Bah. The Dodgers are playing the freaking Padres and can’t gain an inch against the Giants. Don’t feel bad…the gods treat us fans as mere playthings.
Having JZ as the number 2 guy would be a step up for most teams. The only difference between Strasburg, Gio, and Zimmerman’s results this season has been run support.
Don’t forget Lannan.
I agree on Detwiler, he just still seems a little uncomfortable out there and takes too long to settle in.
I’m still scratching my head about two more starts for Strasburg. His next two turns in the rotation are tomorrow night (at home against the Marlins) and next Wednesday (at the Mets).
I can understand the logic of one final start at home, to give the fans a chance to cheer for him one last time this season. But why the road start the following week? All that will do is inflate his stats a bit. I just don’t get it.
Well, two more starts gets them farther into the month and gives the rest of the pitching staff a little more time to get ready for the readjustment. I assume the Nats timed Lannan’s arrival to coincide with Stras’ shutdown schedule.
I’m going to Friday’s game and my company just gave me tix to the Saturday game (Ryan Z bobblehead giveaway day).
I’ll be at the game Wednesday, RTFirefly, so ixnay on the utdownshay.
Yes, you do. It’s all your fault…and obviously has nothing to do with me whatsoever.
Yes, I’d like to thank the Dodgers for sucking every bit as badly as the Giants the past couple of days. I would have loved it if we could have taken advantage of those losses and widened the gap a bit, but I suppose I could be content with playing ‘even steven’ from this point out.
Right now I comfort myself with the knowledge that we’ll still be in first place come next week, no matter what happens…
A fun little stat. How bad have the Houston Astros been?
Well, they’ve won 42 games as of this writing.
Their New York-Penn League affiliate, the Tri-City Valley Cats? They’ve won 51 games.
No big deal, right? Well, except that the Valley Cats play in a short-season league that didn’t begin play till June 18. By which time the Astros had already played *66 *games.
Ouch.
Then let the Valley Cats play the Reds this upcoming series!
Huge series began at Camden Yards tonight, and the Orioles join the Yankees on top of the division again after a 10-6 win.
Mark Reynolds is on fire right now. 8 home runs over his last 7 games, including three 2-homer games in a week against the Yankees. The Orioles hit 6 homers tonight, and 9 of their 10 runs came on the long ball.
I was cringing when the Yankees came back from 6-1 down in the top of the 8th to tie it up, but Baltimore came straight back with 4 in the bottom of the inning to win the game.
Awesome stuff!
Can’t believe the Yanks and O’s are playing for the AL East lead tomorrow night!
Meanwhile, in the senior circuit, the Nats completed a 4-game sweep of the Cubs, and the Braves won a 1-0 pitching duel with the Rockies, keeping pace but running out of time.
Overall, though, a quiet night in MLB,some big talktalk going on or something, somewhere. 
The Orioles schedule the rest of the way out isn’t going to do them any favors, meanwhile the Yanks have it pretty easy, schedule-wise. Should be interesting to follow.
Yeah, I flipped between baseball and politics all night. Finally, I got tired of all the nasty infighting and just stayed with the politics.
J.A. Happ, who the Blue Jays acquired in a desperate attempt to find a starter to fill in for all the starting pitchers who went out for the season with injuries, broke his foot and is out for the season with an injury.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays are playing the Red Sox this weekend. We’ll now find out what happens when a stoppable force meets a movable object.
Ugh. Well, you can’t have them all, even against a AAA team. Aroldis Chapman blows his first save since June 24th (???) and gives up three in the ninth to let the Sinking Fastros win. Ugh,
The Pittsburgh Pirates, at one point in tonight’s game, trailed 12-0, had one hit, and had committed seven errors.
And they were playing the Cubs, for crying out loud. Does it get any worse?
Giants 5, Dodgers 2.
One down, two to go 
There have been a lot of articles written by “experts” that the Orioles are going to fall back to mediocrity any day now. Speaking as a Yankees fan, can someone remind the Baltimore players? They didn’t get the memo.
Oh, and Buck Showalter is a sorcerer.