Game Recap

One at-bat into his Braves career, long-time minor-leaguer Brooks Conrad made lots of fans in Atlanta, as his three-run, pinch-hit blast led the Braves to a 9-8 win over Washington on Friday night.

The Braves had been pitching very well lately, but Kenshin Kawakami's first start since taking a liner off his neck was rather forgettable.

He surrendered runs in each of the first three innings, including the first hit and RBI of Washington starter Ross Detwiler's career.

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Tonight, the Cardinals started the holiday weekend off with a bang.

The Los Angeles Dodgers welcomed Manny Ramirez back into the starting lineup, at a sold-out Petco Park in San Diego.

Dodger fans made the trip south en masse, at times out-vocalizing the home town Padre fans, to welcome back their slugging outfielder from his 50-game banishment for violating baseball's PED rules.

In his first at bat, Manny drew a walk in the middle of a Dodger five-run outburst, which pretty much ended the game as soon as it started.

CINCINNATI—Some losses are easy to take. Some are harder than others. Then you have the true heart breakers. The final stage of losses are the ones that make you sick—literally, like head over the toilet sick.

Friday night's Cincinnati loss to St. Louis falls into the latter category.

Homer Bailey started for the Reds and had his best outing in the three years that the team has been shuffling him up and down between the big club and the minors.

For something completely different today, I decided to watch the Toronto Blue Jays play baseball. How unlike me.

The Jays took on the New York Yankees in the Bronx, and I settled into my couch and took notes. For your reading pleasure, I have put them in chronological order. Enjoy!

Pregame

-The sky looks angry today. So does my cat.

-A.J. Burnett pitches for the Yankees and Brian Tallet goes for the Blue Jays.

Starting off the holiday weekend on the right note, the New York Yankees defeated the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday afternoon by a score of 4-2.

In the fifth inning, the Blue Jays beat themselves, making two crucial mistakes.

It was gut check time for the Red Sox on Wednesday at Baltimore.

They were coming off an embarrassing loss that featured the Sox bulletproof bullpen to blow a nine run lead.

Piled on top of that was the fact that the Sox infielders thought there were three outs in the eighth inning and ran into the dugout.

Those of us that were busy composing the official obituary for the postseason prospects of the St. Louis Cardinals have spent the last two games scratching our heads and eating our words. It seems pretty clear that we have severely underestimated the possible effectiveness of this baseball team.

The Yankees haven't trailed in a ballgame since the sixth inning of last Wednesday's contest against the Braves.  That's a span of 58 innings.

Andy Pettitte made sure that streak would continue until at least Thursday.

The lefty gave up just two runs on six hits and one walk through seven innings to earn his team-leading eighth victory of the season, as the Yanks beat Seattle 4-2 for their seventh consecutive win.

On Wednesday night, the Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-1 behind seven strong innings from rookie Randy Wells.

Derrek Lee hit a two-run homer in the victory to win the three-game series in Pittsburgh.

But the news from the Steel City wasn't Lee going yard, or Wells dominating another team.

It was Lou Piniella getting ejected and showing emotion for the first time in what feels like a year.

In the sixth inning, on a bang-bang play that appeared to have been blown by the first-base umpire, Piniella left the dugout to argue that Wells was safe.