Friday, May 13 2005

National League

The last time the Chicago Cubs played in Washington D.C., Babe Ruth was four years old.

Back then, the Cubs played the Washington Senators on Aug. 10, 1899 and took a 105-year break from playing in the nation's capital until now.

And on Friday, Chicago hobbled into RFK Stadium with a 15-18 record and six players on the disabled list, but won 6-3.

In the top of the eighth and down by one, the Cubs rallied by scoring four runs (three unearned) to win their third straight game.

(Fun fact: the 1899 Senators had a player named Dick Padden.)

But the '05 Cubs are batting for second place in the NL Central with ... the Brewers.

Don't look now, but Milwaukee is on a tear. Friday they went to Pittsburgh and won 4-3 by scoring the winning run in the ninth on a Geoff Jenkins double. Now the usually-pitiful Brew Crew have won eight of their last 11 games and are 18-16. But they're only 3.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals.

Those same Cardinals, one of baseball's best teams, got shut out by the Mets 2-0 in New York. Struggling veteran Tom Glavine improved to 2-4 after throwing seven shutout innings, allowing only four base hits. The two runs scored were both solo home runs by Cliff Floyd, his ninth and 10th on the season.

Meanwhile, as I wait to write about the Diamondbacks-Rockies games in hopes that my D-Backs are able to keep their tied-for-first-place spot by crushing the piddly Rocks, I see the Rocks winnin 9-3.

Make that 11-3.

12-3.

Wow, Kerry Ligtenberg pitches for Arizona? That explains a lot.

13-3.

15-3.

Maybe I should just move on.

17-3.

Moving on.

Arizona will probably lose (just a guess) and the Dodgers will take first place after their victory against the NL East leaders Braves 7-4. Going into the eighth inning the score was 2-0 Dodgers. In the top half Atlanta posted four runs — a grand slam by Adam LaRoche. Dodgers saw their four and raised them another in the bottom of the same inning — including a grand slam by the best name in sports, Milton Bradley.

American League

The marquee series this weekend featured two first-place teams — the White Sox and the Orioles. The Sox already got the leg up on the series by winning Thursday 3-2. They continued their winning ways by beating up on the O's 5-3 Friday night.

Mark Buehrle won his sixth game of the season as Chicago remains the only team to have single digit losses (9). They have a 5-1/2 game lead over second place Minnesota.

The only other game I care about out of the AL is the Angels and my local team Tigers. But it's rained out, and since I choose not to wait out the onslaught of the Colorado Rockies, so ends this report.

Matthew T. Sussman would have waited until the end of the day's games, but he wrote what he wanted to, and if I wait any longer, people will become disinterested. Besides, his girlfriend wants to use the laptop now, so since he's a whipped journalist, he hopes you got enough information out of this installment of the Futon Report.

P. S. - 18-3.