Wakefield, Williams prove poor reinforcements

Carolina took two from D.C. yesterday thanks to some solid pitching from starters Clay Hensley and Roy Halladay. Halladay, who had the better outing of the two, pitched a complete game, holding the Bushslappers to only two runs. Bill Hall, who hit a homer in each of the games, has quietly put up a solid season. Hall hit his 33rd and 34th homer of the season in yesterday's games and is batting .283 with a .974 OPS.

Tim Wakefield made his season debut for the Falcons against Vancouver yesterday. Unfortunately for Wakefield, Vancouver showed no mercy to the former Iron Fister. Wakefield gave up seven runs, six earned, in only 2.1 innings pitched, while giving up five hits and two walks and striking out none. Wakefield was recently signed by Arkansas to replace struggling Daniel Cabrera in the rotation.

Jake Peavy shut down the Falcons in game two of the doubleheader, pitching a 3-hit complete game. Peavy surrendered only one run - a Lance Berkman solo shot - in the contest while striking out nine.

Speaking of replacement players, Marietta had hoped that Woody Williams would enjoy a change of scenery and replaced Gil Meche in their rotation, but so far it's been a disaster. Most recently, Williams was rocked for six runs in 2.2 innings against the Sharks and now sports a 12.10 ERA on the season. Williams will probably be given one more chance - his next start is against the team that traded him, Vancouver.

Philly ended their four-game slide by pounding Boof Bonser and the Hoboken Cutters 10-2. Vernon Wells had 3 RBIs and Erik Bedard improved to 11-5 in the contest.

The Sugar Bears completed a 5-game sweep of Team Buddah and have now won 10 in a row. The Sugar Bears are now 49 games over .500.

Hit the road, Eck

Today is your last chance to vote for the All-Star game. If you haven't voted yet, what are you waiting for?

Hoboken's Vicente Padilla was impressive in a 4-hit shutout of the South Boston Gang. Padilla improved to 8-2 and lowered his ERA to 3.93. Padilla also struck out 9 in the game. Also impressive yesterday was Carolina's Roy Halladay, who also 4-hit the Straphangers. Halladay only managed a mere 5 strikeouts.

Philadelphia activated David Eckstein off the disabled list and promptly handed his walking papers. After trying to trade the shortstop over the weekend and getting no bites, Eck was sent packing. Eckstein was batting a respectable .287, though somewhat empty (.693 OPS), but became superfluous when the club acquired Jimmy Rollins from Newark.

Newark blew a 9-8 lead in the bottom of the ninth when Cla Meredith gave up a three-run walk-off home run to Frank Thomas. In the game, Newark also survived a 6-run seventh inning that chased starter Chien-Ming Wang from the game. Newark felt that someone had to be "punished" for this embarrassing loss. So who would you think paid the price? Wang for giving up 7 runs? Meredith for blowing the lead in the final inning? Nick Johnson or Marlon Anderson for each going 0-5? Nope, it was obviously Tim Wakefield's fault! Wakefield was cut to make room for former Sugar Bear Alex Cora. "What the-- I wasn't even on the active roster?" reacted Wakefield after receiving the news. "It's not Tim" said GM Butch Garretson after the game "we just wanted to get Alex on the team again. That guy is a real sparkplug!"