees picked up 46 year old Jesse Orosco. Jesse is now one of two players who have played in four decades that was picked up this week by a contender. Rickey Henderson started his career in 1979, the same year as Orosco. How many teams can say they have a pitcher who started his career when Jimmy Carter was president and there were American hostages in Iran?

Orosco, who has pitched more games than any pitcher in history has appeared in more than fifty games a season an incredible nineteen times and he will do so again this year. To put that in perspective, in nineteen of his twenty-four big league season, Orosco has pitched in nearly one third of his team's games! His best year was 1983, a glorious year for Mets fans, and that was twenty years ago! But Orosco can still get left-handers out as they are only batting .223 against him. Score one for the old guys.

Lofton is a winner and the Cubs needed to fill the Corey Patterson hole. Lofton has also had a history of sparking a team when he first arrives. He almost always cools off soon afterwards, but he should give them a boost.


And now it's time for the Fan's weekly look at his favorite boxscore players:
- Luis Matos. Matos, the Orioles' outfielder is a new favorite and is batting .364 this year after 200 at bats! All he did his last seven games is bat .545 with six RBI and nine runs scored.

- Rocco Baldelli. Baldelli is still hanging around the .300 mark as he batted .292 for the week. But in an encouraging sign, he walked a couple of times and his OBP was higher than his batting average for the first time in a long while. He had four RBI for the week and five runs scored.

- Coco Crisp. Crisp was sharp (is that redundant?) this week as he batted an even .400 (he got two more hits tonight) as he went 10 for 25 for the week. Three of the hits were doubles. But to show you how much trouble the Indians are having scoring runs, Crisp only scored three times for the ten times he was on base. The swift Crisp was also thrown out two out of three times trying to steal.

- Hank Blalock. Hank had his first real bad week of the season as he only had four hits in twenty-one at bats (.190). His season average dropped to .314. I get a little concerned the way that Buck Showalter moves the lineup around every day. That can't help very much.

- Mark Teixeira. On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong because Mark had a great week, batting .320 to raise his average up to .261, its highest of the season.

- Michael Young. Young is still the hottest of the young Rangers and batted .333 last week (10 for 30) and had nine RBI from the leadoff spot.

- Pat Burrell. He's coming! For the first time in recent memory, Burrell batted over .200 for a week as he batted .238. Moreover, he had three extra base hits and four RBI and had more walks than strikeouts. Burrell has been averaging one strikeout per four at bats and this week improved that to one in five. He may get over the Mendoza line yet!

- Miguel Cabrera. The young Marlins player had more strikeouts than hits last week (five vs. three). His average is still hovering in the .216 level. Still rooting hard for him though.

- Jose Reyes. The Mets' young shortstop is holding his own in the big leagues. His week's average was the same as his year average (.260) and scored six runs and drove in three. Reyes also stole three bases without being thrown out.

- Bo Hart. Hart had a real tough week at the plate and only batted .160 (4 for 25), but he is still flashing a lot of leather and is still at .321 for the year.

- Albert Pujols. Pujols, on the triple crown watch, didn't hurt his cause as he batted .429 for the week with two homers and five RBI. He scored seven runs and had an incredible .538 OBP.

- Sean Burroughs. Oh no! Sean went one for seventeen last week, an .059 batting average. Ugh! Come on, Sean! I wonder how much of his playing time will be squeezed by the activation of Phil Neven?

It was announced today that the New York Yankees were the only team expected to have to pay the new "luxury" tax negotiated during the last labor agreement. Under that agreement, teams with a player payroll over $117 million would have to pay the tax toward a fund to aid struggling teams. The Yankees are the only team over that limit and will owe nearly $11 million. The story and the facts clearly show what a farce the luxury tax is in Major League Baseball.

Let's say that the struggling teams would be the Expos, the Brewers, the Marlins, the Devil Rays, Oakland and the Pirates, $11 million split six ways would yield each team $1.8 million. How will $1.8 level the playing field? Perhaps that money will buy Mike Bordick. No offense against Bordick, who is a good player and a good team player, but Bordick isn't going to buy you a pennant. Surely the old luxury tax structure produced more money for the fund.

Secondly, there are several teams over $100 million in payroll including the Mets, Boston, Arizona, Los Angeles and Texas (of all places). Why should the Yankees be the only team to have to even up the system? The Yankees spent their money well while the Mets spent theirs poorly. Arizona spent theirs for a World Series title and it worked but now they are restricted because of the money they have tied up. Los Angeles spend their money and are hitting .245 as a team. I guess they have all paid in one form or manner.

The other reality is that the teams that receive the money won't put the money towards the team. The stockholders and the owners will pad their pockets and the team will stay the way it is. And why should Steinbrenner pay for poorly run teams? Do the Pirates have to be perennial losers? Let's look at a little history.

The Cleveland Indians had a stretch in the 60's and 70's when they were the worst team in baseball. They came in last or next to last for more than a dozen years. During that time they had a decent following but they were lucky to draw a million fans. Slowly, they started building a good team with great players like Manny Ramirez and Juan Gonzales. Their now-well-run organization produced home grown talent and as the team got better, the fans came out. As luck (or planning) would have it, the improvement of the Indians coincided with the building of a great new ballpark. Between the two movements, the Indians drew over 3 million fans.

Back when the Indians were poorly run with a terrible farm system, why should the other teams have rewarded them with proceeds of a luxury tax? In addiction terms, isn't that called, "enabling"?

Cleveland lost a lot of those good players because they didn't want to pay them. And now they are rebuilding and their attendance is down again. Had the Indians kept the great players, their payroll would now be up over the $117 million mark. For doing things correctly and succeeding, the Indians would have had to pay a luxury tax to the next generation of poorly run teams. They chose instead to become the next poor team. Does the luxury tax then come to them for falling by the wayside?

Perhaps someday an economic genius can explain why all of this makes sense to those corps who own and run baseball. But it's obsurd to me. The system obviously doesn't work because the Pirates again dumped a good player for his salary and the Red Sox blithely picked it up tax free. For the exercise, the Pirates can expect a $1.8 million check courtesy of the New York Yankees.

There is a lot of hitting going on in MLB tonight. The Blue Jays are all over the Yankees 7-0. The Cubbies have four RBI from Sosa and lead a high scoring game against the Braves. The Red Sox are pounding the Tigers 14-4. The Mets are out-hitting the Phillies 8-4 and the Reds are pounding the Brewers 11-0.

Sosa is simply mashing the ball as he is now up to 20 homers with 57 RBI. If the Cubs can get some pitching, Sosa could help carry this club back into contention.

The Marlins got a great performance out of Josh Beckett and beat the Expos 4-1. Beckett pitched seven innings of shutout ball. That has to encourage the Marlins as much as getting Mike Lowell back today. Lowell went two for three and drove in two runs. He got a scare this week as it was thought that his cancer might have returned but it turned out to be a groin problem. To continue the good news in that game, the Expos' Vladamir Guerrero returned to action after a long injury shelving and had two hits in the game.

The Angels are losing in the eighth inning to the Devil Rays and if that outcome remains the same, the Angels are looking at their fifth loss in a row. They don't have enough season left to afford that kind of losing streak.

Going the other direction is the Minnesota Twins who are beating the suddenly struggling Seattle Mariners, 4-0. If the Twins hold on to win that game, it will be their fifth victory in a row. The trade with Toronto (Kielty to Toronto for Shannon Stewart) is paying off big for both teams as Kielty is playing superbly for the Blue Jays and Stewart is six for his last seven for the Twins. It's great when a trade is a win/win.

The White Sox are starting to come around again as the new players are starting to fit into the Chicago lineup. That always seems to take a while. Alomar is playing better than his Mets days and is batting .298 thus far with Chicago. Frank Thomas is having a great year. Paul Konerko is starting to hit and has raised his average 18 points in the last two weeks and Maglio Ordonez is starting to play well too.

The Royals are six games in front of the White Sox and Twins, but this race is not over. We all root for the underdog Royals but no matter what happens the rest of the season, they have had a successful year. Tony Pena should definitely win manager of the year.

After their performances last year, would you ever have believed that Rickey Henderson and Jeremy Burnitz would be leading the Dodgers in hitting this week? Henderson, released by Boston and playing early this season for a just-barely-professional team in Newark, has started his season with two homers while going four for twelve. Rickey is 45 years old and has been playing since 1979!

Everyone assumed the Henderson would retire two years ago when he reached several milestones like 3000 hits and all-time run scoring record, but Henderson plays for the joy of it. He just loves baseball and when asked about it answered back by asking why he should quit when there was still someplace he could play.

Rickey has been playing so long, most people today would not understand the force of nature Henderson was as a player. Henderson scored more than a hundred runs in thirteen seasons including 146 in 1985. He has a .402 lifetime OBP and discounting his first year, never (even in his later years) had an OBP less than .369! A leadoff hitter with a .362 OBP is hard to find today. He also has hit almost 300 homers and has over 500 doubles. He wasn't just a base stealer (though he was the best ever), he was a force.

So it's still fun to see the old man get up to the plate, especially when he lead-off and hit the 81st lead-off homer of his career. No matter how long Henderson plays and how well he does while he hangs around, he is one of the best players to ever play the game.

And then there is Jeremy Burnitz who after a good start to his career in Milwaukee, had one of the ugliest batting seasons I've seen when he batted .215 in almost 500 at bats. This year he is batting a respectable .279 and has 20 homers.

And the Dodgers weren't done resurrecting ballplayers as their pitching corp now includes Wilson Alvarez who was out of baseball for three years and is now pitching with some success for the Dodgers. It's all fun stuff but they won't make the playoffs despite their comeback kids.


In other stories:
The Orioles completed a sweep of the Angels. Sadly, Mora was hit in the face with a pitch during the game today. The Fan sends his best and hopes that the situation doesn't derail what has been a breakout season for the Oriole player. The Angels were dealt a severe blow in their fingertip grasp of a playoff home.

The Yankees completed their sweep of the Indians and in a weird stat, the Indians have scored exactly four runs for seven straight games. That's never been done before. They also lost six of those seven games. Derek Jeter has batted over .500 for his last fifty at bats.

The Houston Astros have now won nine of their last ten to put a little distance between them and the Cubs and Cardinals. Bagwell is starting to hit really well and they keep winning in their division. The Astros are now 32-18 in their division.

The Braves have also won nine of ten and look unstoppable. The Phillies are now nine and a half games back of the Braves, but still lead the Wildcard race.

Two former Yankees have participated in a tight ballgame tonight between the Blue Jays and the Red Sox. Old friend, Gasoline Juan Acevedo, was trying to save the ballgame for the Blue Jays and was doing great until he got two out in the ninth. First, Nomar singled and then stole second. Manny Ramirez then singled to the opposite field to bring in Nomar to tie the game.

Earlier in the evening, Ramiro Mendoza started the game for the Red Sox and had a rough five innings and was cuffed around for four runs. But it could have been worse and Mendoza did what experienced pitchers do; he kept the Red Sox in the game so that the Sox could eventually tie the score and force extra innings. Sometimes a good pitcher will show how good he is when he doesn't have his good stuff. Those pitchers will always give their team a chance to win.

The Red Sox just won in the tenth nearly the same way they tied the game in the ninth. Jeremy Giambi singled. Gabe Kapler pinch ran and stole second. He then ran to third on a bad throw by the Toronto catcher. Trot Nixon then singled. Ballgame.

Garciaparra's steal of second to make the run possible was surpassed in New York by Garciaparra's rival and friend, Derek Jeter. Jeter scored from first on a SINGLE! He was running on a three and two count when he took off for second. At the same time, Giambi singled up the middle. Jeter raced all the way around on the single. There aren't too many times when you'll see a bases clearing, 3 RBI single.