FanHouse Todd Coffey

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

Well, that took freaking forever ... but the Blue Jays finally started to stink the joint up. I swear to you, you can't stay long atop the MLB Power Rankings -- our failure by osmosis jinxing ability is just too strong, son. At any rate, it was a weird week for ranking baseball: the Cubs continued to skid, the Padres went on a tear and Toronto fell off the face of the planet. So, yeah, spiciness ensued, and you may take the jump to see how badly your team fared. Unless you're a Rangers or a Braves fan, in which case they couldn't have done that poorly.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
Micah Owings has no intentions of pulling a Babe Ruth.

So far this year, Owings is 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA as a pitcher and batting .400 as a hitter – including the game-winning double Sunday for the Reds. His pinch hit broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning, and Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News isn't alone in wondering if maybe a Cincinnati team batting .210 overall could use his bat more than a few times a week.

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.

So, yeah, I think it's safe to call it a bad week at the least for Bill Hall. Luckily for Hall, grand slams can fix just about anything.

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.

Previously at the Fanhouse
Bill Hall Is Struggling