Sportscolumn Blog

[Editor’s Note: Sportscolumn Blog welcomes Jackson Govatos as the lead baseball blogger. Jackson’s daily feature, The Full Count, will take you through the five baseball stories you need to know.]

1. Mr. Consistency strikes again: It didn’t take long for Albert Pujols to follow up his 3 homer game on Sunday. In the first inning against the Pirates, Pujols hit a two-run shot off Paul Maholm to remain the National League home run leader so far this year. This latest blast gave him four in consecutive at-bats, tying 34 other players for the major league record. Those two runs proved to be all the Cardinals needed as they won 2-1 behind strong pitching from Jason Marquis.

2. “K”-dro wins #200: Pedro Martinez of the Mets achieved his 200th win in a 4-3 victory over the Braves on Monday. Martinez wasn’t perfect–he allowed 3 earned runs, including a monster homer to Andruw Jones–but he still got the job done in a close win over the division rival. Duaner Sánchez and Billy Wagner relieved Martinez, allowing no hits or runs in 2.1 innings of work. Wagner will be a key contributor to Martinez’s success this season. Last year, before the acquisition of Wagner, Martinez allowed 3 or less earned runs 10 times in games that he did not pick up the win. Wagner gives the Mets a reliable closer so that won’t happen as much this year. The victory improved the Mets to a major league best 10-2 record, while the Braves fell to 6-8.

3. Not so fast my friend: Apparently realizing the Tigers had taken the division lead, the Indians exploded on offense to defeat Detroit 10-2. This game ended the highly competitive series in a 2-2 tie. Victor Martinez and Aaron Boone provided the offensive spark for Cleveland with 5 combined RBIs. The Indians are on fire offensively, with a .305 average for the season. However, they still couldn’t stop Tigers first baseman Chris Shelton–the slugger picked up his AL-leading 9th home run of the season in a losing effort.

4. The 40 year old surgin’: Greg Maddux pitched another strong game on Monday to improve to 3-0 on the year. The victory was Maddux’s 321st of his career and his first since turning 40 years old on April 14. Pitching against the Dodgers, Maddux worked 8 innings with 6 K’s and only 1 run allowed. His season ERA improved to 1.33, good for 2nd in the NL. The Cubs beat the Dodgers 4-1 and improved to a surprising 8-4 on the year.

5. Could it get any worse?: Barry Bonds, all over the news for the steroid allegations and possible perjury charges, got an object thrown at him during the 4th inning of last night’s 10-9 win over the Diamondbacks.
The object, which police say resembles a toothpaste tube, landed a few feet in front of Bonds and was promptly removed by security. The man who threw the object, 23-year-old Mark Greggersen, was charged with disorderly conduct. It was the second time an object has been thrown at Bonds this season. Bonds declined to speak to the media, but teammate Randy Winn said, “It’s definitely not a trend we want to continue.”

This is possibly the greatest idea anyone has ever had since Girls Gone Wild. A guy with too much time on his hands recreated the final inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series using RBI Baseball for the NES and dubbed Vin Scully’s play by play over it. This is something you might think of drunk or high but never actually get around to doing it. Kudos to Conor Lastowka for seeing this crazy idea through. You can read all about why and how he did it, or just watch the best baseball video to ever grace the internet. Yes, even better than Randy Johnson blowing up a bird with a fastball.

The Chicago White Sox have fined Pitcher Mark Buehrle for tarp sliding during Sunday’s rain delay. Tarp sliding! This was a staple of TWIB and our favorite childhood memories were of Mel Allen giving the play by play of everyone’s favorite rain delay distraction.

While Buehrle might have gone overboard when he motioned for fans to join in on the fray (someone actually did and was quickly escorted off by security), there will be no more tarp sliding with or without inviting the fans for Buehrle.

After I came in, somebody else said [I was fined]. We’ll see if it comes out to be the truth, but if it is, I won’t be out there anymore. I can’t have any fun no more.

This is a sad day for the NFL MLB.

Links:
[MLB.com]: No more tarp sliding for Buehrle

[Editor’s Note: Sportscolumn Blog welcomes Jackson Govatos as the lead baseball blogger. Jackson’s daily feature, The Full Count, will take you through the five baseball stories you need to know.]

Ineptitude

1. “What the hell is goin’ on out there?”: The Atlanta Braves lost another game on Sunday due to pitching. While they have traditionally had one of the majors’ best staffs, their pitching has let them down so far this year. Besides John Smoltz’s shutout last Saturday, the Braves have not received a win from a starting pitcher. They are 15th in the NL in ERA–only the Pirates rank lower. This is to say nothing of their bullpen–which has been an absolute disaster besides 4-win Oscar Villarreal. There is good news in Atlanta: their hitting has been excellent. They lead the NL in runs and homers, and Andruw Jones is picking up where he left off last year. If they could just put pitching and hitting together, we will see another division title for the Braves.

2. Is Chris Shelton the Next Big Thing?: He’s certainly looked like a true star the first two weeks of the season. Nothing changed on Easter Sunday, when Shelton belted his league-leading 8th homer to beat the Indians 1-0. Shelton has led the team to a division-leading 7-5 record. While the Tigers have won mainly due to 26 home runs (first in the majors), they proved on Sunday that they can win pitchers’ duels as well. Mike Maroth, subject of ridicule after his 21-loss 2003 season, pitched 7 scoreless innings to decrease his ERA to a softball-like 0.73. If the Tigers can add pitching like this to their impressive lineup, they could actually prove a challenger in the AL Wild Card race.

3. Department of Redundancy Dept.: It seems like the same group of top players are jacking balls out of the park every day. Albert Pujols headlined the group of homerun hitters yesterday, with his 6th, 7th, and 8th slams of the season. St. Louis’ opponent, the Cincinnati Reds, got a 7th homer from slugger Adam Dunn. While the White Sox-Blue Jays game was rained out in the 5th inning, Jim Thome still managed to hit his 7th jack of the season. Some other big names to touch `em all on Sunday were the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi, Vlad Guerrero of the LA Angels, the Mets’ Carlos Delgado, and Aramis Ramirez of the Cubs.

4. It had to happen eventually: Over the course of the 11 years and 888 games played at Coors Field, never had there been a 1-0 game won by the Rockies’ opponent. Until yesterday, when Brett Myers of the Phillies combined with closer Tom Gordon to shut out Colorado’s offense. A Ryan Howard home run provided to only score in a rare Coors Field pitcher’s duel. Amazingly, the win pushed Myers’ career record at the homer heavy Coors to 4-0 with a 2.64 ERA. This kind of win is important for the Phillies, who lack a true ace and lost closer Billy Wagner to the Mets over the offseason. They need Myers and Gordon to pitch like they did today in order to have a winning record in the tough NL East.

5. The Battle for 29th: We can all agree–the Devil Rays and the Royals have probably been the two worst teams in baseball the last few years. They just finished a series in Tampa, which probably drew less people than the NCAA women’s bowling championships. However, this series was interesting because of how one-sided it was. The Rays swept KC by a combined score of 22-10, extending a streak of seven straight victories over the Royals. When does one of the worst teams in a sport ever dominate another one of the worst teams like the Devil Rays have? It’s certainly rare to say the least.