Baseball is Poop

Who's Hot Edition
The Yanks Are Coming
You can only keep a team with a $200 million payroll down so long. The money is starting to pay off for the Yankees who are 22-7 in the last month, including 11-2 in the last 13 games. They only trail the Red Sox by four games now and are just percentage points behind the Mariners for the AL Wild Card.

The Natural
A young promising pitcher gets shot, works his way back to the major leagues and starts hitting home runs an impressive pace. Ok, so Rick Ankiel didn't get shot, but after his meltdown in the 2000 playoffs he might have wished he had been. Ankiel could never get his control back so he gave up pitching and focused on hitting. After several years in the minor leagues working on his hitting, Ankiel is back in the majors and he has 3 home runs in 16 at bats.

Welcome Back
Since coming off the disabled list Mets outfielder Moises Alou has 5 home runs in 54 at bats (all in the last 32 ABs). Before going on the list, he had 2 in 110 ABs.

Welcome Back II
San Diego Padres outfielder Brian Giles has 5 home runs in his last 12 at bats. He started the season with 2 in his first 287 at bats.

Only 3 More Shutouts To Go
Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon Webb has a 33 scoreless inning streak including 2 straight complete game shutouts. Webb who won the NL Cy Young Award in 2006 has lowered his ERA by 0.61 to 2.77 (4th in the NL) over that span. If Webb can pitch three more shutouts in a row, he will break Orel Hershiser's scoreless innings streak.

Nearly Perfect
Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Bobby Jenks has retired 41 consecutive batters over 14 innings (that should be 42, but he came into one game with a man on and got a double play). 41 is the major league record set by Jim Barr in 1972. Hard to believe of all the guys who pitched a perfect game (15 in the modern era), none of them had 5 innings perfect in the game before and or after.