Jon

I don't think it's so bad. This is a good cushion to let Marmol get his confidence back in a game situation. Yeah. He really struggled and could use an inning here to work on his command. I love that 2-strike slider...

It's not about turning towards second or moving into fair territory. The call was right because Marquis made a slight move towards second (while he was looking into foul territory). He never actually turned towards second and tried to run, but that doesn't matter.

I agree with the call, although it was a pretty small move and I didn't see it live.

Beautiful ABC HD. Hopefully the Cubs game will remain out of hand.

Ugliest DP ever.

Lee's walk rate has been pretty good over the last two weeks. The month before that, he was bad at everything, so I don't think you can just single out his walk rate. He was in a big slump, but now that he's out of it, I don't think there would be much of a point to making the switch.

Wow. Curtain call for Jim?

Fontenot looks like a bat boy with the bat boy walking by him. One of the kids they've used a bit this season has at least 30 pounds on Mike.

I think that may be all for Contreras.

I'm surprised Bob didn't notice that.

Iowa: Randy Wells (6-2, 2.28) Tennessee: Mitch Atkins (4-6, 4.42) Daytona: Marco Carrillo (3-5, 3.74) Peoria: Kevin Kreier (2-1, 3.96) Boise: Mike Perconte (0-0, 18.00)

On the pregame show, Lou indicated that the current plan is to probably activate Zambrano for the St. Louis series. That would leave him with two starts before the All-Star break.

I would think, though, that if a pitcher began spring training with control problems, changing his mechanics would be a risky proposition. Instead of focusing on correcting the control issues, they altered his mechanics and hoped that it would help take care of his control. It looks like it only made things worse. They rolled the dice a bit and it didn't pay off. And as for what Rich has said publicly, there's no way he'd place any of the blame on the coaching staff. He's been slammed for speaking up before and he's not going to put his neck on the line like that. In addition, just because the mechanical changes were intended to be minimal doesn't mean that the result will also be minimal. I defer to this post BK made back on April 11: There was a clear difference back in mid-April. If his release point stayed consistent for the last few weeks that he was up with the Cubs, I think it would be safe to say that the change was a bad thing. The question now is what to do with him. There's no way for us to know how his back is doing, but with the trade deadline approaching, I'd imagine that Hendry would be pretty hesitant to shut him down and have him work strictly on the side for two or three weeks. But I also don't know what these performances are doing to his trade value. Hill's recent outing may not be making it that much worse considering he's probably already in high-reward project status.

I suppose if that is really their approach right now, it could at least partially explain why his control is much worse. Let's see if the Orioles wouldn't mind renting out Alan Dunn.

Might become? This is Dunn's 8th season in the big leagues. I don't think Ricardi felt the need to rip Dunn for not having a passion for baseball because at some point in the future, the guy who has been in the big leagues for 8 years and on some pretty crappy teams might begin to set a poor example for younger players. If Ricardi thought that was an issue, he probably would've said it. Nowhere did he say that Dunn didn't prepare for games properly or wasn't a good teammate. All he said was that he lacked passion.

His June struggles are much worse than his May struggles, which were worse than his April struggles. It's not like he's been consistent. He continues to get worse.

Reinhard gets out of it, so that is Hill's final line.

Hill couldn't escape the first. He was pulled after recording only 2 outs. 0.2 IP, 3 H, 6 ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 1 HBP, 2 WPs, 45 pitches, 23 strikes He's responsible for the runners on first and third.

Strikeout for the 2nd out, but the runner on third scores on a WP.

Two consecutive walks to force in a run. It's 4-0, still only 1 out.

It's quickly 3-0 after back to back run-scoring singles.

I'm sure it's nice for the players to have a win after the long night last night. Now they can (hopefully) relax this evening, rest up, and get ready for the early start tomorrow.

From listening on the radio, this game had such a strange feel and pace to it. It feels weird that it just ended, too.

I love that man.