Mighty Men streak into Wild Card lead

The Mighty Men kept rolling along yesterday with a 5-2 win over Carolina. Mike Mussina contributed a solid eight innings, surrendering only two runs on five hits. Milton Bradley hit a three-run homer in the third to give the Mites the lead and that proved to be enough for Moose. The win was the eighth in a row for the Mighty Men. Marietta has now opened up a 4 1/2 game cushion on D.C.

Speaking of which, D.C. fell victim to the classic "revenge factor" when El Duque Hernandez threw a gem against the Slappers. Duque surrendered only one run and five hits through seven and struck out nine. Hernandez was cut March 31st by D.C. after only one appearance - a disastrous mopup appearance where Duque gave up five runs in 1.1 innings. El Duque finally got his revenge and his first win on the season as the Rat Pack won 8-4 Wednesday.

Vancouver has made a late season revival, winning three of the first four in a crucial series with Hoboken. This time it was Ben Sheets, limiting the Cutters to one run in seven innings. Scott Spiezio got his first start since joining Vancouver and went 3-5. Vancouver is now sitting in sixth place overall, a half game ahead of Hoboken and one game ahead of the Sharks.

Arkansas and Newark battled it in a 10-inning contest. Newark jumped out to a 6-0 lead early, but the Falcons came right back with a huge 6-run third inning. The Sugar Bears went up 8-7 in the top of the tenth after a Manny Ramirez solo shot to lead off the inning. Orlando Cabrera made things interesting in the bottom of the tenth when he reached base on a single and stole second with only one out, but Cabrera got greedy and was thrown out trying to steal third.