Roy Oswalt will be fined, but not suspended, for his actions on Sunday against the Chicago Cubs, Bob Watson, Major League Baseball’s vice president of on-field operations, told a Houston television station on Wednesday.
Oswalt contended that the plunking was not intentional. – MLB.com
That’s a load of crap. And the Cubs can’t do anything about (chitrib) because they definitely are going to get suspended if they hit anyone. There surely be retribution by the Cubs at some point, but it’ll likely wait till next season.
It’s cute how Oswalt is still pretending it wasn’t intentional when no one else in his franchise is willing to back him up on it. And that they think they’re still in the playoff race. In face, let me double the gap to show today.
CHC --- 36 7-3 (Prior v HOU Backe) SFG 1.0 34 7-3 (Tomko @ FLA Beckett) SDP 2.0 36 6-4 (Eaton v NYM Trachsel) FLA 6.0 38 7-3 (Beckett v SFG Tomko) HOU 6.0 36 8-2 (Backe @ CHC Prior) PHI 8.0 35 3-7 (OFF) CIN 9.5 37 5-5 (Harand v STL Carpenter) PIT 10.0 36 4-6 (OFF)
(Mets? Mets? Anyone seen the Mets?)
That’s closer than I thought. They’ve just had the unfortunate timing of getting hot when everyone ahead of them was nearly as hot, so the 8-2 run didn’t really get them out of their hole.
Remaining Houston Schedule
4 @ CHC
3 @ CIN
3 v PIT
3 v CIN
5 @ PIT
3 @ STL
3 v MIL
3 @ SFG
3 @ MIL
3 v STL
3 v COL
I don’t know if this makes sense to everyone, but if I was a team who needed quite a few games to catch up, I’d rather take a harder schedule where I play games against the teams ahead of me than a weak schedule where I don’t get those head to head matchups. Astros just have this 4 game series vs the Cubs and the 3 game series in SF to gain any ground. They could actually sweep both of those series and still be behind those teams if they play even down the stretch, so the control is out of their hands. If they get some help and take care of their own business, they could get up there, but if you need some help, I don’t think you’re in the race.
Either way, they need to go at least 3-1 in Chicago to get close enough where help is actually help. Lose the series or even split, and they’re going to need a couple teams to collapse.
I think FLA vs SFG is equally big. If the Giants leave town with a six game lead on the Marlins, Florida’s done. They’ve got six games left with the Cubs, which would give them enough room to bootstrap them up leaderboard if they were still close by then, but if you’re losing series against one Wild Card leader, you can’t really expect to be winning future series against other Wild Card leaders.
It’s also Brett Tomko vs Josh Beckett. Gotta win that.
Yesterday’s Cubs game? They got so lucky. No one has any faith in any one in the bullpen at this point. Bako made a great double play that’ll be too overlooked. Corey rules and you wonder if the expectations were just too high for him to immediately to return to form after racing back from a major injury.
For what it’s worth, there’s word the Cubs tried to get Jose Mesa, had a deal worked out, and a third team blocked the waiver claim. Even as bad as it’s been (and it well be), I think I don’t mind. If they’re blocking Jose Mesa, though, no Urbina or any other close is going to get thru, so we’ve got to go with what have. I’ll save my psychotic “Let’s put Glendon in the rotation and move Wood to closer” thoughts for a day we actually lose.
pending elimination: Arizona will be the first team out of any race, if they lose or the LAD win. They’ve got a couple more days of life in the wild card.
I’ll try to do other stuff today. We’ll see if I actually have the time.