Boston 9, Baltimore 2

….and Mike Lowell is…Jeteresque?

In the top of the third, Lowell went hard over the wall to catch Nick Markakis’ popup, falling into the seats over the short wall along the third-base line and landing in front of a man with a Yankees cap.

“I saw that,” Lowell said afterward. “I actually gave him three baseballs between innings because I saw on the replay he moved back out of the way. So I gave him three balls, I wrote, ‘Next time, catch me.”‘

It’s time for me to put some Crow on the Foreman Grill : I took every available opportunity last year to pronouce Lowell over and done, imply he’d been juiced previously and subsequently scoffed at his diminished trade value. Keep in mind, he was a salary-dump thrown-in as part of the Josh Beckett deal. While I don’t think much of MLB’s sanctioned Comeback Player Of The Year awards for the respective leagues, even more so than Jose Valentin in the NL, the omission of Lowell in the A.L. is baffling.

Philadelphia closed to within 2 games of Cincinnati in the NL Wild Card chase, beating the Reds, 6-5 in 14 innings. I don’t know who is going to start for Cincy tomorrow, but they can take some consolation from Kyle Lohse’s competent drumming pitching.

Even Cory Lidle had to be impressed with the Phillies’ team effort this evening.

The Padres had a chance to overtake Cincinnati tonight, but a 4-2 loss to Houston left them a half game behind. The Astros, winners of 8 of their last 10, received 10 K’s from Andy Pettite along with the renowned masturbation refusnik’s first career HR ; Brad Lidge earned his 26th save, while Lance Berkman hit his 31st HR, and turned a 3-6-3 double play to end the game with the tying run on first.

Reader M. Kay (?) of NYC, NY asks “do you think Al Leiter gets an errection every time Scott Kazmir loses?”

That’s a disgusting question. But yes, I do.