The Full Count: Yanks and Tigers battle it out

Man Sal Fasano is fat

1. Two top teams, two close games: The Yankees and Tigers, the AL’s top two teams, played a doubleheader yesterday after being rained out Tuesday. The results, not surprisingly, were two interesting games. The Yanks took Game 1 by a count of 2-0 behind the fantastic play of Chien-Ming Wang. Wang pitched seven-plus innings, allowing no runs and getting his 16th win of the year. That ties him with Roy Halladay for the highest win total in the majors. In Game 2, the tides turned and the Tigers won 5-3. Craig Monroe hit a three-run homer in the 9th off of Scott Proctor to win the game. The teams will play a game tonight that will decide the series. Jeremy Bonderman of the Tigers and Randy Johnson of the Yankees will take the mound.

2. Seventh-inning express: The Cardinals were looking to break up the Marlins’ 9-game winning streak when the two teams played last night. While starter Jason Marquis and the Cards got down 5-1 early, they battled back by scoring in 4 consecutive innings. A four-run 4th that included a Marquis RBI settled the score at 5-5. St. Louis tacked on three more runs before blowing the Fish out of the water in the 7th inning. They scored 5 runs, including an RBI apiece for their 3-4-5. The final on this one was 13-6, with Marquis getting the win in as crude a fashion as possible. The game marked St. Louis’ 70th win of the season, and they lead the Reds by 4.5 games.

3. No support: Roger Clemens must just have bad luck. Once again, his Astros failed to give him anything resembling run support. Clemens pitched 7 innings, shutting out the opposing Brewers and striking out 9. However, the `Stros offense didn’t give him a run, so he was left stuck with a no-decision and a 2.29 ERA. But thankfully for Astros fans, this wasn’t another 1-0 loss–it was a 1-0 win! They won on a ninth-inning groundout by Aubrey Huff that scored Mike Lamb. The Astros have now won 5 games in a row and are 3 games out of the Wild Card.

4. Plenty of support: Jon Garland has not had any problem with run support this season. He has a 16-4 record, giving him the second-highest winning percentage in the majors, despite a pedestrian 4.47 ERA. He ranks fourth in the AL in run support, and the ChiSox’s leading offense helped him out yesterday too. Garland threw 8 innings but allowed 4 runs to the D-Rays. The Sox scored three runs in the 8th inning to make the final score 5-4. Jermaine Dye continued his streak of madness by going 3-5, while Jim Thome contributed in his return with an RBI. Tampa’s Delmon Young went 2-3 with 2 RBIs in his second major league start, numbers identical to his first start. The Sox keep on rolling with 3 straight wins and are now just 4.5 back of the Tigers.

5. Plenty of injuries, not enough time: Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: your semi-regular Full Count injury update! We’ll start off with Carl Pavano in this edition. Most people have forgotten Pavano existed, as he has been sidelined ever since the middle of last year. Apparently he had been concealing from the Yankees that he had a car crash, breaking his ribs in the process. The team told him not to pitch for two weeks. But there’s even worse news for Mark Mulder, the Cardinals pitcher who has struggled to stay unhurt the entire season. He has severe shoulder problems and will likely miss the rest of the season. The Twins have good and bad news about two of their pitchers. Francisco Liriano threw off a mound for the first time since hitting the DL on August 8. It’s still undetermined when he’ll start. The Twins’ Brad Radke, meanwhile, will miss his next start and has not pitched since the 25th. That’s all for this edition of the Full Count semi-regular injury update. Hope you enjoyed it.