And That Happened

Reds 8, Pirates 6: You'll forgive me if I don't get into the specifics of this game, but the following passage says more about the state of these two teams than anything I could come up with: "At 59-80, the Pirates are two defeats away from clinching their 16th straight losing season, which would tie the major-league record held by the 1933-48 Phillies. The Reds are 62-78, leaving them within four defeats of their eighth straight losing season. It's their longest such slump in a half-century." That's a bit of a cheap shot at the Pirates inasmuch as those Phillies teams were orders of magnitude worse than Pittsburgh has been over the last 16 years. Those Phillies lost over 100 games seven times in that stretch of futility, and the Pirates have done that only once. Cold comfort for Bucs fans, sure, but when you can't beat a Major League team, at least you can gain a moral victory over the guy who writes the game stories down in Cincinnati.

Braves 2, Nationals 0: Who's James Parr? I don't really care, because (a) he pitches for my Braves; and (b) he pitched well, shutting out the Nats on two hits over six innings in his Major League debut.

Blue Jays 9, Twins 0: Jesse Litsch tosses a shutout, completing the sweep of Minnesota. The Twins and White Sox need to be careful. They look like they're poised to turn into the Dbacks and the Dodgers.

Padres 5, Brewers 2: For that matter, Milwaukee and Chicago are doing much the same thing. I'm just going to warn everyone right now: if the Brewers woof this and the phreakin' Phillies somehow sneak into the wild card, I am pretty much going to ignore the NL playoffs this year. There can be only one ugly NL East team in this bad boy, capice?

Royals 5, A's 4: Let's see, two godawful teams + a 4PM makeup game due to a rainout the night before. How many where there? 300? 500? APBA Guy -- did you watch this one? Tell me how bad it was.

Royals 9, A's 6: Whenever I get upset about the fact that Tim Hudson likely won't pitch for the Braves again, I remind myself that we got him for nothing. Nothing gave up eight runs on nine hits in three and a third innings last night, completing the second half of this stinkaheader against Kansas City.

Angels 7, Tigers 1: Kenny Rogers got knocked around, and after the game said that he felt fine, but that he just couldn't get the job done. From the game story: "Tigers manager Jim Leyland thought Rogers is fighting some nagging pain but didn't think the pitcher would admit it. 'He won't make excuses. He's a professional,' Leyland said." In light of recent events, it's quite obvious that those comments were not truly aimed at praising Rogers' professionalism as much as they were aimed at Justin Verlander's perceived lack thereof.

Rays 7, Yankees 5: The Darrell Rasner era continues to go swimmingly in the Bronx (1.1 IP, 6 H, 5 ER). That's just not going to cut it against Scott Kazmir (6 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 7K). But it almost cut it against the whole of the Rays' staff, as the Yankees put up five runs in the ninth to make this one a lot closer than it looked like it would be.