Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That the Phillies are grateful to be in the NL East.
The division got out-scored 37-7 on Friday as the AL East swept in interleague play. And it's only the rest of the division's mediocrity keeping Philadelphia in first by a half-game.
After their 11th loss in 13 games, 6-1 to the Blue Jays as Ricky Romero didn't allow a hit in the first six innings, the Phillies held a team meeting.
The Mariners are still hanging around in the AL West, though, so it's not exactly a sure thing they'd be willing to part with Washburn. He does make quite the hefty salary, but his contract is up at the conclusion of this season, so moving him wouldn't really save the Mariners much money.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead. You Oughta Know ... That two crafty left-handers showed they still have something left in the tank Sunday. Eric Milton, who went almost three years without a win in the major leagues, won his second consecutive start in this 2009 comeback with the Dodgers -- an 8-2 defeat of the Cubs -- since being recalled by the club from Triple-A Albuquerque. It's unclear if he will get a third with Hiroki Kuroda returning from injury on Monday.
Hundreds of miles away and hours earlier, the Phillies' Jamie Moyer -- who knows a thing or two about making a comeback -- picked up his 250th career win against the Nationals ... after five previous tries. Moyer needs just four more wins to pass Carl Hubbell and become the 10th-winningest left-handed pitcher in major league history.
Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.
When Willy Aybar's home run Thursday in Cleveland was upheld by a video review, it marked the sixth time in six days umpires made use of baseball's instant-replay rule.
So the natural question to ask Jimmie Lee Solomon, Major League Baseball's executive vice president of baseball operations, is why the flurry of trips to the secret chamber to watch replays? Are the umps more willing to consult the tape than in the past?
"These things come in bunches," Solomon told FanHouse.
Maybe I'm being a bit hard on these guys, but almost 59 percent of the 41 pitchers who are starting twice this week are being placed in the "Risky Business" category.
There are a couple of touted rookies who make up the 59 percent like the Rays' David Price and Atlanta's Kris Medlen. There are also some big-named pitchers who should never be placed among the "Risky Business" pitchers who just are throwing well, or their teams aren't winning behind them. Jon Lester and Francisco Liriano come to mind immediately.
Like I said, in all there are 41 two-start pitchers this week. Make sure that you get your lineups locked early today as there are a bunch of afternoon games. The first is 1:10 PM ET when Houston plays Cincinnati.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.
With the recent news that Mark DeRosa is on the trade block and the White Sox have possibly landed Jake Peavy, junkies of major league baseball trade rumors got an early glimpse at what promises to be a very interesting July. It's far to0 early to know exactly who will be in the market for what -- or who can afford to take on temporary payroll in this economy -- but it's certainly fun to speculate. Let's do it.
You know how home run totals seem to have fallen considerably this year? I think I have a theory what's up: Eric Milton has been hurt. Milton has been a one-man launching pad in recent years, giving up a whopping 112 home runs the previous three years combined.
This year, though, Milton has only been able to make six starts, allowing four home runs in a little over 30 innings. And sadly for would-be power hitters in the National League Central, he may have already given up his last gopher ball for the Reds. The free-agent-to-be is expected to undergo season-ending ligament replacement surgery on his left elbow.
Despite four straight seasons of suckitude, Milton will almost certainly pop up somewhere in the majors sometime in 2008 once he recovers (after all, he is a left-handed starting pitcher, and those things are harder to get rid of than cockroaches), but for all we know it'll be somewhere like the cavernous RFK Stadium or Petco Park where his penchant giving up long balls will be greatly reduced.
To say the very least, it's been a long couple of weeks for Bill Hall. The fact that he's not exactly off to the quickest start has been detailed lots of places, the Fanhouse included. Then, over the weekend, he was detained by park rangers for making an illegal turn near the Gateway Arch in St. Louis (it's the last item in the notebook). Apparently, the rangers can be rather zealous about guarding the arch.
Hall lined a 3-2 pitch off Cincinnati reliever Todd Coffey for a grand slam in the seventh inning, the key blow in the Milwaukee Brewers' 10-6 victory over the Reds Monday night at Great American Ball Park.
Hall entered the night in a well-documented offensive funk. He was hitting just .171 (6 for 35), with one hit in his last 20 at-bats. Thanks to that, he got a couple of unwanted nights off earlier in this three-city trip.
The main beneficiary of Hall's slam was Chris Capuano, who ended up getting a win despite having a rather rough go of it in his 5 and 2/3 innings tonight. Of course, his line is much better than the first three pitchers in the box score for the Reds, Eric Milton, Victor Santos, and Toddy Coffey, who got rocked for nine of the Brewers ten runs. For the Brewers, Rickie Weeks added his fourth homer of the year and Prince Fielder had two hits and score twice. For the Reds, Josh Hamilton continued his slow quest for world conquest by hitting a ninth inning pinch hit two run homer and Adam Dunn had three hits and scored a run.
Beyond the Cards drubbing of the 'Stros, there were actually two other games of note involving the other four NL Central teams today, making it a pretty good day for the division.
It took a week, but the Pirates finally got the 2006 NL batting champ back into their lineup today in Cincy and Freddy Sanchez picked up where he left off last year. He went 2-for-4 with an RBI double and Zach Duke pitched very well for six innings (before getting shelled in the seventh) while the Pirates did one of the very few things they're good at, beating Eric Milton and by extension the Reds, 6-3. To build on to Red's Canadian meme from earlier, BC native Jason Bay hit his 2nd homer of the year to finish the Reds off and Pittsburgh's Brad Eldred made the most of his first playing time this year by homering and doubling in another run. Ken Griffey Jr. had 2 RBIs for the Reds and Xavier Nady went a full nine innings without batting any flyballs over the fence with his glove.
Meanwhile in Milwaukee, Wade Miller made his first start in Cubbie blue and he didn't look much like the Wade Miller of old, giving up six earned runs in less than 5 innings of work. Geoff Jenkins and Gabe Gross both went deep against Miller for the Brewers and Craig Counsell knocked in three runs to help the Brew Crew a 9-4 win to even off both teams' records at 3-3.
Pittsburgh and Chicago both move on to their home openers against the Cardinals and Astros, respectively, while both the Brewers and Reds will head on out towards warmer weather in Arizona and Florida.
We should all know by now that Eric Milton isn't a very good pitcher. In fact, it's fair to say he's actually a bad pitcher, and that's matter of fact, not opinion. With that in mind, I don't want to pile on a guy for having a bad outing -- chances are, it's going to happen more times than not when he takes the mound ...
But wow, sometimes ... sometimes the word "bad" gets re-defined. From John Fay in his blog Reds Insider for the Cincinnati Enquirer:
Eric Milton gave up five home runs in six ininngs to the Single-A Pirates. He gave up 11 hits and threw 93 pitches. The wind was blowing out, but it was less than 100 mph.
Milton was none too happy.
How did it go?
"It went."
You think? It went, alright. And went, and went, and went ... and just when you thought it was done went-ing, it went again for good measure. If the Single-A Pirates are lighting him up like this, imagine what will happen against legitimate big league hitters at the launching pad known as The Great American Ball Park.
And that, Cincinnati Reds fans, is your No. 3 pitcher this year. Don't forget to bring your mitt to the park this year.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
As 
Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in 
You know how home run totals seem to have fallen considerably this year? I think I have a theory what's up: 
To say the very least, it's been a long couple of weeks for Bill Hall. The fact that he's not exactly off to the quickest start has been detailed lots of places, 
Beyond 
We should all know by now that 
