Friday, June 04, 2004

NL Central roundup

Brad Wilkerson showed some power tonight and les Expos stopped the Reds in Cincinnati. Dunn hit his fifteenth homer. The top of the lineup did nothing and the Reds continued their throw-strikes pitching philosophy, only walking two in the whole game.

The Cards just beat down Houston. The Cardinals are the best team in the league right now. (Always say that after your team gets swept.) Biggio had a nice game but Bagwell brought only a single and Berkman's lights were out. Matt Morris was not so good but Wade Miller was worse. They have to be concerned about him getting hit like this game after game after game. That win puts St. Louis one game back of Cincinnati.

The Brewers are out on the West Coast with a slim lead after four. It's Victor Santos against the Tank. Tankersley is an interesting story. When he came up with the Pads the first time - was it last year? - he couldn't pitch out of a jam and a number of veteran hitters called out the minor-league system for padding the stats of the minor-league pitchers. The Padres had some kind of rule where a pitcher came out of the game as soon as he gave up so many runs. They didn't want anyone getting shelled. This kept the truly disastrous outings off their resume and made everyone, including Tankersley, look like a minor-league stud to guys who look at stats and feel qualified to proclaim bold things about a player based on the stats alone. I'm not saying it's a bad way to bring up a pitcher. It might be a good way. It had to be tough for Tank, however, to know that his teammates thought the front office had trumped up his resume.

You know what happened with the Cubs and the Pirates. The Cubs are one game over .500, and the Pirates are six and a half games out of first place.

I like the Benson vs. Zambrano matchup tomorrow. One of these days the Pirates are going to do more than rattle Zambrano's cage. Of all the Cubs pitchers, Zambrano is the guy I'd most like to see the Bucs score and score and score against.

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