Prince stops Halladay streaks

If not for Prince Fielder, Roy Halladay might still have his streaks intact.

After four innings of one-hit ball Saturday night, the Philadelphia ace yielded a double to Carolina's Hideki Matsui to lead off the 5th, before giving up a home run to Prince Fielder, snapping a scoreless stretch of 28 consecutive innings. Fielder later walked in the 7th inning, the first base on balls by Halladay in 27 1/3 innings.

Halladay gave up just one other hit after the Fielder bomb, cruising to his eight complete game of the season, the 60th of his career, a mark matched by only five other pitchers in league history. Phillly handled Carolina 6-2 as Halladay improved to 12-6.

Opening week in review

Not only was veteran Johan Santana of Arkansas the only starter to win both his starts in the opening week, his first win of the season, a 7-1 victory over Carolina, was the 100th of his career, becoming the 18th pitcher in league history to reach the milestone (and beating Mark Buehrle, who sites at 99 wins, and Roy Oswalt, who picked up No. 99 Monday night). He now sits in a tie for 16th all-time in wins, with Brad Radke and Javier Vazuez. And so, Santana, who won the Ben McDonald Award pitching for Philly in 2005 and 2007, is the first Mentos, The Freshmaker Pitcher of the Week for the 2011 season.

The only other two-win pitchers during the opening week were relievers: Hoboken's Tim Stauffer (2-0) and Daniel Bard of Sardine City (2-1). Philadelphia's Matt Thornton led the league in saves with three and Marietta's Francisco Liriano was tops in strikeouts with 18. Other notable pitchers were Philly's Roy Halladay, who tossed a complete game win, helping him match Carolina's Tim Hudson for the lead in innings pitched with 16 1/3. Amityville's David Aardsma tossed 7 1/3 hitless innings in four relief appearances and Carolina phenom Stephen Strasburg fanned 10 while earning the win in his first start.

We were inclined to give the Rebecca Black/Know Your Meme Batter of the Week to a veteran like Hideki Matsui, who's raking for Philly this year. The long-time Sugar Bear started the season with a 5-for-5, two home-run opening day performance and followed it up two days later with two more homers and five more RBIs. He led the league in RBIs (10), tied for the lead in runs (7) with four other players, and matched New Jersey's Joey Votto for the league lead in homers (4).

Still, Gerald Dempsey "Buster" Posey of Arkansas put up arguably a better week, considering it was his first one in DMBL. The rookie backstop, who was drafted as an ineligible prospect in the 12th round of the 2010 draft, led the league in multiple categories, including batting average (.571), slugging (1.034), hits (15), extra base hits (9), runs created (16.0), RC/27 (27.0) and total bases (30). He was second to fellow rookie Jason Heyward of Las Vegas in on-base percentage, and tied with Votto for second in RBIs.

In addition to Posey, teammate Justin Morneau and Carolina's Michael Young hit safety in all seven games they played last week. Other players with multiple-homer games last week included Marietta's Ichiro Suzuki and Justin Morneau of Arkansas, who like Matsui did it on Opening Day. Other notables during opening week were Vancouver rookie Austin Jackson, who along with Alexis Rios of Blue Ridge and Marietta's Brett Gardner led the league in steals (3). In addition to Young, Amityville's Delmon Young also racked up a dozen hits last week.

Despite picking up both player awards this week, it wasn't enough for Arkansas to reach the .500 in the opening week, finishing at 3-4. Arkansas wasn't alone though. While Las Vegas and Philly both raced out to 6-0 starts, only Carolina, Blue Ridge and Hoboken bettered the .500 mark. After one week, Bridgewater and New Jersey were bringing up the rear, at 1-5.

Light Monday in the DMBL

Yesterday was a very light day on the DMBL schedule with only three games on the docket.

Vancouver took care of Hillsborough 10-3 to take the best of three series two games to one. Jeff Clement, in a rare start at DH, was 3-5 with 4 RBIs and Chase Utley was 3-5. Amazingly, the Iron Fist didn't hit a single home run in the game. Billy Wagner, for some insane reason, pitched 3.1 innings in relief, ceding one earned run and striking out 5.

D.C. rallied to earn the victory against Philadelphia yesterday. With the score 7-4 in Philadelphia's favor going into the 8th, the O-Bombers scored three runs to tie it up. Dan Uggla and Jose Reyes both made key errors that led to a run that gave Philly the lead back. In the 9th, Jay Bruce led off with a solo home run to tie the game up at 8. Hideki Matsui then hit a 3-run home run to give D.C. an 11-8 lead. That left the 9th to automatic Jonathan Papelbon, who sent down the Endzone Animals in order for his 5th save. Matsui ended up 3-5 with 6 RBIs in the game.

In the last game of the day Team Buddah and the Sugar Bears battled it out into extra innings. The Sugar Bears held a slim 5-4 lead in the 9th, but a Fernando Tatis sac fly tied the game up and sent it to OT. The Sugar Bears did nothing in the top of the 10th. Alfonso Soriano led off the bottom with a double then moved to third on a single by Casey Blake. Finally, Robinson Cano hit a weak dribbler to second base that Mike Fontenot tossed to first base to get the out - but the game was over! "I thought if I really impressed the ump with my fundamentals, he might not notice Soriano scoring" said Fontenot after the game.

D.C. announces "Change"

The D.C. Bushslappers have officially announced that their team will now me known as the "O-Bombers". With the end of the 2008 Election, and President Bush's subsequent departure looming, it was time for a change, or errr Change. Never ones to hide their political affiliation, D.C. also did a house cleaning, firing their entire staff, including manager Kevin Elster after learning that Elster had voted for McCain in the Election. "We just can't have that kind of disobedience in our clubhouse" said team owner Jamie Landsman. Also gone was reserve infielder Ramon Vazquez, who was seen planting a Republican election sign on his front lawn. Vazquez was traded along with a draft pick to Newark for Hideki Matsui. "Now there's a nice blue-blooded guy" said Landsman referring to Matsui. D.C. was well known for holding several pro-Obama rallies in their stadium, as well as donating large portions of their ticket revenues to his campaign. Democratic senator John Kerry said he endorsed the change, but was sad that he would not be featured in the team's logo anymore. President Bush was unavailable for comment.