-P- Shane Youman pitched surprisingly well today in earning his first win. His stuff is so marginal that I'm afraid batters will start to adjust and clobber him - I think the hardest he threw was 88 mph - but today, he hit his spots and only allowed two runs and one walk against a very good offense. Kudos to Youman. And also to the Brewers' defense, who were so bad that they turned about a two-run performance by the Pirates' offense into six runs. The Brewers played some of the worst defense I've ever seen at the major-league level - I think there was a bad play at just about every position. Off the top of my head, Rickie Weeks watched an incredibly slow grounder go right by him, Craig Counsell made a bad throw that pulled Fielder off the bag, Ryan Braun botched a grounder, Corey Hart and Kevin Mench misplayed fly balls (Mench's bounced off his glove), and Bill Hall looked totally confused all day. Even reliever Yovani Gallardo got in on the action with an errant throw to second. Prince Fielder and Johnny Estrada were the only guys who didn't mess anything up, and yet Fielder was the Brewer who got so mad at himself that he tried to destroy a Gatorade cooler. That's the kind of day it was for Milwaukee. Oh, well - I hope the Pirates were kind enough to return the favor by giving the Brewers front row access at the Live concert.
-P- Randy Johnson is on the DL with back trouble for the third time this year. It's hardly surprising that a 43 year-old pitcher would have pretty serious back problems. Actually, what's surprising is that a 43 year-old pitcher could battle back problems for pretty much the entire year and still strike out 72 batters in 52.7 innings.
-P- Jon Lieber will miss the rest of the year and will undergo surgery on his foot. Remember when Philly had six competent starters? Well, now Lieber's done, Brett Myers and Freddy Garcia are on the DL, and the Phillies are starting no-names like Kyle Kendrick, J.D. Durbin, and J.A. Happ. Not surprisingly, that's not working out too well for them. Actually, the three Philly starters who you'd think would be most fragile - 23 year-old Cole Hamels, 44 year-old Jamie Moyer and DL-oholic Adam Eaton - have basically been healthy the whole season.