The Morning Cup, 6/19/2008

Not much today, as I'm heading out of town in the morning and have some risk to manage...

Baltimore 2, Houston 1: The O's continue to help out the Pirates by keeping the Astros down in the standings. Lance Berkman hit is 20th HR of the year, but Jeremy Guthrie went eight innings with 8 K's and 1 BB and all he got was a lousy no decision. Side Note: Buster Olney (ESPN Insiders) wrote about the Orioles this morning, and how it's surprising that they've managed to be 36-34, with which I cannot disagree. I did want to mention that I saw the O's play the Mariners back in April in Seattle, and Adam Jones (who came over in the Bedard trade) looked like the best player on the field for most of that game. I know he's 22 and only hitting .260/.297/.384 for the year, but he's at .306/.313/.484 in June, and I think it only goes up from there.

Tampa Bay 5, Chicago 4: I watched most of this game while doing other things, but I watched intently enough to be pissed off by how many fans were wearing Cubs paraphanelia. I get that Tampa isn't a great sports town, but they can't do better for a nationally televised game? Really, Rays fans? Really?

New York Yankees 8, San Diego 5: That makes six straight wins for the Bombers and 8 of their last 10. God help us all.

Kansas City 3, St. Louis 2: Sabermetric-friendly Royal Brian Bannister defies PECOTA by getting to his projected win total before the All-Star break. I'm sure JoePo will have words up about this by the end of the day.

L.A. Dodgers 6, Cincinnati 1: I mention this game only because Brandon Phillips turned a nice unassisted double play that I can't find a clip of, but was all over Baseball Tonight. Check it out.