NL East

Gotta love Keith Hernandez.

Whether he is snorting lines, allegedly, all the way to the World Series, putting down women for having the audacity to be in a major league dugout, or simply asking you to help him move too early in your friendship, he is certainly an interesting character.

Here is a clip from the Mets 5-4 victory over the San Francisco Giants last Saturday that shows he was caught sleeping.

According to Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork , the Mets have designated outfielder/pinch hitter Frank Catalanotto for assignment and have promoted outfielder/first baseman Chris Carter to take his spot on the roster.

Catalanotto, 36, has served primarily as a pinch hitter off the bench, but has had a truly putrid season putting up a .160 batting average, a .192 OBP, and a .200 SLG.

As we will do each week throughout the season, we will today take a look at Accuscore's playoff forecaster to see how the previous weeks games influenced the division's playoff race. The Nationals tremendously improved their chances to make the playoffs last week as the club went 4-2.

With this their projected playoff chances jumped from 10.5 percent to 23.8 percent. Disappointingly, their chance to win the division only grew 4 percent to 10.1 percent as the Phillies continue to play great baseball.

There are certain batters you associate with strike outs. Adam Dunn comes to mind. So does Mark Reynolds.

One guy you don’t normally think of when it comes to strikeouts is New York Mets’ 3B David Wright. But now perhaps we should.

Wright is striking out at a prolific rate in 2010.

Before we get to what is going on with Wright in 2010, we have to first go back to 2009 to see the start of Wright’s increased strikeout rate. Four the first four years of Wright’s career, he struck out about 19 percent of the time every year.

After his previous start that yielded six runs and five walks to the Atlanta Braves in 5.1 innings, many thought that Washington Nationals rookie starter Luis Atilano may be starting to unravel.

He shut those detractors up last night, however, as he threw 5.1 shutout innings helping the Nats topple the New York Mets to improve to second place in the National League East.

Deception was the key to Atilano's success Monday night, as young right-hander improved to 3-0 by earning the win on his 25th birthday.

According to Howard Eskin and his brand new Twitter feed, the Phillies are seriously considering trading Shane Victorino in order to free up some money to resign Jayson Werth.

It makes sense on the surface, as finding a way to keep Werth has to be on top of Ruben Amaro's to-do list, and trading Victorino would free up $7.5 million next year. The Phils would then just insert Dominic Brown to play either center or right field, depending on where they feel he's best suited, and move on from there.

Jamie Moyer, at 47 years old, became the oldest player in the history of baseball to pitch a complete game shutout, beating the Braves 7-0.

Washington Nationals top prospect Stephen Strasburg successfully completed his first Triple-A start Friday night in front of a sold-out Syracuse Chiefs crowd.

The 21-year-old simply dominated the Gwinnett Braves on the mound, and even drove in two runs at the plate. Dave Shenin wrote in Nationals Journal:

When the Chicago Cubs called up 20-year-old shortstop Starlin Castro from Double-A Tennessee early yesterday afternoon, many had their doubts as to whether or not the Cubs were making the right move.

It took about 45 minutes into his major league debut to erase any doubts that the Cubs made the right move.

In his first major league at-bat, Castro took a hanging curveball from Cincinnati Reds’ starter Homer Bailey and deposited it into the right field stands for his first major league hit and obviously his first major league home run.