Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Mike Gallego.

Nationals 11, Cardinals 10 (13). Albert Pujols became the third-fastest to 400 home runs (Alex, Grifey Jr.) Thursday, but Ian Desmond stole the potato with a walk-off single in the 13th.

Tigers 7, Bluejays 1. Brady Anderson hit his 41st home run for Toronto.

Diamondbacks 11, Padres 5. It's time for the San Diego Padres to re-evaluate the direction of the organization because Ian Kennedy just threw seven, one-hit innings and struck out 12. That's like when MTD mowed through the Vennington subdivision lineup in the district wiffle ball finals in 1995. Everyone thought he was a bum and his career was over, but he struck out 14 that day with his famous Booger Ball.

Dodgers 7, Brewers 1. Any time you can get 4 1/3 one-walk innings out of George Sherrill, Kenley Jansen, Octavio Dotel and Jeff Weaver, something went right that day. Weaver's performance was the most baffling: he faced three batters and got each one of them out.

Marlins 11, Mets 4. The magical season in Flushing continued Thursday as Jonathan Niese put on a one-man show called Do I Smell Like Andy Hawkins Yet?, firing 5 2/3 innings of seven-run ball. Hanley Ramirez had a decent three-game series, going 10-for-15.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Off Base Percentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy: Juan Berenguer




Royals 2, Angels 1. Lefty Joe Saunders was good-8 IP, 1 ER-but the Anaheim bullpen was not-Brian Fuentes blown save, Scot Shields blown nose. KC has won six of eight and is nine games back in the Central on July 3, the closest to first the franchise has been on this date since the 2003 team was in first place, 2 1/2 games up. Wilson Betemit: 1-for-4, single.

Reds 12, Cubs 0. Solid day for the Cubbies. The offense picked up a pair of singles against Bronson Arroyo (6 IP), then Cincy exploded for nine runs in the seventh off Ryan Dempster and a little leaguer named Zach.

Diamondbacks 12, Dodgers 5. The Kirk Gibson era got off to a nice start as Arizona rolled over Hiroki Kuroda (1 2/3 IP, 6 ER) and Jeff Weaver (1 1/3 IP, 3 ER). Any time Jeff Weaver is prominently involved in an embarrassing loss, I'm delighted.

Whitesox 5, Rangers 3. KenHarrelsonVoice™ returns:

"The bad guys led 3-1 after six, but the Sox got a little bingo goin' in the seventh, tell you what. Like the ghost of Scotty Pods, Gordo started the inning with a duck snort, attaboy Gordo. Then Juan, the crew's pick to click, singled. Alex and Pauly drove in runs and all of a sudden the good guys were tied. Ninth inning, bad guys have hard throwing Neftali Perez in the game, but the Sox have Kotsy on the roster for a reason: ninthinningbigtime. Kotsy drove a double into the gap, scoring two and the Palehose took their first lead. Bottom 9? He gone! Wimpy's pick to click, Andruw Jones didn't play."