Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That David Ortiz pulled within one homer of Yovanni Gallardo on the MLB leaderboard. Yes, Big Papi finally hit a home run. It took him 149 at-bats to get his first homer of the season, while 318 other players had hit at least one -- including two by Gallardo, a Brewers pitcher -- but Ortiz got on the board with a fifth-inning homer, helping the Sox to a victory over Toronto.
Ortiz had been slumping so badly that manager Terry Francona benched him for the whole series last weekend in Seattle. Ortiz joked after hitting the homer on Wednesday that he was so desperate he was "about to hit right-handed."
The Arizona Republic reports that the the Schoeneweis' 14-year old daughter called police upon finding her mother on the floor of her parents' bedroom. When officers arrived on the scene Mrs. Schoeneweis was unresponsive and she was pronounced dead. There is no cause of death at this point.
The Diamondbacks played a doubleheader Wednesday in Miami against the Marlins, and many of the Arizona players wore Schoeneweis' number on their hats. Schoeneweis is on his way back to Arizona. The couple has four children. Our deepest condolences go out to them and the rest of the Schoeneweis family.
Major League Baseball is in the early stages of investigating player agents who may be connected to the sport's steroid scandal.
"It's a whole new territory we're looking into," a person with direct knowledge of the investigation told FanHouse. "Our information has led us to believe there are some [agents] worth going after."
The 50-game suspension of Manny Ramirez last week proves MLB's intention to rid the game of performance-enhancing drugs is expansive in its scope and aggressive in its tactics.
Now that nearly 30 players have been suspended for using PEDs since the penalty phase of testing began in 2004, the natural progression, say people familiar with baseball's Department of Investigations, is to target the suppliers, as well as users.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
See this kid? That's right -- he's crying. Do you know who caused this? That's right: you, New York Mets. You did this to him not once, but twice, losing the final game of the season at Shea Stadium with a sizable division lead in September and your destiny in your hands.
Only bad people make children cry. And if you do fail for a third season in a row, this child will wind up spending more money on extensive therapy than you did signing Luis Castillo. Heck, with this wig on, it may already be too late. But maybe not. So here's what you -- the Mets -- can do to make sure that this child grows up to lead a somewhat normal life.
With the Brewers and Cubs playing on WGN and the Mets and Marlins on TBS, the NL wild-card race played itself out in dramatic fashion for a national audience this afternoon. In a ten-minute span that gave every baseball fan in the country sore thumbs, three home runs decided the the final playoff spot in the National League this year. With both games tied entering the eighth innings, the Mets bullpen surrendured home runs to Wes Helms and Dan Uggla to fall behind 4-2. Immediately after that, Ryan Braun launched a two-run home run to the same spot he hit his walk-off grand slam earlier this week. Both scores held up, and the Brewers are going to the playoffs for the first time in 25 years.
The Brewers were carried today by CC Sabathia, who pitched on three days rest for his third straight start. Somehow, he's gotten stronger in each start and today he threw a complete game four-hitter, holding the Cubs to one run and giving the Braun and the Brewers' offense the chance they needed. He looked so strong today that manager Dale Sveum let him hit for himself leading off the bottom of the eighth inning of a 1-1 game with the season on the line.
The Mets, meanwhile, watched their season crumble at the hands of the Marlins for the second straight season. Scott Schoeneweis and Luis Ayala served up the two key home runs today after Carlos Beltran had tied the game at two with a two-run homer in the sixth. The Mets put runners on in both the eighth and ninth, but couldn't find the game tying hit, clinching their second straight September collapse. That Omar Minaya extension looks brilliiant today, doesn't it?
After blowing another lead in the ninth inning against the Pirates Monday, the Mets appeared to be at their breaking point when they arrived in Washington for a three-game series with the Nationals. Things were so bad manager Jerry Manuel talked about using starting pitchers Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez and John Maine in the ninth during his pre-game meeting with reporters.
Fast forward nine innings and reliever Pedro Feliciano, the savior of the moment after a pitching a perfect ninth to nail down a 4-3 win, was joking with reporters about how "scary" the save situation was for him.
Such is life in a desperate pennant race in the middle of August with three teams battling for just one spot in the postseason. "Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust," as Ray Liotta's character from the movie Blow would say.
Chances are the New York media will paint this win as a watershed moment for the Mets, a moment spurred by the motivational tactics of Manuel and a closed-door bullpen meeting led by veterans Scott Schoeneweis and Duaner Sanchez.
Wednesday was a day to forget for Scott Schoeneweis. He woke up early in the morning with severe stomach pains that were so bad he eventually called an ambulance. From Anthony Rieber of Newsday:
"I thought I was going to die," Schoeneweis, who has survived testicular cancer, said from Shea Stadium after the Mets' 5-3 loss to the Nationals.
[...] "The scary thing was I was in severe pain," he said. "I mean, I've been through a lot of stuff. For me to call an ambulance, I was in dire straits. I looked at my arm and my arms were like blue, my hands and stuff, and I was like, 'I need to do something. I just can't lay here. '"
Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing serious. After being treated with IV fluids and nausea medication and undergoing a CT scan and bloodwork, his doctor thinks that he either had a pretty nasty stomach bug or maybe even torn some internal scar tissue from his cancer surgery back in 1993. So now that we know he's okay, we can take a moment to enjoy a bit of humor that came of this ...
When the Mets last took the field at Shea Stadium they put the finishing touches on one of the all-time great pennant race collapses. Many months and one trade for Johan Santana later, they returned to the scene of the crime for this afternoon's home opener. The last home opener in the venerable history of Shea, I might add, and against their archrivals from Philly to boot. What a way to turn the page once and for all.
A funny thing happened on the way to redemption, though. The team fell flat on their faces. Up 2-0 in the seventh, Scott Schoeneweis renewed the bullpen's love affair with failure and loaded the bases lickety split. But he did get Ryan Howard to bounce to Carlos Delgado for a potential inning-ending double play but there must have been some reverse karma working with Bill Buckner's return to Boston. Delgado threw the ball away, the score was tied and the echoes of '07 rang throughout Flushing.
The rest was predictable wheels coming off the bus action. Aaron Heilman gave up a couple more runs in the eighth and the Mets went meekly in their final at-bats. That's three straight messes thrown up by the bullpen, which is all too reminiscent of last September and a really poor way to kick off your home slate.
If you're new to these proceedings, click here and here to catch up on what you've missed.
If you're not into the extended catch-up, you've missed a six-run Mets fourth and a two-run Josh Willingham home run and some entertaining fat men dancing. Johan Santana's on his way to his first Mets win, we'll see if he can get it after the jump.
Another day, another set of baseball player names to add to the steroid user rolls. Prosecutors in Northern California are investigating Ramon Scruggs to see if the doctor has illegally prescribed steroids to his patients. Sources told the New York Times that among the patients are several major league baseball players. That shouldn't surprise anyone since Scruggs prescribed 'roids to Troy Glaus and Scott Schoeneweis and was named in the Mitchell Report.
One of the lawyers said the current investigation had uncovered the names of other major league players who had received prescriptions from Scruggs. Those names are unlikely to be disclosed immediately if legal action is taken, as expected, against Scruggs in the coming months.
"It's not as big as Radomski, but certainly is something significant," one of the lawyers said in characterizing the investigation, referring to the investigation of the former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski.
Radomski was, along with Brian McNamee, the star of the narrowly focused Mitchell Report. You'd have to be naive to believe that there weren't local versions of those two in every big league port of call and the Scruggs investigation is just the latest reminder of how far from done we are with baseball's Steroid Era.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
Some sad news to report out of Arizona. 
Major League Baseball is in the early stages of investigating player agents who may be connected to the sport's steroid scandal.
Our MLB editor provides weekly dispatches from major league games in 
Wednesday was a day to forget for 
When the Mets last took the field at Shea Stadium they put the finishing touches on one of the all-time great pennant race collapses. Many months and one trade for 
Another day, another set of baseball player names to add to the steroid user rolls. Prosecutors in Northern California are investigating Ramon Scruggs to see if the doctor has illegally prescribed steroids to his patients. 
