Baseball

The Phils were desperate for one of two things before they left San Francisco: a win or a day off. They got both—just in time to settle down for a nine inning nap.

After last night’s 9-1 slaughter by the Mets, Charlie took the podium. Usually he recites the team stats, but last night he shifted his hat with a nervous smile and said, “Hey, does anyone have the phone number for Pedro Martinez?”

As the calendar officially flipped over to May this morning, it became impossible not to reflect on what the past 30 days has entailed for baseball’s reigning “World” Champions.

April had its questions, its uncertainties, and its collective breath-holding, but as the smoke cleared from Major League Baseball’s most volatile month, New York still finds itself where it feels it belongs.

Cliff Lee made his season debut.  Ryan Zimmerman returned to the lineup.  Matt Kemp is in the midst of a major slump.  Let’s look at these stories and all the rest from yesterday’s games:

Pitchers

• Brandon Morrow (6.0 IP, 2 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 9 K, W)

Baseball is unlike any other American sport.

While its popularity has diminished and has been overtaken by the NFL, there is no denying its rich history.

Over the history of the game, many words have been used to describe it.

Again, there is no denying baseball is steeped with some of the best quotes ever.

Many are well known: Yogi's, "It's déjà vu all over again.", Ernie Banks', "Let's play two."

Others are not as well known. Here are just a few.

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Although it's extremely early, the 2010-2011 baseball regular season is well underway.

It's been a "New York, New York" beginning to this season, while the Yankees and Mets have gotten off to hot starts. The same can not be said for teams, such as the Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Dodgers, who've been struggling out of the gate.

Coming into the 2010 season, most Royals fans were wondering how much longer they'll have to wait until some of the organization's highly touted prospects will make their way to Kansas City.

The team has started the season with a 9-14 record, and is in a last-place tie with Chicago in the AL Central. And while the team's record may be discouraging to most Royals fans, this team could easily be five wins better if not for horrendous bullpen pitching through the first four weeks of the season.

Aaron Cook is a good pitcher.

Good is the only word to describe him. He will never be mistaken for great, but there are things that he does very well.

The thing that he does best is pound the strike zone with his sinking fastball. When he is winning, he throws that pitch close to 80 percent of the time. However, for whatever reason, Cook sometimes tries to be someone that he is not.

Justin Morneau made a successful return to the lineup on Friday with his fifth homer of the season.  Morneau had missed a couple of games with some back trouble but felt good enough to go tonight and made the most of it. 

It may have been his only hit, but as a Morneau owner, I will take it.  For the season, he is now batting a whopping .351 with those five homers and 17 RBI.  

The Baltimore Orioles.

You need another Tampa Bay Rays 2008 season for them to actually have a chance, especially in the AL East with the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, and the improving Blue Jays.

Their offense is pretty solid with Miguel Tejada, Nick Markakis, Matt Wieters, and Adam Jones.

But it's their pitching staff that's screwing them up.

Kevin Millwood was acquired this past offseason to be the No. 1 guy in the rotation along with Jeremy Guthrie and Brian Matusz.

Though so far, Matusz is the only one with a win in the starting rotation.

Sigh.

That was rough, wasn't it?

Count the layers of the L-sandwich: W-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-W.

After a stretch of futility of nonagonal proportions (bad geometry joke), the Atlanta Braves scratched out a win (and their first save in 20 games) Friday night in Atlanta as Billy Wagner induced a double-play to Houston clean-up hitter Carlos Lee.

Timely offense, superb pitching, and mostly clean fielding (we'll forgive J-Hey's boot in right field) netted the 'Bravos' what had so eluded them for over a week.