Baseball is Poop

The Curse of the Poop
Ever since I wrote about two of my favorite young pitchers, James Shields and Fausto Carmona, they have both gone in the toilet.

Shields was 5-0 with a 3.08 ERA, since then he's 1-3 with a 6.48 ERA. And though he allowed 7 homers in those 4 starts (25 innings) he walked only 1 and struck out 26.

Very similarly Carmona was 7-1 with a 3.11 ERA when I wrote about him. Since then he's 1-3 with a 6.86 ERA including a disastrous 8 runs in one inning start against Oakland.

The Kid is Still the Future
The Kansas City Royals were very worried early this season because their franchise, Alex Gordon, had gotten of to a terrible start. On June 6 he was batting .173 with 3 HR and 8 RBI. Since then Gordon is on fire. In the last 18 games, he .408 with 3 HR and 14 RBI.

With Age Comes Wisdom
Wednesday night featuring an incredible 7 starting pitchers over 40 years old. Kenny Rogers got rained out and Roger Clemens got bombed by the other 5 (Woody Williams, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux) went 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA. And the former Braves triumverate went 3-0 with a 0.50 ERA. And not one of them suffered a broken hip.

A Walkoff Walk off Proctor
The Yankees are reeling again. After winning 11 of 12 to get back to 3 games above .500 the Yankees lost 7 of 8 and are now 3 games below. Those losses include a 3-game sweep by the Rockies and 2 losses to the Orioles, one on that walkoff walk, and one when Clemens gave up four runs in 6 innings and didn't strike out a batter for the first time in 200 starts. Pedro Martinez has struck out at least one batter in 293 straight starts, the longest active streak.

Better Than the Babe
Ryan Howard hit his 100th home run in only his 325th game. That's the fastest to 100 in major league history. At that pace he can get to 800 in about 14 more years.