-- Tony LaRussa
The Cardinals won on Friday, the Braves won on Saturday. Yesterday, Chris Carpenter took the hill in search of this 17th win, but was outpitched by Tampa castoff Jorge Sosa, who tossed seven scoreless innings at the Cards. (Since becoming a Brave, and being sprinkled by Leo Mazzone's Magic Pixie Dust
, Sosa is 7-12, 2.36.) Kelly Johnson and the amazing Jeff Francouer hit solo homers; Francouer added an RBI double off Jason Isringhausen, sending the Braves to the bottom of the ninth with a 3-1 lead. But the Cardinals had a plan. Load the bases for David Eckstein... who promptly hit a walkoff grand-slam home run.David Eckstein, who is 5-7, has now hit 22 home runs in his 674 career games. Four of them have come with the bases loaded, and two of them came on successive days against the Blue Jays, back in 2002. On April 27, he took Scott Cassidy deep to put the Angels up 11-4. The very next day, the Jays took a 5-4 lead into the bottom of the 14th inning. The Angels loaded the bases with two outs against Pedro Borbon, and Eckstein, 0-6 on the day, turned defeat into victory with a single swing. His third career grand slam came a few weeks later, when he touched up ex-Blue Jay Joey Hamilton to lead the Angels to a 7-4 win over the Reds.
The Braves must be encouraged by Francouer's first month in the majors. It went well, wouldn't you say? He hit .403, with 8 HRs and 21 RBI in his first 22 games. He's got a nine game hitting streak (16-39) going, he's 21 years old, playing in his home town... is this kind of story possible? Isn't it too good to be true?
An interesting game at Yankee Stadium, as the White Sox open a series with the Yankees. Orlando Hernandez returns to the Stadium for the first time as an opposing player. El Duque made an enormous contribution to three championship teams - his lifetime post-season record is 9-3, 2.65. Think they'll give him big warm thank you?
The A's and Angels remained locked in their death grip atop the AL West. The Angels stopped the bleeding, and the A's kept on winning, behind Danny Haren this time.
Houston, the NL equivalent of the A's, won behind Roger Clemens - this game was tied at 1-1 after seven, and it looked like Rocket was going to have nothing to show for another outstanding performance (7 IP, an unearned run.) But the Astrosa suddenly remembered that "we're not those guys anymore," and pushed across 7 runs in the final two innings.
The San Diego Padres seem to have remembered that they're not the team who have played so poorly for the last two months. They completed the sweep of the Nats yesterday, in Washington, behind an outstanding performance by Jeff Jake Peavy, who tossed a five-hit shutout and fanned 10. However, would anyonbe like to explain Frank Robinson's lineup yesterday?
Carroll, 2b
Guzman, ss
Johnson, 1b
Baerga, 3b
Church, cf
Cepicky, rf
Blanco, lf
Bennett, c
Loaiza, p
It looks like he was telling Lord Voldemort that "you're on your own today, pal." Carlos Baerga, cleanup hitter? What, it's 1993 again?
The Jays face their third straight left-hander. First was Randy Johnson, who's won 257 games and 3 more in the World Series; next was Al Leiter, who's won 160 games, and another in the World Series as well. Today, they get Mike Maroth, who's won 35 games, and is of course the only pitcher in the last 20 years to lose 20 games in a season.
Today's schedule:
AL
Texas (Rodriguez 2-3, 4.95) at Boston (Miller 4-4, 4.78) 7:05
Chicago (Hernandez 8-4, 4.69) at New York (Mussina 10-7, 4.05) 7:05
Detroit (Maroth 9-11, 4.70) at Toronto (Bush 2-5, 4.40) 7:07
Minnesota (Silva 7-5, 3.27) at Seattle (Meche 10-8, 5.04)
NL
Florida (Valdez 1-0, 4.50) at Colorado (Kim 2-8, 5.14) 3:05
St.Louis (Morris 12-4, 3.68) at Milwaukee (Santos 3-11, 4.02) 8:05
Cincinati (Claussen 6-8, 4.85) at Chicago (Williams 3-4, 4.60) 8:05
