Nine innings, nine items to get you going. Ladies and gentleman of the Stew, take a sip of morning Juice.
1. Royal sendoff: What a nice way for Joe Posnanski to say good-bye to Kansas City. The Royals have been struggling for weeks (well, decades) but they had a nice little Monday night. They picked local kid Bubba Starling in the first round of the draft — and with a name like that how can he fail? They returned Joakim Soria his closer job and he pitched well to hold the Toronto Blue Jays in check. Finally, Eric Hosmer ended an epic(ish) ballgame with an RBI single in the 11th inning for a 3-2 victory. Hosmer is 14 for his past 35.
2. Late show: The San Francisco Giants roared back to erase a four-run deficit against the Nationals (What's up with that, Timmy?) but then things got slowwwwwww at AT&T Park until Freddy Sanchez hit a game-ending RBI single in the 13th for a 5-4 victory. Both teams were out of position players, and Miguel Tejada was due to pitch next for S.F. "Not that he knew that," manager Bruce Bochy said.
3. Danks for something: Well, what do you know? Chicago White Sox left-hander John Danks kept pitching long enough to pick up a win (he started 0-8) beating Michael Pineda and the Seattle Mariners 3-1. Paul Konerko's wrist must be OK, because he hit a home run (that a young female fan made a great catch on).
4. How many guys? Led by Clayton Mortensen, the Colorado Rockies used six pitchers to shut out the San Diego Padres 3-0. The Padres have been shut out 10 times, tops in the majors, probably to no one's surprise.
5. Trouble in tipi: They started out impregnable at home, but the Cleveland Indians have dropped seven straight at the former Jake after the Minnesota Twins beat them 6-4. With Cleveland losing five in a row overall, the Detroit Tigers just about have the Tribe caught in the AL Central.
Oh, but there's more:
6. Caged fury: A 13-7 victory for Detroit at Texas was the Tigers' seventh in eight games. See what I'm saying about the Tigers? And Brennan Boesch isn't the only guy who can hit two home runs in the same game, Nelson Cruz.
7. Road beers: The Milwaukee Brewers completed a nifty four-game sweep of the Marlins with a 7-2 victory at Sun Life Mausoleum. Zack Greinke raised or lowered? — lowered — his ERA to 4.83. He'll do better.
8. The "K" in Cliff: Phillies left-hander Cliff Lee says he's not trying to strike anyone out, which obviously explains why he leads the league with 100 after shutting down the Dodgers 3-1. He's got six games with double-digit K's so far. It goes under-reported, but Cliff Lee is a red ninja.
9. Price pays: The Rays really needed a shutdown kind of game from David Price, and he delivered with seven dominating innings against the Angels in a 5-1 victory. Price struck out seven and lowered his ERA to 3.35.
Extra frame: Lightfingers Mike Leake and the Cincinnati Reds sent the Chicago Cubs to their seventh straight loss, 8-2, but Carlos Zambrano apologized to Carlos Marmol for being such a meanie the day before. So the Cubs are all fixed.
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