Beltre and the B-Squad

The Dodgers put up a whole bunch of pitchers whose names start in B yesterday, and Beltre bashed them all:

Billingsley: 1-2, with a walk and a single
Broxton: 1-1 with a single
Baez: 1-1 with a double, 2 RBI

And in more of that typical "Jeremy Reed kicks ass in South California" stuff, he blasted a home run.

I was having dinner with some friends, and the score was 5-2 Dodgers when we got to the restaurant, where I sat facing the wrong way from the TV, and in my now typical-Mariners-fan pessimism, figured their undefeated interleague run was coming to an end. An hour later, one of my friends is like, "Do you really have a pitcher named Putz?"

I sort of nod. And then I realize what she just said. I reply, "We do, but is he actually pitching? We're winning the game now?"

She says, "Yeah, it's 8-5 Mariners. How did you know?"

I turn around and nearly snap my neck, just in time to see Ethier strike out. A few minutes later, Lofton lines out and the game's over. Ahh, the Mariners, best team in the NL West.

There were some other fun performances yesterday. You all know I'm a huge Nick Swisher fan, so when he swish-hit -- I mean, switch-hit -- two home runs yesterday from both sides of the plate, and scored all three of the A's runs as they beat the Rockies 3-2, I was pretty happy.

The Cardinals seem to be trying to set some new records for "Most runs given up in a series", between Tuesday's 20-6 loss to the White Sox and last night's 13-7. Jason Marquis took the hit in last night's game, giving up all 13 runs, all earned, in the first five innings. Retrosheet's Top Performances page tells us that the most earned runs given up by one pitcher in a game that they have is 16, by Orlie Weaver, on July 29, 1911. Most of the high-run games are in the earlier parts of the century, though David Wells apparently gave up 13 runs in 4.1 innings in the early 90's, too.

Jayson Stark put up an All-Run-Through-A-Wall Team, which is a pretty amusing read. I think he needs to add Travis Ishikawa to it.

Unless there's weather issues or other emergencies, I'm heading up to see the Aquasox tonight and down to see the Rainiers tomorrow, which should be fun. Jeff Clement is done with his post-surgery rehab and they called him up to Tacoma for a bit, which is exciting. I was hoping to be there for his first Rainiers game as I was for his first Aquasox game, but this is close enough.