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...

Beckett, Schmidt come up Aces

Well Miguel Cabrera's hit streak came to an end at 22 yesterday after the Cutters were shut down by Brad Penny and Team Buddah. Penny didn't give up an earned run, but the numbers show that he was more lucky than good. Penny walked four and gave up six hits in seven innings, while only striking out one. The Buddahs also had three errors, so that may have contributed to it. Penny improved to 4-2 on the season.

The highest hit streak now is Marietta's Todd Helton, at 16. Teammate Matt Diaz also has a 15 game hit streak, so I'm guessing there's a little sidebet going on in that clubhouse as to who stops hitting first.

Josh Beckett pitched a gem yesterday - a complete game, four-hit shutout of Arkansas, which means Barry Bonds will have to wait another day to hit his 600th homer. Beckett has not had a good DMBL career to date. He is 3-2 with a 4.70 ERA on the year, which if he continues on this pace would be a career year for him. Expectations are low for Beckett this year and being the number five starter should alleviate a lot of the pressure he might have felt in previous seasons.

Beckett's line was impressive, but Jason Schmidt had an equally impressive start against Sardine City. Schmidt and the Sharks blanked the Straphangers 2-0 as Schmidt went the distance and allowed a mere two hits and three walks while striking out eight. Schmidt is now 4-2 on the season. The Sharks begin their big series with Newark today.

Black Monday for Pitchers

Barry Bonds moved one closer to home run #600 yesterday in helping Arkansas slide by South Boston 7-5. The homer was Bonds' 11th of the season.

Monday was a bad day for pitchers. Hillsborough lost lefty C.C. Sabathia for the next month in their loss to Vancouver. Sabathia was 3-1 with a 3.98 ERA so far this season. Hillsborough has Ian Snell on the farm, but they may choose to go with a veteran off the waiver wire. Sabathia only lasted into the third inning before being pulled.

Rookie phenom Jered Weaver also got dinged yesterday. Weaver pitched 5.2 innings yesterday, but did not factor into the decision. Weaver, who had a mishap with some snack foods during the break between innings, may miss up to two weeks. Cliff Lee, who was with Hillsborough last year, will fill in until Weaver is healthy again.

Not all injuries were pitching-related though. Newark will lose slugger Manny Ramirez for the better part of this week. "It's not really an injury" said Newark manager Don Mattingly. "It's just Manny being Manny." Ramirez said he is taking his annual vacation and will relax on the beaches in St. Thomas. "This weather just plain sucks" said Ramirez. "I need to get away for a bit." Owner Butch Garretson grumbled "Damn... bad week for that to happen!"

Bonds closing in on milestone

Well the Sharks' streak is now over after losing a heartbreaker to Carolina 1-0 on Friday. Clay Hensley outdueled Kenny Rogers and Juan Rivera's solo home run in the fourth was the only run of the game.

Arkansas' Barry Bonds hit his 10th homer of the year in the 9-2 rout of Hoboken Saturday. It was Bonds' 598th homer of his career. Bonds will be the first player to hit 600 in his career. If you're wondering if anyone will catch him anytime soon...well that depends on your definition of "soon". Bonds has a more than 150 homer lead on second place Sammy Sosa - stuck at 436 and not even playing this year.

Newark's Jim Edmonds hit his 300th career homer Sunday. Honolulu's Jason Giambi is closing in on the mark as well, with 298. Bonds is not worried about either one.

Look for a new Zane Smith column later today.

Down and Out in D.C.

It was a light day in the DMBL yesterday, but Honolulu kept on truckin'. The Sharks have now won ten in a row. They are now tied for the third best record in the league and only one game back of the first place Sugar Bears! Consider that when they started the streak they were a mere 8-10 and somewhere in the middle of the pack and now they are in the elite. After Weaver's brilliant start and Jason Schmidt's excellent outing yesterday, you'd think they did it all with pitching, but look further and you'll see that their offense is gelling right now. In fact, the Sharks have scored 45 runs in their last five games - a Sugar Bears-like 9 runs per game. In case you were wondering, the current record is 16 set by Arkansas in 1993 and tied by Vancouver in 1996.

And our other featured streak continued yesterday as Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera extended his hitting streak to 19. He's almost halfway to the record now, we'll check in on him if he gets a little closer.

D.C. just can't seem to break out of their funk. It looked like it might happen after they won back to back games against Arkansas earlier in the week, but they fell right back down after that. Carlos Beltran (.190/.301/.343) has been taking a lot of the blame - he was benched in the vs. right handers lineup - but it's not just him. Matt Holliday (.177) and Jose Reyes (.226) have struggled and Kelvim Escobar (0-3, 5.51) and Bronson Arroyo (0-3, 9.10) have been brutal. They have several games scheduled with fellow slumpee South Boston next week, so this could be their chance to turn things around.

Pitching Breakdown

Honolulu kept their string alive by crushing New Jersey 9-2 yesterday. Jered Weaver improved to 4-1 on the year. The first overall selection in this year's draft also has a 2.30 ERA (4th), 45 Ks (tied for 3rd) and 8.6 R/9 (1st). Weaver is not only justifying his lofty draft status, but is also making a case for the Listach Award. Honolulu will next face the struggling Mudcats today in Carolina.

Two pitchers went down yesterday. The first was a crushing blow for the Marietta Mighty Men. Rookie starter Francisco Liriano - he of the hot spring and great start to the season - will be lost for most of this month. Marietta will replace him with Gil Meche, formerly of Vancouver. That's not the only rotation turnover in Marietta though. The Mighty Men have given up on their home/away platoon and have tossed both Brett Tomko and Mark Hendrickson overboard. They will be replaced by Jeff Suppan.

The other pitcher lost to injury was New Jersey's Jake Westbrook. Westbrook had pitched in only his second game since returning from a prior injury before succumbing to his latest ailment. Westbrook will once again be replaced by Livan Hernandez, who was awful in his brief tryout before (0-2, 11.20 ERA). Westbrook will miss around two weeks.

By the way, did you see Jason Jennings breathe a huge sigh of relief when he realized that he wasn't facing the Sugar Bears this week? In fact Jennings pitched 7.1 innings against South Boston without allowing any runs and lowering his ERA to a still high, but at least single digit, 9.37.

Streaking

The Honolulu Sharks kept their winning streak alive (at eight), just barely against Team Buddah last night. The Sharks ran up a quick 7-3 lead, scoring a whopping seven runs in the third inning. But it didn't last long. Team Buddah narrowed it to 7-5 and then later tied it at 8 in the seventh inning. Thanks to Ryan Freel and some small-ball the Sharks were able to manufacture the winning run in the eighth. Freel had led off the inning with a single and then stole second base. He tagged up after Johnny Damon flew out, then scored on a Jamey Carroll sac fly. Tom Gordon and Mike Myers nailed down the ninth inning to preserve a narrow 9-8 victory and keep the Sharks' streak alive.

Meanwhile another streak continued and another one ended. Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera extended his hitting streak to 18 against the Sardine City Straphangers. Cabrera was 3-5 marking his second straight game with three hits. Meanwhile, Chase Utley who was right behind Cabrera at 16 went 0-fer against the Endzone Animals.

Great game down in South Boston where the Mudcats edged the Gang 10-9. The scoring started right in the beginning with the Gang scoring two in the first and the Mudcats responding with four in the second. The Cats eventually built up an 8-3 lead on the Gang, but the Gang wasn't finished. Relievers Scott Linebrink and Justin Speier proceeded to completely blow the game, surrendering a combined six earned runs in just one third of an inning. With the six-run inning, the Gang now held onto a shaky 9-8 lead. Closer Huston Street was already in from the previous inning. He was able to retire the first two batters, but after Jose Vidro hit a pinch-hit single, manager Sid Fernandez decided to go with recently recalled Nate Robertson to face Johnny Estrada. Estrada lined a single and Ramon Hernandez allowed a passed ball allowing both runners to advance into scoring position. Pinch hitter Jeff Francoeur lined a single to score both runners and take the lead back.