-- Casey Stengel
Carlos Delgado returned to the Marlins lineup and hit the go-ahead homer in Florida's 2-1 win over the Giants. The Marlins have the same record as the Blue Jays (60-56), but are only 3 games out of the NL Wild Card.
Chris Carpenter became the first pitcher in the majors to win 17 games; Jon Garland also started yesterday, but the Red Sox messed things up for him. David Ortiz, after four straight hits on Friday, added three more hits and an intentional walk before the White Sox finally got him out.
Pedro Astacio pitched another very strong game for the Padres - huh? - but the Phillies beat up on Trevor Hoffman in the ninth inning. San Diego is back at .500, and send Chan Ho Park to the hill today. Park has won more games this season than Mark Prior, Tim Hudson, Ben Sheets, and Brad Radke, among others.
Oakland and the Angels both won - the dead heat continues atop the AL West. The fact that there is such a thing as the Wild Card, and the next closest team in the AL would be the Yankees at 3.5 behind, would seem to take some of the pressure off, no?
Mariano Rivera blew his first save since the opening weekend of the season. Joe Torre, having worked the three relievers he trusts ("Joe's guys") so heavily that he's running out of options, has taken to using starting pitchers on their throw days in games. On Friday, it was Shaun Chacon; yesterday it was Aaron Small.
Roger Clemens dragged hia aging body and his sore back out to the mound and tossed eight innings of two-hit shutout at the Pirates. Clemens had that many hits himself, to raise his BAVG to .244. The BAVG against Clemens is .186. There can't be many pitchers who are more likely to get a hit than to allow one. Anyway, Houston couldn't score any runs off Kip Wells, and Jack Wilson homered off Brad Lidge in the ninth. Just another no-decision for Clemens.
AL
Tampa Bay (Kazmir 6-8, 4.22) at Cleveland (Lee 12-4, 4.26) 1:05
Texas (Benoit 3-1, 3.14) at New York (Chacon 1-8, 3.50) 1:05
Toronto (McGowan 1-0, 4.96) at Baltimore (Bedard 6-4, 2.93) 1:35
Chicago (Hernandez 8-5, 4.67) at Boston (Clement 11-3, 4.53) 2:05
Detroit (Johnson 7-9, 4.06 and Maroth 9-11, 4.89) at Kansas City (Wood 3-4, 3.82 and Lima 4-10, 6.84) 2:10
Minnesota (Silva 7-6, 3.42) at Oakland (Harden 9-5, 2.90) 4:05
Los Angeles (Lackey 10-4, 3.48) at Seattle (Meche 10-8, 5.12) 4:05
NL
Arizona (Vazquez 9-11, 4.40) at Atlanta (Hampton 4-2, 2.51) 1:05
San Francisco (Hennessey 4-4, 5.52) at Florida (Burnett 10-6, 3.12) 1:05
Cincinnati (Claussen 7-8, 4.53) at Milwaukee (Davis 9-8, 4.28) 2:05
Pittsburgh (Williams 9-8, 4.18) at Houston (Astacio 2-5, 6.75) 2:05
Washington (Patterson 6-3, 2.52) at Colorado (Acevedo 2-2, 5.85) 3:05
Philadelphia (Tejeda 2-2, 2.86) at San Diego (Park 9-5, 5.72) 4:05
New York (Martinez 12-4, 3.00) at Los Angeles (Penny 5-7, 3.50) 4:10
St.Louis (Morris 12-4, 3.65) at Chicago (Prior 7-4, 3.65) 8:05
