The Call:

- Jim Joyce screwed up, but it wasn't due to arrogance, laziness or even mechanically doing his job incorrectly - he was in excellent position to make the call. This was not a case of an Umpire Gone Wild, like the Joe West ejection of Mark Buehrle or Bill "Rabbit Ears" Hohn ejecting Roy Oswalt this week. I think what happened was that Armando Galarraga's step to first base was a little awkward, and it came in conjunction with a bit of a sno-cone catch, and those two things threw him a little bit. To his credit, Joyce manned up after the game and admitted his fault - in a prior generation, I don't think you'd see a public acknowledgment of such a missed call. Should we have an expanded set of calls that are reviewable by instant replay? Absolutely yes, but it bugs me that this call is the tipping point. I thought that some of the missed calls in the playoffs last year were more egregious, and the missed safe/out call in the 10th inning in Seattle-Minnesota bothered me a helluva lot more. I don't like the idea of overreacting to one call, but I was already onboard with expanding replay anyhow. What are your thoughts on replay? How far would you go? On a tangential note, Armando Galarraga only had three strikeouts in his gem. If not for the call, his game would have tied Addie Joss for the least number of K's in a perfect game. He threw just 88 pitches, and that includes the extra batter. Again, only Joss threw fewer pitches among those with perfect games. David Cone also threw 88 pitches in his perfecto.

The Retirement:

- Even though he took the Steve Carlton Path (HT: Ron Shandler) to retirement and didn't handle the sleeping in the clubhouse story all too well, there was something noble about Ken Griffey Jr.'s retirement. That he didn't require a big farewell day or even a huge going-away press conference somehow appeals to me. Perhaps he was forced into retirement by the M's or perhaps he came to his own decision on this - either way, it was the correct move. I'll leave it to others to summarize his legacy - but his departure now helps the Mariners out a little bit, especially if it allows them to occasionally play Milton Bradley at DH instead of in the outfield.

The Really Important Botched Call:

- Jim Joyce's botched call cost someone a personal milestone. Dale Scott's whiff in Seattle cost the Twins the game. On Ichiro Suzuki's infield-hit in the 10th inning, the runner was clearly out - and it would have been the third out of the inning. The winning run scored from second on the play (and the Twins are culpable for that, in that they weren't prepared to make the throw, |STAR|and|STAR| pitcher Jose Mijares cut the throw off from second to home for some inexplicable reason). This is the play that deserved replay, because it was outcome dispositive. But there was so little talk about it the next day because of Joyce's call, Griffey Jr.'s retirement, and the time zone factor.

Rate My Trade:

- In my AL home league (11-team, old school 4x4) I came away from the draft with no closers, unwilling to pay the inflated prices that they cost. Closers traditionally are expensive there, in part because of the format and partially because a couple of the teams are willing to pay premium prices to have multiple good closers. Anyhow, my starting pitching really has worked out well so far - I'm first in wins by a mile (44 wins, next highest is 30), and I'm second in ERA and WHIP. So I decided to pursue trading one or two of my starters for value elsewhere, especially at closer. After a bit of shopping, the best I could get was Andrew Bailey for Ervin Santana and Delmon Young. Hitting isn't especially easy to acquire in this league, but in terms of auction dollars I made a profit. It's the Delmon side of things that I'm a little wary of, but I have a few irons in the fire to trade one more starter while getting some hitting help in return. Given the context, how did I do?

Notables:

- What notables? Seriously, nothing happened!

No, Really, Notables:

- After Wednesday's 0-for-4 effort, Chase Utley is 6-for-38 in his last 10 games. He's hardly the sole reason why the Phillies' offense has suddenly has gone into the tank, but his slump came at an awfully rough time, with Jimmy Rollins on the DL and Placido Polanco hurting.
- The Braves have won eight in a row, with the last six of those coming at home, where they're 19-6, as opposed to 12-16 on the road. They begin an 11-game road trip on Thursday in Los Angeles - can they continue this momentum at LA, Arizona and Minnesota? They're interesting in that they've gone on this run despite so many things going wrong for them (Jair Jurrjens, Kenshin Kawakami, Yunel Escobar, all outfielders not named Heyward or Hinske, no power from Chipper).
- Kyle Kendrick has allowed just one earned run in two starts over 15 innings against the Braves this year.
- Arizona hasn't scored in their last 31 innings, since the second inning of Monday's game. They went a collective 8-for-47 with just one walk on Wednesday.
- Bradley Bergesen got pounded for six runs on seven hits and two walks over 2.1 innings.
- Fausto Carmona threw a complete game of his own against the Tigers, giving up three runs (two earned), and notably didn't walk a batter - so there were no walks at all in the game, and only six K's between the two pitchers.
- Carlos Zambrano's return to the rotation against the Pirates was rained out. Instead, he'll start in Houston this weekend.
- Shaun Marcum was allowed to stay in the game to finish what he started against the Rays and instead coughed up the lead, then had two more bonus runs saddled onto him when Scott Downs allowed a grand slam to Carl Crawford.
- Daisuke Matsuzaka followed up his eight-walk game with no walks and a seven strikeouts over 6.2 innings.
- Wandy Rodriguez |STAR|sort of|STAR| had a bounceback outing against the Nats. He struck out eight batters, but he needed 116 pitches to get through five innings of work, walking three while allowing five hits. It's progress, but he's not all the way back yet.
- Gavin Floyd got torched again, giving up six runs on eight hits and three walks over 2.2 innings.
- Chris Carpenter continued his ownership of the Reds, holding them to one run over eight innings. He got a big assist in the one inning where the Reds rallied, when Jay Bruce's liner hit Scott Rolen on the basepaths. Instead of a hit and another run, it was an out with the runners freezing where they were. They didn't score again.

Save Chances:

- Billy Wagner, converted (9). One strikeout, one walk in a scoreless inning.
- Francisco Rodriguez, blown (3). K-Rod was one strike away from converting the save before Little David Eckstein hit a game-tying single against him. Adrian Gonzalez then hit a double, but Eckstein was thrown out trying to score to end the inning.
- John Axford, converted (3). Axford gave up a run on two hits, but also retired five batters, recording one strikeout.
- Jon Papelbon, converted (13). Papelbon gave up a solo homer to Kevin Kouzmanoff, the fourth given up by Papelbon this year.
- Kyle McClellan, converted (1). McClellan got the chance because Ryan Franklin pitched two innings the previous day.
- Brian Wilson, converted (13). Wilson threw a clean inning despite throwing 34 pitches over 2 innings the prior day.

Other Closer Outings:

- Jonathan Broxton pitched the ninth inning in the scoreless tie against the Diamondbacks.
- Heath Bell threw a scoreless ninth, striking out two.
- Rafael Soriano allowed a run on two hits, striking out two. A potential save chance turned into a mop-up appearance when the Rays stretched a one-run lead to five.
- Bobby Jenks threw a scoreless ninth with the White Sox trailing by four. He struck out one while giving up a hit.
- David Aardsma threw a scoreless ninth in a tie game.

Non-Closer Outings:

- Jose Contreras pitched in the eighth in a tie game and gave up the go-ahead run. His presence in that situation suggests that Brad Lidge will get the Phillies' next save situation.
- Luke Gregerson, Mike Adams and Ryan Webb combined to throw four scoresless innings, with Webb getting the win in the 11th inning. The Padres' bullpen is on a sick run - all four relievers that pitched on Wednesday have ERA's below 3.00, with all but Adams below 2.00.
- Jason Frasor and Scott Downs might have blown their collective chances to replace Kevin Gregg as the Jays' closer, despite Gregg getting the day off after Tuesday's meltdown. Frasor walked the only batter he faced, then Downs came on to give up Carl Crawford's back-breaking grand slam.
- Carlos Villanueva allowed a run on a hit and a walk, retiring one batter. For that, he was awarded a hold. Yeah, that seems like a good rule.
- Franklin Morales struck out the side while walking one in his first game back from the DL.

Lineup-o-logy:

- Shane Victorino was given the day off, with Jayson Werth sliding over to center field and batting leadoff.
- Count Dracula, er, Manny Ramirez, once again didn't start a day game. Garret Anderson started in his place in left field.
- Jorge Posada came off the DL as the DH, batting sixth. The Yankees sent Juan Miranda down to Triple-A Scranton to make room for Posada. He might see a number of games at DH in the short-term.
- Maicer Izturis started in place of Erick Aybar at shortstop and batted leadoff.

Injuries:

- Chipper Jones left in the fifth inning with inflammation in his right ring finger. Omar Infante replaced him and later had the game-winning hit.
- Mark Reynolds (quad) sat out again and might be headed to the DL. Rusty Ryal started in his place.
- Luis Castillo sat out with a right heel injury. Alex Cora started in his place, with Angel Pagan batting in the second spot in the order.
- Jason Bartlett (hamstring) sat out again and is questionable for Friday's game at Texas.
- Juan Rivera fouled a ball off his toe and left the game in the fifth inning. X-rays were inconclusive.
- Vladimir Guerrero fouled a ball in the batting cage that ricocheted off his eye - though x-rays were negative, he looked like Mike Tyson in Tokyo after Buster Douglas was finished with him.
- Felipe Lopez said that his bruised thumb felt fine, but he was out of the lineup for Wednesday's game. Brendan Ryan went 2-for-3 with the first RBI in his place.

Stolen Bases:

- Jamey Carroll (3); Jose Reyes (13); Jason Bay (8); Tony Gwynn (9); Austin Jackson (8); Carlos Gomez (7); George Kottaras (2); Chris Coghlan (7); Bill Hall (2); Darnell McDonald (3); Cliff Pennington (7); Nyjer Morgan (12); Juan Pierre (20); Albert Pujols 2 (4,5); Matt Holliday (4); Milton Bradley 2 (2,3).

Caught Stealing:

- Stephen Drew (1); Vernon Wells (1); Jose Bautista (2); Nyjer Morgan (9!); Kevin Frandsen (1); Matt Tolbert (1); Juan Uribe (2).

Home Runs:

- Adrian Gonzalez (10); Robinson Cano (12); Miguel Cabrera (15); Carl Crawford (5); Prince Fielder (9); George Kottaras (5); Yovani Gallardo (2); Kurt Suzuki (5); Kevin Kouzmanoff (4); David Ortiz (12); Carlos Lee (6); Torii Hunter (8); Matt Treanor (3); Paul Konerko 2 (15,16). Troy Tulowitzki (7).

Pitch Count Alert:

- Edwin Jackson threw 123 pitches in his nine innings of work against the Dodgers.
- Johan Santana needed 123 pitches to get through seven innings, walking five in the process.
- Derek Lowe threw 119 pitches in his 8 strong against the Phils.
- Scott Feldman threw 115 pitches in his eight innings of work against the White Sox.