The Closer: Exploring The Melky Way

Notes from a day in baseball ...

• 1. It Hurts To Be The Mariners Right Now. Poor Seattle. The umpires are against them. Melky Cabrera is looking like freakin' Stan Musial. Johnny Damon is disorienting them by playing first base. And they can't even win in the rain, which is their natural element. It all adds up to a 5-4 win by New York in 11 innings, on Cabrera's walk-off home run. In the ninth, Seattle second baseman Jose Lopez fielded a grounder and apparently threw out Jorge Posada at first, but umpire Mike Reilly called him safe (replays clearly showed he was out). That left runners at the corners, and Damon followed with a sacrifice fly that tied it at 4-all.

• 2. Your Powers Are Useless Here. If the Tigers end up winning the A.L. Central, they had better hope that Chicago doesn't get the wild card; Detroit will never beat them in the playoffs. Despite owning the best record in baseball, the Tigers fell to 1-6 vs. the White Sox after a 7-1 defeat, in which Paul Konerko hit two home runs. Detroit still leads the divsion by 3 1/2 games.

• 3. No 11-Run Innings This Time, Sorry. Time for some positive Cubs news for a change. Phil Nevin had a three-run homer to lead Chicago to a 4-2 victory over the Astros. Even so, the Cubs are 20 games under .500 (oops).

• 4. Cheers For Boston. Well, we can't ignore a one-hitter, even if it was over eight innings. Rookie Jon Lester is 5-0 after his stint on Tuesday, with Jon Papelbon pitching a perfect ninth, as the Crimson Foot Underwear beat the Royals 1-0.

• 5. There's No Such Thing As Too Much Choo Freeman News, In Our Opinion. Since we talk about the Rockies, like, never, we should point out that Matt Holliday had a two-run homer and Jamie Carroll had three RBI to lead a 13-4 win over the Pirates. Oh, and "Yorvit Torrealba," and "Choo Freeman." You're welcome.