Epic Managing By the Save Rule:

- Jerry Manuel, come on down! (Again) (Really?) In the Mets' 14-inning loss to the Diamondbacks, Francisco Rodriguez never entered the game, despite the team needing six relievers. He did warm up five times, however, according to the Mets' television broadcast. This game should have ended in the 12th inning, when Manuel employed his novel "use Oliver Perez before K-Rod" plan. Perez allowed a single and a walk to start the inning, before the Diamondbacks' very special brand of FAIL started to kick in. First, Miguel Montero swung at all three pitches (immediately after a walk, and remember this is with Oliver Perez on the mound), eventually grounding out to Perez but advancing the runners. The Mets intentionally walked Mark Reynolds to load the bases (yes, that's right, they purposefully loaded the bases, walking the strikeout hitter, |STAR|with Oliver Perez on the mound|STAR|), bringing up Stephen Drew. With the count 2-and-0, Drew swung, popping out. How on earth did he not have a take sign? It's Oliver Perez, he's a lefty vs. another lefty, and there's nowhere to put Drew, with just one out. To let him swing there is just unfathomable. Adam LaRoche then flied out to allow the Mets to get out of it. While we're assigning blame for this game, forget about Manuel for a second, hard as it might be to do. Let's give a special mention instead to the Mets offense, who were shut out for eight innings by the Diamondbacks' dominantcompetent nearly worst all-time bullpen, managing just one hit and three walks. Suffice to say, this one won't be going to the Instant Classic archives anywhere.

Opening the Options:

- Bobby Jenks blew the save for the second time in three appearances, giving up two runs in the 11th inning on three hits while retiring just one batter. After the game, manager Ozzie Guillen said that he would "open the options" for closing for the near-future, using a committee between J.J. Putz and Matt Thornton, and a potential sprinkling of Sergio Santos. Putz and Thornton have both been outstanding as of late.

Rock the Kazmir (NL version):

- Randy Wolf gave up 12 runs over 5.2 innings, allowing 13 hits (including two homers) and two walks. Ken Macha employed the ever popular "take one for the team" method on Wolf, rolling him out for the fifth inning after Wolf had already allowed eight runs, and for the sixth inning after he had allowed 10 runs. The outing raised Wolf's ERA from 4.56 to 5.20. He is signed for two more years after this season. Meanwhile, the Pirates have scored 26 runs on 29 hits the last two days against the Brew Crew. The two teams have had a really weird cross-section of games against each other this year, particularly in Pittsburgh.

The Case For Net Steals:

- The downside of getting caught stealing is rarely punished in fantasy baseball, and it isn't emphasis enough in the analysis of the game, at least in non-sabermetric circles. I'd love to play in more leagues where a player getting caught stealing (and thus creating an out) gets punished statistically. I seem to remember that Friend of RotoWire Scott Pianowski has either commished a league with Net Steals or pushed for them. If you made the stolen bases category "SB-CS", or, better yet, "SB - (CS|STAR|2)", I'd sign on in a hurry. The inspiration for this rant is the Angels' Erick Aybar. The Angels had finally broken through on Wednesday against Javy Vazquez, scoring three runs in the fifth to cut a six-run deficit in half and still had just one out, with Aybar on second and Bobby Abreu up and Torii Hunter on deck. Aybar got caught trying to steal third with a lefty up in a hitters' count, effectively killing the inning. They had Vazquez on the ropes (and in fact, he was done in the sixth), and could have done more damage right then and there.
- Elvis Andrus' 24 steals would be devalued quite a bit by his 12 CS's, especially under the latter formula.

Worth Mentioning:

- Michael Taylor is hitting .410/.489/.564 over his last 10 games with Triple-A Sacramento, and Ryan Sweeney is out for the season. The A's are hot right now, so they don't necessarily have a reason to rush Taylor up, unless it's as part of a backdoor AL West playoff push. Moreover, his overall numbers aren't that great yet - .273/.349/.411 with only five homers and nine steals in 297 at-bats. With selective endpoints caveats in mind, Taylor at least is showing signs of life should the A's want to add back to their outfield logjam.

Notables:

- James Shields got the win against the O's, but it wasn't pretty - four runs on eight hits, including his daily homer allowed, while striking out only one over 6.1 innings.
- Javier Vazquez has pitched pretty well recently, but his win on Wednesday was more bogus than James Shields' win. He went five-plus innings, giving up five runs on nine hits (including two homers) while striking out only one.
- Non-All-Star Francisco Liriano threw seven shutout innings against the Indians, allowing six hits and four walks while striking out eight.
- Zack Greinke was dominant against the Jays, striking out nine while walking none over eight innings, giving up two runs to get the win. His batterymate, Brayan Pena, started for just the sixth time all year and went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a stolen base. Maybe, just maybe, he should play more than he has, instead of riding Jason Kendall like he's Seattle Slew.
- Trade target Ted Lilly only allowed one run over 7.1 innings, striking out six while walking one. He did give up a Pedro Feliz homer, his 19th homer allowed in 17 starts - and this isn't just a reflection of his first few starts off the DL, as he's given up nine homers in his last five starts.
- Adrian Beltre was a one-man wrecking crew in a losing effort, going 3-for-4 with three RBI, hitting his 16th homer of the year and stealing his second base in the process.
- Pedro Alvarez homered twice again and was 3-for-5 in the Pirates' romp over the Brewers. In the last 10 games (selective endpoints again, I know), Alvarez has raised his OPS from .573 to .834.
- Max Scherzer threw seven shutout innings against the Rangers.
- Stephen Strasburg got hit for three runs in 5.2 innings, but also struck out seven and got some run support for the first time in awhile to pick up the win against the Reds.
- Gavin Floyd and Felix Hernandez were both superb, neither allowing a run through seven and eight innings respectively. Hernandez threw a fit when he got yanked for the ninth inning by M's manager Don Wakamatsu.
- Chad Billingsley came up huge, throwing a complete-game shutout against the Giants. He needed 125 pitches to go the distance. He saved the bullpen after Tuesday's bullpen meltdown.

Save Chances:

- Rafael Soriano, converted (24). Soriano bounced back from Tuesday's debacle with a clean inning, striking out one.
- Joakim Soria, converted (26). Soria gave up two singles (the second was originally scored an error but later changed to a hit) but didn't allow either runner to score, ending the game with a strikeout and a groundout.
- Gustavo Chacin, converted (1). As rogue as rogue saves get - he was essentially the last one standing, and he gave up two runs on a Geovany Soto homer, and allowed two hits and two walks overall.
- Michael Wuertz, converted (2). Andrew Bailey pitched two innings on Tuesday (for the second time this year he went two innings against the Red Sox), making him unavailable yet again for a save chance. Not that I'm frustrated with him or anything. Wuertz pitched a perfect ninth, striking out one.
- Leo Nunez, converted (23). Nunez gave up a double, a walk and threw a wild pitch but escaped without allowing a run.
- Matt Capps, converted (24). Capps got the last four outs, giving up a hit and a walk but striking out two.
- Billy Wagner, blown (4). Wagner gave up a solo homer to Scott Hairston and then a game-tying homer by Yorvit Torrealba.
- Heath Bell, converted (27). Bell was dominant, striking out the side in a perfect ninth.
- Ryan Franklin, converted (18). Franklin came on to get the final four outs of the game.

Other Closer Outings:

- Mariano Rivera threw a perfect inning with a four-run lead in the ninth.
- Matt Lindstrom came on in the eighth inning of a 1-1 game and recorded five outs while giving up three hits.
- Carlos Marmol struck out two in a perfect ninth of a tie game. He now had 85 K's in 45.1 innings.
- Jose Valverde gave up one run while pitching with a four-run lead and was quite wild, throwing just eight of his 21 pitches for strikes.
- David Aardsma pitched a scoreless ninth in a 0-0 game in the ninth inning.

Non-Closer Reliever Outings:

- Scot Shields turned a close game into a rout, giving up two homers and four runs to turn a one-run deficit into a five-run deficit.
- Should we list Juan Gutierrez as the closer now? Anyways, he pitched a perfect 11th inning, striking out one. Chad Qualls was noticeable by his absence in the 14-inning game.

Lineup-o-logy:

- Sean Rodriguez has started just twice since the All-Star break.
- Asdrubal Cabrera is 1-for-8 with a walk while batting from the leadoff spot in his first two games back from the DL.
- Jed Lowrie made his 2010 debut, hitting second while starting at shortstop. He went 1-for-2 with two walks.
- Coco Crisp was dropped leadoff to "second leadoff", i.e. ninth in the order.
- Ben Francisco picked up a token start ahead of Raul Ibanez against lefty Jaime Garcia, going 0-for-4 while batting 3rd.

Injuries:

- Carl Crawford was given the day off due to his testicular contusion. Yeah, I think I'd need a day off after that, too.
- Aaron Laffey will have an MRI on Thursday for arm fatigue.
- Austin Kearns sat out for the second day in a row with a sore knee. The Indians had Jayson Nix start in left field to give them another right hander with Francisco Liriano on the mound.
- Fred Lewis left after the fifth inning with a sore ankle.
- Clay Buchholz came off the DL and had a rough start, giving up five runs over four innings, allowing six hits (two homers) and three walks.
- Ryan Doumit left after a home plate collision that left him feeling light-headed and nauseous. The obvious concussion concerns definitely apply here - Doumit missed Tuesday's game after taking a foul tip off the mask on Monday and has been felled by concussions before - this year and years previously. I'd be flabbergasted if he caught on Thursday.
- Chris Coghlan (back) returned and went 1-for-2 with two walks out of the leadoff spot.
- Carlos Gonzalez reinjured his left index finger and left the game.
- Ramon Hernandez (knee) will come off the DL and play first base on Thursday, giving Joey Votto a token day off.
- David Eckstein went on the 15-day DL with a right calf strain. He was replaced by Will Venable, who returned from a lower back strain.
- Nate McLouth returned from his concussion after missing 33 games. Chipper Jones returned after missing three games with a hamstring injury.
- Carlos Quentin remained out with a sore hand. He should return on Friday.
- Russell Branyan remained out with back spasms and might miss a couple more games.

Stolen Bases:

- B.J. Upton (26); Corey Patterson (17); Torii Hunter (8); Denard Span (17); Orlando Hudson (7); Nick Punto (6); Brayan Pena (2); Jason Bourgeois (6); Adrian Beltre (2); Bill Hall (4); Hanley Ramirez (20); Emilio Bonifacio (4); Jason Heyward (6); Jerry Hairston Jr. (7); Chris Denorfia (3); Will Venable (15); Shane Victorino (18); Albert Pujols (11); Alex Cora (4); Chris Young (19); Juan Pierre (35); Omar Vizquel (4).

Caught Stealing:

- Erick Aybar (7); Michael Cuddyer (2); Coco Crisp (2); Elvis Andrus (12!); Angel Pagan (6); Chone Figgins (6).

Home Runs:

- Evan Longoria (14); Ty Wigginton (16); Hideki Matsui (12); Bobby Wilson (2); Robinson Cano (18); Juan Miranda (3); Colin Curtis (1); Pedro Feliz (4); Geovany Soto (13); Adrian Beltre (16); Jack Cust (6); Matt Watson (1); George Kottaras (8); Pedro Alvarez 2 (6,7); Delwyn Young (4); Gerald Laird (3); Seth Smith (13); Gaby Sanchez (10); Cristian Guzman (2); Willie Harris (5); Scott Hairston (9); Brian McCann (12); Ryan Howard (22); Matt Holliday (18); Angel Pagan (8); Chris Young (17); Mark Reynolds (22); Rusty Ryal (3); Rod Barajas (12); Casey Blake (10).

Tough Days:

- Joel Pineiro's start against the Yankees was remarkably similar to his April 24 start against them - 6 IP, 11 H, 6 ER in both outings. The only difference is that he had five K's in this one. He's had the misfortune of drawing the Yankees three times this season, which is pretty hard to do for an AL West pitcher.
- Carlos Santana went 0-for-4 with three K's against Francisco Liriano and Jesse Crain.
- Jason Bay went 0-for-6 with four K's in the loss to the Snakes. Ike Davis was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts and went 1-for-13 in the three-game series against Arizona.
- Brennan Boesch went 0-for-4 to drop to 3-for-29 since the All-Star break. He'll get Thursday's game off.
- Adrian Gonzalez went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts.

Transactions:

- The Twins called up Anthony Slama, who struck out two while allowing one hit in a scoreless inning in his major league debut.
- The Tigers called up Scott Sizemore to give them another option at third base while Brandon Inge is out. The team has said that they will not move Carlos Guillen off second base, so Sizemore will have to sink or swim there, lest the team risk continuing the Donald Kelly era.