Wednesday doubleheader recap

Roy Oswalt pitched a gem against South Boston yesterday as the Sharks routed the Gang 10-0. Oswalt pitched a complete game shutout, surrendering only five hits and no walks while striking out six. Oswalt has pitched well in five of his last six starts since coming back from his injury last month. The one low note was a 10-2 loss to Marietta.

Albert Pujols drove in six runs and hit his 39th home run in Philly's 11-3 shellacking of Las Vegas. Brandon Webb won after missing his last start due to injury to improve to 11-7. Reed Johnson also contributed 3 RBIs. The Rat Pack used eight pitchers in the game, including rarely utilized Casey Janssen, who pitched the last three innings. It was Vegas' ninth straight loss.

The Mudcats beat the Animals in the late game yesterday, but lost David Eckstein to injury. Eckstein has been on the disabled list twice already this year as a member of the Endzone Animals and now will give the Mudcats a chance to pay him to sit at home and play his Nintendo Wii.

Newark won twice yesterday becoming the first team to 90 wins on the season. In game one against Hillsborough, Jim Edmonds hit two homers and drove in six runs for the Sugar Bears. Randy Johnson won his 197th career victory. Ryan Howard hit his 50th homer of the season for Hillsborough. Edmonds hit another homer in the second game as John Smoltz started his 300th career game. His seven strikeouts left him four shy of 2000 for his career.

Jose Contreras shut down Vancouver for a 5-0 shutout, though Contreras couldn't make it through the full nine. Contreras lasted eight innings, holding Vancouver to four hits and two walks. Mike Wuertz finished the ninth to preserve the shutout.

Look for a new Trade Talk article later tonight.

One-run Madness!

It was a tense day for most of the teams in the league - five of the six games were decided by one run yesterday.

C.C. Sabathia outdueled Nate Robertson to give Hillsborough a 2-1 victory yesterday. Sabathia improved to 7-2 on the season by limiting the Gang to only five hits over eight innings and striking out six. If Sabathia didn't miss almost a month due to injuries earlier this year, he might have been up there with Santana in the wins department. Robertson is still looking for his first win of the year, though he's far from Brett Myers territory at 0-4.

Jose Contreras also was impressive in helping New Jersey upset the Sugar Bears 3-2. Contreras has been very solid for the fledgling franchise and in fact earned himself a spot on the Hanover Division All-Star team. Contreras foiled an otherwise solid DMBL debut for Newark's rookie lefty, Joe Saunders. Saunders pitched seven innings and allowed only three runs on seven hits, but it wasn't enough. Mike Piazza hit his 14th home run this season and is now sitting at 398 for his career. Also with his 1961st hit, Piazza moved past Tony Gwynn for seventh all-time.

Johan Santana picked up win # 11 on the season by shutting down the Cutters. Santana was actually in line for the loss, when Adam Wainwright failed to hold the lead in the seventh. Wainwright began the inning after Scott Kazmir had pitched six strong innings, but the first two batters reached base and two sac flies later, the lead was gone.

The Straphangers won in similar fashion against the Rat Pack. With a 3-1 lead entering the eighth, newly-acquired George Sherrill had just pitched a 1-2-3 seventh and was trying to preserve the lead. But Ivan Rodriguez and Joe Crede both started the inning off with doubles and Kevin Youkilis tied the game with a sacrifice fly. Finally with two outs, Willy Taveras drove in the winning run and Akinori Otsuka retired the Rats in order in the ninth. Tom Glavine earned the victory and also reached 1500 strikeouts for his career.

Meanwhile Carolina and D.C. ran a marathon game that lasted 16 innings. "It's not Sunday is it?" asked Grady Sizemore, referring to the doubleheader day. D.C. had a 4-0 lead until the sixth when Carolina cut the lead in half. Carolina actually took the lead in the eighth after Travis Hafner and Johnny Estrada homered. Brian Fuentes couldn't hold the lead in the ninth so it was off to extra innings. Finally in the 16th, Richie Sexson came through with an RBI single to score Sizemore and the game was over.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at the biggest All-Star snubs.

Welcome back!

This is a good week for the doctors as a lot of players will make their returns from injuries.

Jose Contreras returns for Team Buddah who has been suffering with Matt Morris in the rotation. Morris has given up 13 runs in his two starts and is 0-2 with a 13.50 ERA on the season. New Jersey also gets Nomar Garciaparra back at the end of the week after almost a month. The Buddahs have somehow stayed on the brink of contention and this ought to help a bit, if they can avoid any further injuries.

Jose Reyes returns for D.C. just in time to ride their recent hot streak. D.C. has won three in a row and eight of their last ten to move up to ninth place overall. Reyes was replaced in the lineup by Alex Gonzalez who batted a solid, though empty .286 with 5 runs and 5 RBIs in seven games.

Hillsborough will get Alex Rodriguez back and it couldn't come any sooner. The Hired Hitmen have been in a slump, losing two in a row after a three-game winning streak ended a seven game losing streak. Nick Punto had taken over for Rodriguez at third base and was also adequate, batting .429 (9-21) over the seven games with 4 runs scored and an RBI, but again, it was pretty empty - all nine hits were singles.

Catcher Mike Napoli should rejoin the Cutters later in the week. Josh Bard has been taken out of his DH role and backup Yorvit Torrealba (0-7) was signed to give Bard a rest.

Finally Sardine City will be happy to welcome Josh Barfield back after enduring Julio Lugo's miserable offense (.214 AVG, .464 OPS). If you take out Lugo's 4-5 game against Hillsborough, he's hist an even more atrocious .135 (5-37)! Sardine City has already gotten a red carpet out in preparation for Barfields return. Lugo is likely to be released for the fourth time this season.

Division Contenders Clash

Honolulu took round one against the Sugar Bears yesterday. The two teams' bullpens battled it out after both starters were chased fairly early in the game. Adrian Gonzalez broke the tie in the top of the ninth with a solo homer to give the Sharks the 7-6 lead. Tom Gordon, who was traded to the Sharks from the Sugar Bears in the offseason, got the victory and nailed down the bottom of the ninth. Jeff Francis and Javier Vazquez face off in tonight's game.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia also squeaked out a victory against the Golden Falcons last night in extra innings. Philly was clinging to a 4-3 lead for most of the game until the Falcons scored a trifecta in the eighth to bring the score to 6-4 in favor of Arkansas. But Justin Duchscherer couldn't hold the lead and gave up a two-run homer to Albert Pujols to tie the game. In the tenth Khalil Greene hit another homer off Duchscherer to give the Animals a 7-6 lead. Francisco Rodriguez retired the Falcons in order to earn his seventh save of the season. Tonight it's Erik Bedard against Daniel Cabrera.

Jose Contreras pitched a shutout for Team Buddah against the Mighty Men. Contreras allowed ten hits and struck out seven to earn his first victory of the season.

From the Blog Bits file: Mike Piazza hit his 300th career double Wednesday, the 24th player in DMBL history to achieve the milestone. Bobby Abreu's next double will also be his 300th...We are all waiting for Barry to hit #600, but Jim Thome of Marietta will hit #400 when he hits his next home run... Kevin Millwood is now one shy of 1000 strikeouts on the season...