Hit & Run: Bah, Why Do I Bother?

The Mets fell to 3 games back in the NL East, after yesterday’s 4-2 loss to the Padres.  Yeah, it’s only 3 games, but they’re not playing so hot anymore.  (Never mind that John Maine and Billy Wagner are both on the DL.  I swear, a few days ago I was looking at the 40-man roster, and it looks like an infirmary patient list.) They only scored two runs against Cha Seung Baek, who is 2-0 against the Mets this season.  David Wright not only committed a baserunning error in the 5th inning – getting doubled off first after Carlos Beltran’s fly ball to right field – but also committed a costly error that allowed the Pads to score the winning run.  Really don’t want to look at their hellish mistakes, so we get to look at Jose Reyes, who by the way, married his long-time girlfriend – and mother of two kids – a couple of weeks ago.

The Phillies, meanwhile, handled their business against the Marlins, defeating them by a score of 5-0.  Ryan Howard homered.  He has 31 for the season, to go with 96 RBIs, all while batting .241 – which is less than his weight! The Phillies are 2.5 games ahead of the Marlins.

Sean Avery threw out the first pitch for the Yankees-Rangers game.  Guess he proved to be the Yankees’ lucky charm, because they ended with the victory, 5-2.  Howevah, Joba Chamberlain, arguably their best pitcher lately, went to visit with the friendly Dr. James Andrews and has been placed on the 15-day DL.  Never good news.

The Rays walked off with a 10-7 win, courtesy of a Carlos Pena 3-run home run.  That’s always fun.  The Indians gave up 6 runs to the Rays in the bottom of the 9th.

The Cubs dismantled the Astros, 11-4, scoring 8 runs in the 3rd inning off Brandon Backe.  (See, Mets, it’s not that hard!) Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano and Mark De Rosa had home runs in support of the Cubs and Jason Marquis, who got his 7th win of the season.

The Pirates beat the Diamondbacks, 2-0, on the force of Jeff Karstens’ Pirates debut.  The recently acquired pitcher – one of those traded from the Yankees to the Pirates for Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte – had a perfect game going through the first 7 2/3 innings, until Chris Young’s double broke it up in the 8th inning. Good job.

I’ll finish pretty randomly:

That body is just too yum to not share with the rest of y’all.  That’s French swimmer Alain Bernard.  I’m sure our more Olympics-knowledgeable Ladies… can share more about him.