Mighty Men make mighty strides

Billy Wagner must have been preoccupied with his Pitcher of the Week award yesterday and failed to save the game against the Endzone Animals last night. Vancouver was clinging to a 4-3 lead in the 9th inning. Wagner had already gotten out of a jam in the 8th and got the first two batters out in the 9th. But Gerald Laird, a former Vancouver player, took Wagner deep to center to tie the game up and go to extra innings. In the 11th, Vancouver exploded for 5 runs. Philly got a solo homer in the bottom half of the inning, but that was all they could get.

Hillsborough kept pace with the Fist, winning their matchup with D.C. 5-2. C.C. Sabathia improved to 3-0 on the season with an 8-inning, 7-hit performance, in which he only gave up one run. Hillsborough still holds a percentage-point lead over Vancouver in the Morris Division.

Marietta has won their 5th in a row and has stormed back into contention for the Hanover Divison. The Mighty Men pounded away on the Sugar Bears yesterday 11-2. Josh Hamilton was 5-5 with a homer and two doubles and Ryan Dempster held the Sugar Bears to 2 hits and no runs over 6 innings. Dempster also struck out 6. The Mighty Men, who were 4-7 before the streak, are now 9-7 and alone in 2nd place in the division.

Ankiel, Wagner streak to awards

This week's JR Cigars Smokin' Batter of the Week is easily Rick Ankiel. Ankiel's first 6 hits of the season were all home runs, until he was held to only a double in the second game against Sardine City. He came right back the next day though and hit his 7th home run of the season (along with his first 2 singles), then hit his first triple of the season in the second match of Sunday's doubleheader. For the week, Ankiel hit .391 with a ridiculous 1.174 slugging, 5 home runs, 15 RBIs, and 8 runs scored.

Remember last week's batter of the week, Aubrey Huff? Well he hasn't slowed down since winning the award. In fact, if not for Ankiel's historic feat, Huff could have been an early repeat winner. This week, Huff hit .519 with a 1.148 slugging, 4 home runs, 11 runs scored, 8 RBIs, and 5 doubles. Other notable batters: Marietta's Milton Bradley (.429/.529/.821, 10 R, 10 RBI), Carolina's Dustin Pedroia (.441/.486/.647, 2 HR, 6 R), Philly's Mark Teixeira (.429/.568/.786, 6 RBI, 2 HR), and New Jersey's David DeJesus (.407/.500/.704, 10 R, 2 HR).

This week, we award the ShamWow® Pitcher of the Week Award to Vancouver's Billy Wagner. Wagner saved 5 games in 5 appearances, more than doubling his league lead over the rest of the DMBL relievers. Wagner now has 7 saves on the season. In his 5 appearances, Wagner struck out 6 in 6.1 innings, and allowed only one hit. That's as automatic as you get.

Wags faced some pretty stiff competition, not just from the rest of the league, but from his own teammate. Jake Peavy was 1-0 in two starts, with a 1.50 ERA and 11 strikeouts. The unluckiest pitcher this week has to be Ted Lilly of Blue Ridge who only gave up one run in 13 innings, but only has one loss to show for it. Cliff Lee (0-1, 2.35 ERA in 15.1 innings, 15 K) had a similar fate in Arkansas. Some two-game winners this week: Felix Hernandez of Hillsborough (1.38, 14K), Hoboken's Matt Garza (1.93 ERA), Newark's Chien-Ming Wang (2.30), and New Jersey's Kevin Slowey (1.84, 16 K).

Hitmen starters get it done

Check out the league message board for some rules discussions. One suggestion deals with outfield elligibility and another is about stadiums. Also don't forget the trade deadline is this Sunday, July 15th.

Hillsborough is up to 10 wins in a row now with a 4-2 win over New Jersey. The Hitmen have gotten some great results from their starters lately and yesterday was no exception. Jeremy Bonderman pitched eight innings and allowed only two runs and five hits, while striking out seven and walking one. Bonderman improved to 10-9. The Hitmen have eight quality starts in their last nine, and the one that didn't quite qualify was a solid five inning performance from C.C. Sabathia that ended early due to rain.
Billy Wagner notched his 25th save of the season and 250th of his career in Vancouver's 5-2 win over Hoboken yesterday. Wagner now leads the league by one save over Philly's Francisco Rodriguez who is still the front-runner for the Eck.

Arkansas' Curt Schilling took his first lost of the season yesterday. Schilling, who started out in AAA to begin the season on a rehab assignment, won his first four decisions since taking Ervin Santana's spot in the rotation a month ago, but he hit a brick wall yesterday. Schilling wasn't that bad (7 IP, 5 ER, 7 H, 7 K) considering the opponent but the Arkansas offense couldn't find enough offense to keep up with the Sugar Bears.

Tuesday tidbits

Arkansas got a little revenge on Hoboken yesterday with an 8-4 victory over the Cutters. Roger Clemens turned in a solid performance (7 IP, 6 K, 3 ER, 9 H) and Barry Bonds hit his third homer in two games.

Carolina edged the Sharks 8-7, despite giving up 19 hits. The Sharks left a whopping 16 men on base in the game. Roy Halladay gave up 10 hits in 5.2 innings, but still got the victory by holding the Sharks to only one earned run.

Philly salvaged a game against Newark yesterday, 9-1. Erik Bedard held the Sugar Bears to only three hits, but walked six in seven innings. Newark starter Randy Johnson was pounded for six runs in only 1.2 innings.

Vancouver swept Las Vegas and much-maligned closer Billy Wagner saved all three games. Wagner now leads the league in saves (19) by two over Philly's Francisco Rodriguez.

Underrated Overbay

D.C.'s Lyle Overbay has been red-hot lately. After hitting a walk-off grand slam yesterday, Overbay continued his hot hitting with a 4-5 night against Hoboken yesterday, including two more homers. Overbay is now 7-9 with 3 HRs and 6 RBIs in his last two games.

Nomar Garciaparra barely got his glove dusted off before he was forced to leave last night's game with another injury. The first injury kept Garciaparra out for a month and this one may be close to that long. Once again, Shea Hillenbrand and Troy Glaus will fill in for Nomar.

Another more harmful loss was Honolulu's Roy Oswalt, who will miss a month with his injury. Kenny Rogers, who was recently demoted, will fill in for Oswalt. Oswalt was struggling a bit this season (5-5, 5.31) and the time off may help him.

Brett Myers was looking to take another loss yesterday despite an excellent performance, but his offense bailed him out. Myers had limited South Boston to five hits over 8.2 innings, surrendering only two runs and striking out five. However, he was locked in a duel with the Gang's Nate Robertson, who had not given up any runs at that point. Robertson was going for the complete game shutout, but the Rat Pack had something else in mind. Robertson allowed singles to the first two batters he faced and then newly-signed Endy Chavez came through with a double that scored one. Huston Street was brought in to close the game. After an intentional walk to create a force situation, Street gave up a sac fly to tie the game, then, with two outs, Chone Figgins roped a single into right to score the winning run.

Newark and Vancouver slugged it out last night through eleven innings. The game went back and forth until Nick Johnson won it with a two-run homer in the eleventh. Manny Ramirez also hit two homers (one of which tied the game at 11) and was 4-6 with 3 RBIs. Billy Wagner blew his eighth save for Vancouver.

Note tonight there will be a double header followed by an early morning game tomorrow. There will be no games on Saturday and Sunday.

Wagner blows

Well by now everyone knows that Alex Rodriguez's consecutive games streak is over at 1054 games. The streak started back in 2000, lasted through four ownership changes, a position change from shortstop to third base, and several playoff appearances. Honolulu's Miguel Tejada now holds the longest current streak at 930 games. Nick Punto will replace A-Rod for now, unless another replacement is signed off the waiver wire.

Billy Wagner had his 50th career blown save and sixth of the season. Wagner inherited a 6-3 lead in the ninth inning, but Wagner was wild. Wagner walked the first two batters he faced, then hit Reed Johnson, then threw a wild pitch. Wagner allowed three runs to score, all without a single base hit and left the bases loaded. Chris Britton was brought in and got Vernon Wells to line out, but the winning run scored on the sacrifice.

Perhaps in the most unlikely pitchers duel of the season, Carolina's Jason Jennings and South Boston's Dontrelle Willis battled it out for eight innings before Ramon Hernandez broke the tie with an RBI-single. Jennings lowered his ERA to 7.69 and Willis to 8.55.