Game Recap

Jeff Fulchino picked up his first career win and Humberto Quintero went 3-for-4 as the Houston Astros defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4 in a battle of NL Central cellar dwellers.

The Astros (25-30) won their third series in a row and seventh of their last 10. Houston is a half game behind Pittsburgh for fifth in the division. The Astros went 5-2 on their home stand this week.

The New York Yankees once again put on a late-inning show on Sunday afternoon.

Down 3-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yanks batted around and scored three runs against the Tampa Bay Rays, going on to beat them by a score of 4-3.

He had no problems on Sunday, giving up only two runs on four hits through eight innings in the Rockies 7-2 victory.

The Mets did exactly what they needed to do today, as they pummeled the Nationals by the score of 7-0. They immediately produced out of the box, and they were assisted by a couple of shotty plays by the Nationals’ defense. Livan Hernandez was excellent in his seven shutout innings, and the Mets tacked on.

This was certainly the statement that they needed to make with the Phillies coming into town on Tuesday.

Look, it's not as if luck has gone the Cubs way over the years. In fact, it might be fair to say that lady luck has conspired against the North Siders in the form of black cats, Gatorade-soaked gloves and Steve Bartman.

So it should be no surprise to see a couple of close, but critical umpire calls go against the Cubs in the early part of a 4-3 loss to the Reds at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.

What was the strength of last year's World Championship team is now the weakest link on the team.

Brad Lidge.

He was perfect in 2008.

With the bases loaded in the sixth inning and Carlos Lee facing Bucs reliever Edwin Meek with two outs, Meek tossed Lee a curveball.

It was, according to the venerable Astros' play-by-play announcer Bill Brown, supposed to be a curveball outside. But this one floated up and in the zone. Lee belted a grand slam to help starter Mike Hampton as the Astros went on to win, 9-1.

First, I just have to say how annoying it is the DVR stops at a certain time instead of going until the game is over. You'd think they could solve that problem.

As for the game—it was a beauty—especially since my wife is a Red Sox fan. When someone you love is a fan of a team you just beat, it makes winning that much better.

Kevin Millwood came out firing tonight, and it showed right until he left the game. He was consistently getting his fastball up to 93 mph, and he had some pretty wicked curveballs.

Hunter Pence reminds me of one of my favorite Jerry Reed songs: When You're Hot, You're Hot.

In last night's 6-4 win over the Colorado Rockies, the Houston Astros' Pence went 4-5 with a double, home run, and three RBI. He's currently hitting .346. Pence should receive All-Star consideration, but alas, since it's a popularity contest (i.e., fan-voted), as of May 26th he wasn't even in the top 15 outfielders. (Manny Ramirez, who's serving a 50-game suspension for a drug violation, was in fourth place).

Chien-Ming Wang gave up five runs in 4.2 innings in his return to the Yankees' rotation, but the Bombers overcame a 5-1 deficit to beat the Texas Rangers 8-6 thanks to big hits by Mark Teixeira and Melky Cabrera and 4.1 solid innings of relief by the bullpen.

Wang looked sharp through the first two frames of his first start since April 18, but things unraveled over the next three innings as New York fell behind by four runs.