Hitmen wack Vancouver

Vancouver was slapped around by the Hired Hitmen over the weekend. In game one, Alex Rodriguez drove in five runs to lead Hillsborough to a 16-5 victory. Then in game two, Ryan Howard hit two homers and drove in three runs and Russell Martin hit his first homer of the year and also drove in three runs, leading the Hitmen to a 13-7 victory. Then in game three, Carlos Lee unloaded on Vancouver, driving in six runs. Ryan Howard was also 4-4 in the game with his 38th homer of the year and Robinson Cano was 5-6 with two doubles. None of the Vancouver starters made it out of the third inning. Hillsborough outscored Vancouver in the three games 47-14. Hillsborough had won seven in a row at that point to even their record at 46-46 before dropping a game to Arkansas later on Sunday. Hillsborough is now only two games back of Vancouver in sixth in the overall standings. Vancouver shuffled up their pen after the losses, cutting Chris Britton and Joe Beimel and sending Chad Gaudin to AAA. Vancouver is expecting Brian Sweeney to come off the DL in time for Thursday's game.

New Jersey's Mike Piazza hit his 400th career home run off Tom Glavine yesterday in a 7-4 victory for Team Buddah. Piazza is only the seventh player to reach the milestone and the third to do it this year (Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome were the other two).

Randy Johnson moved closer to 3000 strikeouts yesterday. Now at 2986 for his career, Johnson should reach the mark sometime in his next two or three starts. Also in the game, Chipper Jones moved past Barry Larkin for number 13 on the all-time hit list with 1882. Despite all the career highlights, Newark still was stopped by Boof Bonser and the Hoboken Cutters. Bonser struck out 13 Sugar Bears in only five innings and improved to 7-4 on the season.