Daily Archives: June 2, 2008

June 2, 2008

Rockies 3, Cubs 5: Ho Hum, Another Home Win

Team123456789RHE
Rockies (20-37)000201000381
Cubs (36-21)10021100-591
W: Sean Gallagher (3-1) L: Ubaldo Jimenez (1-6) S: Kerry Wood (14)

Boxscore

Sean Gallagher pitched well enough to win and Kerry Wood got an easy save as the Cubs rolled to their 7th straight win, sweeping a series against the Rockies.

The Cubs are now 15 games over .500 and have a 2.5 lead on Cardinals. Chicago has a phenomenal home record, yet has a losing one on the road, which doesn’t bode well for this month where they play more games away. With the roll the team is on right now, I doubt it will affect them, but I could be wrong. These are still the Cubs, after all.

The Cubs embark on a road-trip, hoping to prove wrong all the people who criticize their record as home-inflated. Carlos Zambrano battles Cha Seung Baek of the Padres at 10:05pm EDT.

June 2, 2008

Astros 1, Brewers 10: Astros Cure for Ailing Brewers

Team123456789RHE
Astros (30-28)100000000152
Brewers (29-28)40060000-10100
W: Dave Bush (2-5) L: Shawn Chacon (2-1)

Boxscore

When last we checked in on the Brewers, they were continuing to struggle along, finding it difficult to make to much headway towards .500. Well, apparently Houston was nice enough to bring a cure-all tonic with them up from Texas as the Brewers swept the Astros over the weekend.

Shawn Chacon was terrible for Houston, allowing 4 runs in his one, that’s right, one inning of work. Jack Cassel, who relieved Chacon, wasn’t much better, coughing up 6 (4 earned) in his 2 1/3 innings.

Dave Bush was stellar for Milwaukee, and Ryan Braun and Russell Branyan both homered to lead the offense.

The win puts the Brewers one game above .500 for the first time in a while. They’ll try to stay there as the Diamondbacks and Doug Davis come to town. Jeff Suppan tries to keep the Brewer’s win streak going at 8:05pm EDT.

As for Houston, they have a day off to travel to Pittsburgh.

June 2, 2008

Pirates 4, Cardinals 7: Winning with Small Ball

Team123456789RHE
Pirates (26-30)0100110104110
Cardinals (34-24)05010010-7111
W: Braden Looper (7-4) L: Ian Snell (2-5) S: Ryan Franklin (6)

Boxscore

The adaptive Cardinals used primarily small-ball tactics and defense to defeat the Pirates. They took advantage of five singles and a walk to score 5 runs. Then their defense and pitching made sure it held up.

St. Louis has been successful this year, taking what their given. Some days they have the home runs flying, sometimes it’s a low-scoring, pitching duel, and some days, like yesterday, they turn singles into runs. A team that follows either a small-ball or 3-run home run strategy is far too one-dimensional to do well, as the homer happy Reds have proved over the past few years.

The two teams close out their series tonight at 8:15pm EDT, with Tom Gorzelanny pitching for the Pirates and Adam Wainwright for the Cardinals.

June 2, 2008

Braves 2, Reds 6: Sweeping the Braves

Team123456789RHE
Braves (29-28)000000200261
Reds (28-29)01200030-680
W: Johnny Cueto (4-5) L: Tim Hudson (7-4)

Boxscore

So it looks like all the bloggers were right. In the week since the Reds called up Jay Bruce–whose first initial is a homophone for his first name–the team has just won and won and won some more. Apparently, the problem was Corey Patterson all along.

A day after hitting a walk-off homer, Bruce hit his second to lead the Reds to a victory and the series sweep over the Braves. Nice revenge for the sweep the Braves handed them earlier in the year.

Next, Cincinnati travels to Philadelphia to try to improve their atrocious road record. Bronson Arroyo starts against Kyle Kendrick at 7:05pm EDT.