Alou gets tossed
1. ‘Extracurricular activities’: The Giants and the Rockies aren’t exactly heated rivals, but they played like they were on Sunday. Ejections started piling up in the first inning, when Giants pitcher Matt Morris was tossed after hitting his second batter of the inning. Manager Felipe Alou was ejected automatically, and pitching coach Dave Righetti was thrown out as well after arguing. Jose Mesa was ejected for the Rockies for hitting Omar Vizquel, who in 2002 wrote a book which included a criticism of Mesa for blowing a save in the ’97 World Series. The Rockies won in 10 innings, 3-2.
2. Un-Uribe-able: Juan Uribe powered the White Sox to their eighth win in a row on Sunday. He hit 2 homeruns and 4 RBIs in the 7-3 win by the Sox, who completed a series sweep of the Twins. However, Jim Thome failed to score a run for the first time this year, snapping a record 17 game streak. The White Sox are now a major league best 13-5.
3. Yanks improve to .500: Jason Giambi is probably off the juice right now, but he’s still pretty powerful. The slugger crushed Orioles pitching for 2 homers and 5 RBIs, both season highs. Yanks starter Randy Johnson rebounded from a terrible loss last week with only 3 hits allowed over 8 innings. New York is finally above .500 on the year at 9-8.
4. The big 4-0: Greg Maddux’s best years may be behind him, but he’s sure forgotten that so far this year. At 40 years old, he has a 4-0 record so far this year, supplying nearly half of the Cubs 10 wins. After shutting down Albert Pujols and the Cardinals to no runs over 7 innings, Maddux’s ERA dropped to 0.99, best in the National League. The Cubs became the 4th team to reach 10 wins in what will be a crowded NL Central division this year.
5. Victory…at last: The Royals have been an absolute disaster this year. They have the worst record in the majors, have terrible pitching problems, and their most expensive player is hitting .173. Adding to that, they had yet to have a starter win a game all season. Until last night, when starter Jeremy Affeldt picked up the win against high-powered Cleveland. Overall, the Tribe was held to only 1 run and 7 hits in the 5-1 loss.
