Gang trades Carpenter

In case you missed it last night, the South Boston Gang traded star pitcher Chris Carpenter to Vancouver for Prince Fielder. South Boston had been in negotiations with Marietta as well, but decided to fill the gaping hole at first base instead. The Gang, who had tried out Ty Wigginton and Dan Johnson at first base the past two years, needed a fixture at the position vacated when the club did not protect Mike Sweeney a few years back. Fielder who was drafted twice by Vancouver and is finally playing in his first year in the DMBL lost his starting job to fellow rookie Conor Jackson. "Although we think Prince will be a tremendous player in the future, we felt like we needed to go for it all" said Vancouver owner Yaro Zajac. South Boston has announced that more changes are possible. The Gang has a lot of depth at the middle infield positions and could deal some of those players. Meanwhile, Vancouver has sent Jake Peavy off to AAA Tacoma to work out his kinks and to make room for Carpenter. Carpenter will start tonight's game against - who else? - South Boston.

The Golden Falcons broke their losing streak yesterday by edging Carolina 7-6. The Falcons won despite only 7 hits thanks to 8 walks issued by the Cats' pitching staff and a 5-run eighth inning...oh, and no Brad Lidge in the game.

Sardine City won a close pitchers' duel last night in Marietta. Rookie phenom Francisco Liriano took his first loss off the year despite only allowing 2 runs in 8 innings. Chris Capuano pitched a gem for the Straphangers - 6 IP, 4 H, 8 K, 0 runs - and the bullpen shut the door on the Mighty Men.

Newark's Randy Johnson closed in on two giant milestones last night. Johnson pitched six innings allowing only three hits and an unearned run. With the win, he now has 6 wins on the season and 192 in his career. With Newark's powerhouse offense behind him, Johnson should hit the 200-mark some time over the summer. His two strikeouts also move him closer to 3000 for his career. Johnson is now only 52 Ks away from the mark. It's possible that the Unit will hit both milestones in the same start, so stay tuned...

Another Sugar Blowout

Newark pounded the Falcons 26-6 yesterday. It was the third time this season that the Sugar Bears scored 20 or more runs. Bobby Abreu tied the record for most runs scored in a game with six. The record is held by three other players, most recently by Carlos Delgado, then of Vatican City, against Philadelphia back in June of 2000. Jim Edmonds and Nick Johnson each had 6 RBIs. The Sugar Bears had 24 hits and were walked 13 times. Starter Javier Vazquez got the run support, but couldn't make it out of the fifth inning. Scot Shields got the win in relief to improve to 3-0. Falcons starter Ervin Santana was charged with 16 earned runs in 4.2 innings (yes he outlasted Vazquez!) with 8 walks and one strikeout. Brad Lidge was awful again, surrendering six earned runs on five hits and five walks in just 2/3 of an inning. That's the second time in a week's span that saw Lidge fall completely apart (the last time being in Santana's previous start against Honolulu). Lidge now has a 13.50 ERA on the season. It was the sixth loss in a row for the Falcons.

The Bushslappers kept their streak intact, winning their fourth straight against Las Vegas, 4-3. The Slappers are now only three games under .500. John Maine improved to 5-1 despite a ho-hum effort and Alex Gonzalez went 3-4 in his final game replacing Jose Reyes.

Jeremy Bonderman pitched a gem for the Hired Hitmen, but didn't factor into the decision as Hillsborough dropped their game to New Jersey 3-2 in 13 innings. Bonderman pitched 8 innings, allowing only one run on three hits while striking out nine. Reliever Takashi Saito blew the save opportunity in the ninth and Chad Cordero took the loss in the 13th when Luis Vizcaino walked the bases loaded.

Jorge Posada was 5-5 for Marietta in a losing effort to Carolina. Posada hit two homers and drove in three runs, but it wasn't enough as the Mudcats outslugged the Mighty Men 10-8.

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.

Bad day for pitchers

Two teams were crushed yesterday at home. Honolulu routed the Golden Falcons 18-5. Brian McCann had two homers and five RBIs and Jeff Francis improved to 7-1 on the season. Falcons starter Ervin Santana lasted just 2 innings and gave up six runs, but the real damage was done by reliever Brad Lidge, who surrendered eight earned runs, in addition to allowing both of his inherited runners to score. Lidge and Santana combined to walk eight batters and surrendered eight hits and 14 earned runs in 3.1 innings.

Meanwhile in Vancouver, the Sugar Bears pounded the Iron Fist to a 17-5 tune. Nick Johnson was 4-6 with 6 RBIs and three homers and Manny Ramirez was 4-5 with one homer. Starter Ben Sheets was ripped apart - 1.2 IP, 6 ER, 6 hits. Vancouver also allowed six unearned runs in the contest. Javier Vazquez was the beneficiary of the run support and improved to 4-2 by limiting the Fist to three hits over six innings, though he did issue five walks.

New Jersey's recent acquisition Matt Guerrier pitched in his first game for Team Buddah and was impressive in 5.1 innings, surrendering no runs and four hits, while striking out three. It wasn't enough because starter Brad Penny was shelled (6 runs, eight hits in 1.2 innings).

Want more starter shellings? How about D.C.'s John Maine who gave up six runs and eight hits in two innings against Hoboken? At least Maine didn't get a loss as the Bushslappers came back to win the game.

How about Sardine City's Tom Glavine who gave up five runs and five hits in two innings in a loss to Hillsborough? The Straphangers ended up using eight pitchers in the game, including Brandon Claussen who was the team's emergency starter earlier in the year.

So did anyone pitch well yesterday? Las Vegas' Chris Young pitched seven scoreless innings against South Boston in picking up the win to improve to 4-4. Young struck out 10 Gangsters. Speaking of Las Vegas, Brett Myers will try to break the hex over him tonight as he tries to win his first game of the season. Myers is currently 0-9 on the year with a 10.38 ERA. "If he doesn't turn things around, I may send him to the pen next year" said team owner Eric Wickstrom.

More Morneau for Arkansas

Arkansas' Justin Morneau had two homers to lead the Falcons to a 10-3 victory over Las Vegas. Morneau now has 19 homers on the season and leads the DMBL in that category. Morneau is also sitting in fourth in batting average (.355) and third in RBIs (46) and is looking like an early Mitchell Award candidate.

Marietta finally put the brakes on the Newark Sugar Bears' 6-game winning streak yesterday. The Mighty Men outslugged the Sugar Bears 10-6 thanks to former Sugar Bear Jim Thome's 5 RBIs.

Hillsborough is now officially in free-fall mode after dropping their seventh straight game yesterday. The loss of A-Rod for the week is not going to help, but playing their next two series against Sardine City and New Jersey might. D.C. squeaked by with a 6-4 victory yesterday and is now only a game and a half behind the Hitmen. After a rough start, the Bushslappers are finally starting to look alive, winning six of their last eight.

The second part of Phil Plantier's Rookie Watch is up on the site. This time he looks at the Hanover Division rookies.

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.

Grief too much to bear for Reyes

Perhaps no one was affected by the news of Josh Hancock's demise more than teammate Jose Reyes. Reyes tried to play through the pain yesterday, but after legging out a double in the top of the 10th, Reyes asked to be taken out of the game. "I just couldn't go on pretending nothing was wrong" said Reyes after the game. Despite the fact that Hancock pitched in the game, and pitched well (2.1 IP, 0 runs), Reyes still opted out. "Maybe it was seeing him out there, a lifeless shell of what he was, that pushed him over the edge" said manager Kevin Elster. Reyes will take the rest of the week off to grieve. When asked to comment on the situation, the Josh Hancock zombie could only respond "brains....".

Meanwhile in Vancouver, Granderson-mania is running wild. The recently recalled rookie was 2-2 last night with a triple, raising his average to .800! Granderson has been subbing for the injured J.D. Drew. Granderson was so excited that he had to leave the game last night and will probably be rested tonight against lefty Johan Santana.

Hoboken's Vicente Padilla improved to 5-0 yesterday after an impressive 7 inning start in which he limited the Straphangers to two runs on eight hits and three walks. Padilla struck out seven.

Jered Weaver made his return from injury yesterday and looked good despite not factoring into the decision. Weaver pitched 8 innings, allowing 9 hits and 4 runs (2 earned), one walk and eight strikeouts. Reliever Tom Gordon blew the save for Weaver after the Sharks went up by one on a three-run ninth inning, but Gordon couldn't hold on to the lead and Team Buddah scored two to win the game on a Jacques Jones RBI-single in the ninth.