- In the fourth inning Wednesday night, Bruce Froemming forgot the count and rang up Josh Barfield on a second strike.
- Is it merely a coincidence that Curt Schilling’s season to this point can be divided into two halves, the four starts before he hurled 133 pitches at Cleveland and the four following that night? Schilling was 4-0 with a 1.61 ERA before that April night at Jacobs Field. He is 1-2 with a 6.20 ERA in his four starts afterward. He allowed 17 hits (two of them homers) in 28 innings through four starts. He’s allowed 31 hits (five of them homers) in 24 2/3 innings covering his last four games.
- In the unlikely case that you weren’t already convinced the world has become too litigious, Michael Cohn has sued the Los Angeles Angels because he didn’t get a Mother’s Day gift from the team last year. The sex and age discrimination lawsuit contends that every male over the age of 18 and every non-adult fan who attended the Mother’s Day game at Angel Stadium of Anaheim is entitled to $4,000 to compensate for the discrimination inherent in a tote-bag giveaway targeted at women age 18 or older.
- The Schaumburg (Illinois) Flyers of the independent Northern League recently traded pitcher Nigel Thatch to the Fullerton (Calif.) Flyers of the independent Golden State League for 60 cases of Budweiser. Thatch, whose 2005 record was 0-3 with 10.22 ERA in seven games, is known not for his pitching skills but for his promotional abilities. He appears as the cocky athlete Leon in several Budweiser commercials.
- Albert Pujols is on pace to hit 83 homers and drive in 206 runs, but National League managers keep pitching to him.
- The Kansas City Royals have been outscored 115-46 on the road this year.
- Something is clearly wrong with Randy Johnson.
- Is Brad Lidge going to join the list of closers who never fully recovered from rough October moments (Mark Wohlers, John Rocker Byung-Hyun Kim, etc.)? I say no, but he might want to think about retiring some batters sooner rather than later.
- Going into Sunday, the Colorado Rockies had yet to lose a road series this season.
- Research by Retrosheet.org, which holds the play-by-play of baseball games back as far as 1957, has revealed that there were only five 1-0 games decided by a balk in 49 years before Mariners left-hander Jamie Moyer added a sixth Wednesday.
- I traded Neal Cotts for Corey Patterson straight up earlier this year; I’m half-expecting Five-O to show up at my door any day now and arrest me for that robbery.
- Went to the SF Giants game yesterday and although Barry didn’t come through, that was a sweet comeback.
- Larry Brown to be bought out of contract by the Knicks? Not much news could make me any sadder. I really wanted that comedy tour to continue for as long as possible.
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