Today's honorary bat boy is Jose Oquendo.
Cubs 12, Phillies 6
Rangers 7, Redsox 2
Our first Jobu of the second half begins with a tribute to old, soft-throwing pitchers. At Wrigley, 83-year old Jamie Moyer gave up six earned in three innings and extended his all-time record of home runs allowed to 511, giving up bombs to Derrek Lee and Alfonso Soriano. Aramis Ramirez continued washing off his odor at the plate, driving in four runs to help the Cubbies to their first consecutive victory. In Boston, 76-year old Tim Wakefield was dreadful, allowing seven runs (six earned) in just two innings. Vlad, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz were a combined 9-for-14, and Hamilton's .351 average now leads baseball.
Braves 2, Brewers 1. Corey Hart hit an opposite-field home run off Jair Jurjjens in the first inning, but that was all the Atlanta right-hander allowed, winning for the second time in three post-hamstring injury starts. If I'm an NL team, I do not want to go south to play the Braves in the post-season. With Thursday's victory, Atlanta, five up on New York in the East, improved to 31-10 at Turner Field. That's like the adult league baseball team I played on in 2007. We were 3-2 at Campbell Middle School, but couldn't win on the road (0-9). It was a different team when those fences were only 180 feet away.
Angels 8, Mariners 3. Joel Pineiro just keeps winning. The right-hander gave up three runs in seven innings and hasn't surrendered more than three earned in seven consecutive starts, all Anaheim wins. Paul McAnulty: 2-for-4.
