Red Sox 5, Phillies 3 (10 innings)
Sorry to view this one totally from the NL East perspective (by all means, petition against interleague play if only to stop me from doing such things), but what will it take for Philadelphia to gain any ground on New York? The Mets playing .400 ball the rest of the way? Are the Marlins a greater threat in the division at this point?
Tom Gordon fell behind David Ortiz 2-0 in the bottom of the 10th, evened the count with a pair of low, inside pitches that Big Papi went fishing for….prior to grooving a fat one right over the heart of the plate, which the Boston DH crushed into the centerfield tarp, as if on cue.
Curt Schilling struck out 10 in 6 innings of work ; Jonathan Papelbon picked up his 4th win with 2 and a third innings of relief, lowering his ERA to an otherworldly 0.24.
With the news that the Sultan Of Surly had slugged his 719th career HR today against the A’s, Joe Buck somberly noted that Bonds was now “5 home runs ahead of the Boston pitcher.”
After a longish pause, Tim McCarver added, “nicely put.” It’s not quite “My Dinner With Andre” with these guys.
Despite Taylor Buchholz limiting the White Sox to a mere two singles over the first 6 innings at the Cell, Chicago prevailed over Houston, 6-5 earlier today. A 7th inning Joe Crede grand slam (his 3rd of 2006) tied the game, which ended on Alex “Sisters Lovers” Cintron’s 10th inning, bases-loaded single (above) off Dan Wheeler. The White Sox have won 9 in a row, and perhaps the Astros will send Chad Qualis away for sensitivity training.
After a brutal, brief outing from El Duque (6 earned runs, 1.2 IP, a three-run HR allowed to Vernon Wells), the Mets are trying to chip away at the Blue Jays and Roy Halliday. Aided by triples from David Wright and Jose Reyes, New York is trailing 6-3 after 5 innings. I’m relying on the animated wonders of MLB.com’s Gameday feature, as the game is blacked out on the ‘net due to Fox’s Game Of The Week exclusivity. Given that neither the local Fox affiliate nor the satellite feed of NYC’s Ch. 5 are showing baseball at the moment, I full understand why neither MLB nor Fox would want me to watch anything besides an “Alias” re-run.
The only way the Phillies gain significant ground on the Mets is if Pedro, Glavine, Wright, Beltran and Delgado all go out with season-ending injuries. The Phillies are in a state of shambles right now. The starting pitching is an erratic disaster, they are near the bottom in hitting with RISP and they have not been able to take late/close games. Unless they make an improbable run very quickly, they will be going into the break 3-5 games under .500 and even if they have the same kind of post-break resurgence they did last
year, the Mets would have to collapse. At this point, sentiment is growing for Pat Gillick to pull a Marlins move and put everybody not named Howard, Utley, Hamels or Myers on the block in July. The only thing Mets fans have to worry about is players health, how the team is set for October and if Billy Wagner is going to choke in the post-season. Otherwise, all the Mets have to do is play slightly over .500 ball from here on out and the NL East will be a lock.
Speaking of the Astros, a where-are-they-now moment as I attended my first (Northern League) Joliet Jackhammers game…
I saw a familiar name in the manager’s chair for Joliet — Hal Lanier. The same Hal Lanier who managed the Astros in the 1986 playoffs. According to the program, this was his first year in Joliet, but this followed 10 YEARS with Winnipeg in the same league. Ouch.
No surprise then that Lanier’s program picture was a lemon-faced “how did I get here?” grimace.