Yardwork: Only 95-ish Games Left in the Season

Chicago White Sox 7, Pittsburgh 2: Contract these wastes of space. They’ve lost 10 in a row. Have the worst record in the NL (23-42). Zach Duke took the loss to fall to 3-8; remember when he had a promising 2005? The Pirates should have sold him high back then. Rough year in Pittsburgh, huh? Sidney Crosby (one goal) and the Penguins come up small in a 2nd round playoff loss to Montreal. Steelers’ QB Ben Roethlisberger had that incident in the bathroom. And the Pirates won’t sniff the postseason once again. Let’s have a bit of fun – take the Pirates’ best positions players and their top five pitches. Would any of them get on the field for the Yankees? What about the Rays? We could go on – Boston, Philly, etc. Just an embarrassment to baseball.

New York Mets 8, Cleveland 4: Winners of six in a row (and 10 of 11), the Mets are a staggering nine games above .500 and in 2nd place in the NL East. This mostly has to do with the Phillies tanking in the last month, and let’s be honest, nobody predicted this kind of a season for this motley crew. Angel Pagan and Ike Davis delivered crucial hits last night. Who the hell saw that coming in Spring Training? Especially after Carlos Beltran went down? Enter your guesses now as to which pitcher the Mets add prior to the trading deadline: Jake Westbrook, Ben Sheets, or Cliff Lee.

San Francisco 6, Baltimore 3: Tim Lincecum got the win and struck out 10, but left after taking a line drive off his back. We’re all outta Mitch Kramer jokes, but it would have been somewhat comical if Lincecum was seen pinching the bridge of his nose repeatedly in the dugout while recuperating from this injury.

Minnesota 2, Colorado 1; Houston 4, Kansas City 2; Seattle 2, St. Louis 1: The common theme in these three games? Zero homers. In fantasy news (we’re in 2nd place and playing the 1st place team this week) you don’t care about – we left Jason Vargas of the Mariners on the bench last night and of course he silenced the Cards’ bats.

[photo: Getty]