Bill Clinton approves this series
1. NLCS Preview?: In possibly the best overall matchup possible between National League teams, the Cardinals took on the Mets last night in Flushing. The result was better than anyone could have even anticipated, as the best offensive players for each side really took off. Albert Pujols hit a 3-run homerun in the third and followed it up with a fourth-inning grand slam. His 2 homeruns and 7 RBIs gave him 38 and 105 for the year, and he completely carried his team’s offense for the night. For the Mets, Carlos Delgado hit two blasts of his own, including a towering grand slam that gave him 400 career homeruns. But the Cardinals were still winning 7-6 heading into the 9th inning. That’s when Carlos Beltran stepped up. The slugger, who was 0-4 going into the inning, hit a walk off two run homerun to win the game for New York. It was one of the best games of the year in the NL, and there are still two games to go in this series.
2. NL West Showdown: We can’t believe we’re saying this after months of NL West bashing, but there is actually a watchable series in the division. The Dodgers are taking on the Padres in a battle of the top two teams in the West. So far, the Padres have absolutely dominated the season series over the division leader. They have taken 10 of 13 from LA, including a 1-0 win last night. Jake Peavy pitched a great game to continue his recent success, while Mike Piazza drove in the only run of the night. Peavy has had one of the more puzzling seasons of any pitcher. While he is third in the league in strikeouts and has a good 1.23 WHIP, Peavy owns an awful 7-12 record. That’s due in part to poor run support, and in part to Peavy’s underwhelming 4.35 ERA. But he won last night as the Padres won their third in a row to close the gap between them and the Dodgers to two games.
3. Next step: division lead: With the Cardinals loss, all the Reds needed to do was win to put them one game back of the division leaders. They did more than that. Cincy annihilated the Astros 14-0, crushing them in every way possible. Offensively they put up 4 runs in the second and 8 in the third. Brandon Phillips started the scoring with a solo shot, while Scott Hatteberg and Adam Dunn tacked on two more homers. Then Kyle Lohse, who had been simply awful before being traded from the Twins to the Reds this year, pitched his fourth straight quality start with 8 shutout innings. His masterpiece gave Lohse his first win as a Red and his ERA is now 1.65 with the team. Now at 66-60, Cincinnati is one game back of St. Louis and has the same amount of victories as the Cardinals. They are closing in on the team that has won two straight Central division titles.
4. AL Roundup: There were plenty of events in the AL yesterday as well. The Seattle Mariners ended an 11 game win streak with a 6-5 defeat of the Yankees. Adrian Beltre hit a walk-off homer, his second of the night and 15th of the year. The Red Sox continued their poor play with a 4-3 loss to the Angels, keeping them 6.5 back of the Yankees. Also, Kenny Rogers pitched 7 shutout innings for the Tigers as they beat the White Sox again, 4-0. Marcus Thames continued the Detroit tradition this year of unknown players stepping up, with a homer, a triple, and 3 RBIs. And finally, the Blue Jays improved after last night’s embarrassment, defeating the Athletics 4-3 as AJ Burnett won his 4th consecutive start. Fortunately, Jays manager John Gibbons didn’t challenge Burnett to a fight for the 3 runs he allowed.
5. Winning games, losing money: While the Yankees continue to spend, spend, and spend some more on free agents, few people think about whether the team has the funds to support their gigantic $200 million payroll. Well here’s the answer: they don’t. Yankees GM Brian Cashman (what a name!) reported yesterday that despite all the money the team is making, they are still losing money due to revenue sharing. Last year they made the most money in baseball with $277 million in revenue, but still lost $50 million overall. Perhaps this isn’t a good time to remember their $1 billion-plus new stadium that the team has to finance in part.
