-P- Barry Bonds hit homer 756 off Mike Bascik of the Nationals last night.

-P- A couple of interesting things in today's Post-Gazette notebook. First, the P-G confirms what we already knew about Dave Littlefield, which is that he's really difficult to work with. On the situation with Toronto:

-P- Also from the article, Matt Kata has cleared waivers and is back with Indianapolis. Y'know, I don't have any data on this, but the Pirates have designated four players for assignment this year (Kata, Don Kelly twice, John Wasdin and Marty McLeary) who they've had no trouble sneaking through the waiver process and back into the minors. That says a lot about the Bucs' organizational depth, I think, and raises questions about why they don't just get better role players. Or maybe just better players - after all, that list of four includes two players who have pitched high-leverage innings for the Pirates and another who was briefly their starting third baseman.

-P- The D'Backs signed Eric Byrnes to a three-year, $30 million deal. I'm not a fan of this deal at all - Byrnes isn't that good and never has been. Even in his career year this year, he's only hitting .301/.364/.493 with good basestealing, which is fine, but not that great for an outfielder playing in Arizona. Add in the fact that he's 31, plays without regard for his health, doesn't usually play well in second halves and didn't receive much playing time until he was 27, and you've got a deal that the D'Backs are likely to regret pretty soon. Not only that, but they already have three extremely talented young outfielders in Justin Upton, Chris Young, Carlos Quentin and Carlos Gonzalez. It's pretty likely that one or more of them will tank, especially given the way Quentin and Gonzalez have played this year, and as a result, it's good for the D'Backs to have a veteran outfielder around, but what if three or even all four of them do work out? Suddenly you've got no use for Byrnes, but you've still got the contract.