The Nationals just rallied to beat the Marlins in the ninth and proceeded to run around screaming like they had just won the World Series. Dmitri Young, who had the game winning hit, was parading around with his arms raised, howling in glory, demanding the fans to cheer louder. Surreal.

The Dodgers have upped parking costs to $18 to support a losing club.

The new owner of Tribune Media called Wrigley Field the "old maid", simply because he is incapable of expanding it's surrounding environment with high rise condos.

Arte Moreno says "no way" to the possibility of an A-Rod trade to the Angels, simply because he cannot fathom paying so much money to a single player.

The Cards are winless.

Johnny Damon is injured.... with a sore calf. Dirtbag!!!

And LEON'S Getting LAAARRRRGGGGEEER!

Since I've been out of commission for a few days, can anybody fill me in on the top MLB news items since say, Wednesday?

Besides the weather cancellations, that is.

For once Yankee fans cheered for A-Rod. Gaming winning walk-off Grand Slam will do that for you. A homer that wasn't enough yesterday gives him 4 on the season.

Your boy Peavy gave up his first run, and like always the Pad's didn't give him run support until it was too late. They scored in the 10th for the 2-1 win.

Johan Santana is back in his rhythm, giving up one hit through 7 against the White Sox.

Sammy Sosa hit his first HR of the season. "I love to hit the beisbol"

Interesting stat: The Braves have scored 25 runs in 6 games. They have also allowed 25 runs. What's intersting about it? At 5-1 they have the best record in baseball. Winning close games and losing one game by 10 runs will do that for you.

Ok, through 7 games A-Rod has 6 HR and 17 RBI. Yankee fans love him right now. Let's say he hits 55 HR before September, with 150 RBI. Tehn he cools off in September/October and only has 3-4 more home runs and the Yankees lose in the first round. He hits .182 in that playoff series. How much crap does he take from Yankees fans?

A hell of a lot. They'd want him gone, I'm sure.

Dice-K vs. Ichiro and Felix Hernandez tonight should be a good one.

King Felix is nasty. Of the first 50 batters he faced, only 4 have hit one of his pitches to the outfield. That is beyond sick.

A-Rod needs to do SOMETHING in the post season. Look at Dave Winfield. Steinbrenner nicknamed him "Mr May", and all it took was a ground ball that went over the third base bag, drove in some runs, and he was the Toast of the Town, even though his post season numbers previous to that were only slightly better than Mr Ed's.
But unless A-Rod can even do that, he could hit 400 homers during the season, and be made the scapegoat should the Yankess tank it this post season**
**Moot point: Yankees and A-Rod are going to be booking tee times from October 4th on.

King Felix is nasty. Of the first 50 batters he faced, only 4 have hit one of his pitches to the outfield. That is beyond sick.

Sounds like he had a productive off-season. Last season had some growing pains for him. I think a number of the greats actually benefit from getting roughed up a bit when they're younger. Bonderman could be an example of that if his breaking ball is effective. Felix could obviously be amazing, but I wonder if there's a difference between guys that have a season like he had last year vs guys like Francisco Liriano whose first full season was 12-3, compared to Felix at 12-14 (Liriano's injury could mess this up). I think there are very few examples of guys like Johan Santana, who has never lost more than 7 decisions in any season. However, Santana is an interesting situation since he's only been a fulltime starter for 3 full seasons. It would be nice to see Ledezma's career be similar to a poor man's Santana.

Sheffield trade looks a bit better now, even if he isn't hitting yet.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ny-spynotes205179094apr20,0,4212829.story?coll=ny-baseball-headlines


Sanchez is out for season

BY KAT O'BRIEN AND ANTHONY RIEBER
kat.obrien@newsday.com; anthony.rieber@newsday.com
April 20, 2007

Yet another Yankees pitcher has gotten bad news on the injury front. Righthander Humberto Sanchez underwent Tommy John surgery Tuesday. Dr. James Andrews performed the operation.

Mark Newman, Yankees vice president of baseball operations, said, "It's always disappointing to a degree, but these guys come back from this. It's part of the business. We've got a great rehab program, and great rehab people."

Sanchez missed much of spring training with pain in his right forearm and elbow. He resumed throwing in late March and the Yankees had hoped he could pitch in the coming weeks. "He had elbow reconstruction surgery," general manager Brian Cashman said yesterday. "So that's a year [he'll be out]."

The Yankees acquired Sanchez, 23, from the Tigers with two other minor-league pitchers for Gary Sheffield in November. Sanchez spent more than six weeks on the disabled list late last season with right elbow inflammation.

Check out the defensive shift employed by Joe Maddon against Travis Hafner:

http://images.wikia.com/openserving/sports/images/thumb/a/a1/Pronkshift.jpg/800px-Pronkshift.jpg
http://www.armchairgm.com/index.php?title=The_Pronk_Shift

The entire left side of the infield is open.

^A well placed bunt gets you a double.

That's incredible.

How did it work out?

Hafner went 1-4 with with a HR and a walk. All three outs were flyballs to the outfield.

Zack Greinke just plunked Torii Hunter square in the jaw and then two batters later nailed Jason Bartlett Square in the back. He's still in there, hopefully he can knock Joe Mauer out for the season somehow.

You guys following the Gary Thorne/Curt Schilling bloody sock -gate?

Personally, I'll take Gary Thorne's word over Doug Mirabelli or especially over Schilling's any day.

Ok, I'm a little late commenting on the defensive shift, but how in the world do you not find a way to slap the ball into play somewhere on the ground to the opposite field? You're a professional hitter! Swing early and cutting down. Go 4 for 4 and open up the outfield for future games.

As for Greinke, he's probably ticked about the whole gift of chamagne thing, which I'm assuming you've all heard about. Crazy rule, but I say you can only change a rule after the fact, Hunter is gone for 3 years. Otherwise it sets a precedent for people breaking rules and arguing that the league doesn't even enforce it's current rules. I'm half kidding, but really someone in the commisioners office should be going through the rulebook making sure all are very clear in language so things like this don't happen again.

What's the champagne thing?

The champagne thing is this -
Recently Torii Hunter sent 4 bottles of Dom Perignione (probably the worst spelling ever) to the Royals as a thanks for sweeping the Tigers at the end of last season, allowing the Twins to win the division.
Well, there's an old rule that says any player giving a gift to another team or another team's player(s) as incentive or reward for the outcome of a game or games will be suspended for 3 years.
It probably dates back to days of low salaries and rampant crooked behavior early on in the games history, but it's a rule nonetheless.
When the Royals discovered the issue they sent back the unopened bottles, but it's possible there will be a fine for Hunter for giving the gift and one to the Royals for initially accepting it. It's highly unlikely that the league will actually enforce the 3 year ban, which would likely end Hunters career, forcing him into retirement, boradcasting and/or Japanese ball. While he is only 31, it would be difficult to stay in the necessary shape for 3 years to resume a highly productive career. It's a moot point since the Commisioner's office will fold and not enforce its rule.

Another dead Cardinals pitcher.

Damn.

The nearly 49 year-old* Julio Franco is playing 3B for the Mets today.


*He really could be 59, who knows?

Rodney's on the DL now, we recalled Miner to take his place. Our bullpen's looking SHAAAADY, we need Ledezma to step it up.

Anybody see A-Rod last night in the 9th? Classic.

2 Outs, Matsui on Third, A-Rod on first. Posada pops it up to third, A-rod comes around second heading into third and yells "I got it" at the Jays third baseman as he passes him. The third baseman backs off, the pop-up drops in, everybody's safe. Straight out of little league.

Yeah, that was hilarious. Though on sportscenter they wouldn't say what A-Rod actually yelled.