Looks Like... Homers

A quick peek at the AL West and we are reminded of how long the season is. Texas' sprint out of the gate has turned into a slow trot and a 1 1/2 game deficit to the steady eddie LA Angels. The White Sox were the Rangers' best friend in last night's tilt when they snuck past the Angels after falling behind by 3 runs.

Adam Dunn put the big bop on the ball and racked up 4 hits including a Home Run to fuel the Sox rally.

Nearly the same story exists over in the NL West where those Falling Rockies were caught on Wednesday behind the 5th straight W of the San Francisco Giants.

Ironically, the Giants also rallied from a 3 run deficit to sneak past the D'Backs. Andres Torres provided the spark with a couple of timely knocks including a go ahead RBI double to bring SF even in the standings with Colorado.

Speaking of go ahead doubles that won games.. Hunter Pence.. c'mon.. this guy is en fuego in Houston. Not only did he extend the longest active hitting streak in the NL (15) with an early hit, he one-upped it with a clutch Walk Off double into the right field corner that scored his not so fleet footed catcher from first base without a throw.

Pence has raised his average to .307 during the streak and now sits 2nd in the Majors with 31 RBIs, one behind Lance Berkman and Ryan Howard. Nice.

Check out Adam Jones over in Baltimore. This guy is a spark plug and fun to watch. The O's are hanging in there in the East and won a tight one yesterday behind Adam's antics. His 4 for 4 day included his first triple of the season and led the O's to a 6-4 win over Seattle. Jones is hitting a solid .286 on the year.

Remember my post about the kid KC was bringing up for his MLB debut, Eric Hosmer? Well, after getting his toes in the water with a couple of games. . the kid was in THE spotlight last night when KC visited Yankee Stadium. Ok, not only was every friend and family member present to watch the "event".. the kid was penciled in as the no. 3 hitter in the lineup! Are you serious?

So, what does he do... ? Not much, just belted out the first HR of his career (and what a swing), scored what looked like the game winner in the 10th (until NY tied it), then.. just for giggles.. he won the YH with a sac fly in the 11th that scored the winning run from 3rd. Nice job of hitting Eric!

Nomar No Mas!

Hold on there Buckaroo! Take a look at the NL Central standings and you may be just a tad surprised at where the Bucs are sitting. Yep, you read that right... Pittsburgh is over .500 this late in May! Last time that happened was nearly 7 years ago. Now, we won't go into the "how" in this particular instance because that's a mighty touchy subject to the Dodgers and.. the Umpires.. and, probably MLB at this time. But, suffice it to say the Bucs won a close game in the late innings with a nifty little hit and run that scored the winning run from first base. That's baseball. Well done Bucs!

Slide on over to the AL Central and you may be just as surprised to see where the ChiSox are sitting... uh, ya... nearly in the cellar and 8 games under .500 for the year. Yikes. But, hey.. it's early ; )

Part of the reason is the offense only has one player hitting over .300 on the year. Yesterday it was Carlos Quentin trying to up his average a few points by stroking out 3 hits, including a HR and 5 RBIs to lead the Sox over the Angels in a shutout. Another few games like that and Carlos might be able to sneak back to .300 on the year. He does have 23 RBIs to rank near the top of the league.

Detroit is sitting directly on that .500 mark at 18-18 thanks to V-Mart, Victor Martinez who is doing his best to fit in with the Tigers. Victor had a big 3 hit day to up his average to .293 on the season. He posted an HR and 3 RBI outing to help Detroit's run away win over the Blue Jays. The Tigers are 3 games back in the Central and trail both KC and those 22-11 Indians.

All in all though, not alot of fireworks in Monday's league action. So, let's look back to 1934 and see if something special happened at the plate. Hmm.. yup, You might recognize the name Lou Gehrig.

Well, he had himself quite a day 77 years ago. Lou was ailing and tired after 5 innings and took himself out of the game. But, by that time.. he had already smoked 2 Home Runs and rapped out two doubles that gave him 7 RBIs as the Yankees pasted the White Sox. Yea, I'd be tired too. Way to go Lou but.. ya ain't getting the YH.

Because... a dozen years ago a fella named Nomar Garciaparra had himself one heck of a day. Nomar racked up 10 RBIs on the strength of two Grand Slams and a two run HR. Wow! No Mas! No Mas!

Hang Five!

Kind of a quirky thing happened yesterday in the American League games when every single tilt featured at least one of the teams scoring 5 runs. Some of those were winners and some of those were losers. But.. each and every game had a team scoring 5. Kinda funky huh. Imagine if that would have happened on Cinco de Mayo ; )

Kudos to Andre Ethier who somehow shook off his disappointment of losing the hit streak on Saturday by blasting a Home Run in the LA Dodgers win over the Mets. His two hits helped him maintain an incredibly lofty .371 batting average, good for third in the League. I know Andre deflects any personal accomplishments in favor of a team win, but at some point ya gotta acccept your props.

Ok, back to the number 5. How about the Pirates getting some late fireworks to knock off Houston 5-4. Trailing 4-2 in the bottom half of the 8th inning it was up to Ryan Doumit with a couple of ducks on the pond. A hit would have gotten them a touch closer but Ryan went one better and simply pounded the ball over the wall for a 3 run bomb. All Houston could do was look up at that darn 5 on the board.

Oh Captain, My Captain! Anybody ever see the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets' Society when the students stand on their desks in honor of "the Captain"? Well, the Yankees were standing on the top step of the dugout in Arlington and they may as well have been chanting "Oh Captain, My Captain" to Derek Jeter. All he did is smoke the ball his first four times at the plate to erase a 4-0 Texas lead. The Clipper Captain homered twice and drove in 3 as the Yankees bombed Texas with '5' Home Runs! Thats weird huh?

Gabby Sanchez had a terrific game yesterday as the Marlins put a rompin on tthe Nats 8-0. The Fish are just two games behind the Phightins in the NL East and part of the reason is guys like Sanchez picking up the massive slack in the line left by their multi billion dollar flop - Hanley Ramirez. Gabby powered out a huge Home Run and knocked in 3 Ribs with his 4 for 4 day at the dish. Just for the heck of it, he scored 3 times as well. Nice Gabby.. but, ya gotta have some kinda 5 to take down the YH on a Big 5 kinda day like Mother's Day. Gimme 5 dude!

So, let's hand it to the White Sox hitter that sparked a rally in the 10th inning of a 2-2 tie. Yup, Paul Konerko notched his '5th' hit of the day and started a 3 run rally that ultimately hung up the last 5 of the day in the quirky Mother's Day AL tilts. I know, his 5 hits didn't really accomplish much all day when it comes to production.. except that last hit did carry with it the eventual winning run. I only wish Paul was wearing number 5 on his back ; )

and then there were none..

Look at those San Francisco Bay teams playin walk off games like they're the norm. San Fran's 2nd Walk Off winner in as many nights has them sneaking up on the Rockies in the NL West. The Giants' little utility man extraordinaire (Mike Fontenot) lofted a deeep sac fly in the bottom of the 9th to score Aaron Rowand and send the Rocks falling to their third loss in a row. They're hanging on to a two game lead in the West.

Across the Bay... (and a few thousand miles more ; ).. in KC, the A's were in a Walk Off battle of their own, Again! Problem is, they were in Kansas City and falling victim to a resurgent Royals team that is learning how to win games late. In a near copycat of events, the Royals got a runner on 3rd with less than two outs in the bottom of the 9th and waited for someone to be the hero. Mike Aviles stepped up and said "I'll be that guy!" while lofting a sweet little sacrifice fly to score the Walk Off win and give KC another boost of confidence in 2011. The Royals are a real threat in the Central.

Meanwhile in Arlington, the Rangers and the Yankees were going at each other tooth and nail. Texas jumped out to a fast start. Michael Young helped by carding a Home Run in the 1st off NY's new "old thing" Bartolo Colon. Then, they jumped on him again in the 2nd putting up 4 more on the speed of Julio Borbon's two run triple.

But, the Yanks arent' the Yanks for nothin and by the bottom of the 6th it was all back to square in a 5-5 tie. Which is when we get to see something I love a player to show off.. versatility at the plate.

Fresh off his triple earlier in the game, Julio laid down a beautiful bunt to squeeze the air out of New York and give the Rangers that much needed W at home.

I guess you already know Andre Ethier's 30 game hit streak came to a screeching halt last night in New York. The heat of that city's media is just hard to fathom. The very humble Andre had a tough time talking about his accomplishments while his team slid further and further into a hole in the NL West. That didn't really mesh too well for a succesful outcome.

You wonder how Joltin Joe did it back in 1941. Well, lets see.. yes, Joe DiMaggio was a humble guy, but in a very different way. Yes, alot of media in New York even in 1941.. but.. c'mon. Just a slight difference in today's app driven society. Couple that with the fact that nearly every game he faced one.. possibly two pitchers for the entire game.

Oh, and the Yankees were kicking some serious behind at the time. Ya, Joe.. you had the right ingredients thats for certain. We're gonna hand you the YH.