Nine innings, nine items to get you going. Ladies and gentleman of the Stew, take a sip of morning Juice.
1. Majestic: There aren't too many players who hit home runs with a natural flair like Prince Fielder, whose two-run shot gave the Milwaukee Brewers a lead in the sixth inning Sunday. And Fielder played it cool after the Brewers edged the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 to complete a three-game sweep at Miller Park. No sense stirring up a hornet's nest, even though the Brewers took over first place in the NL Central for the first time since July 2009.
"I don't know about a statement," Fielder said. [...] "It's just good right now. We're playing good baseball. Like I said we haven't been in first place for about a year or two now."
2. Bat Sox: The Red Sox offense can't help but score runs in Toronto. After a 14-1 thumping of Kyle Drabek and the Blue Jays on Sunday, Boston had amassed 30 runs over the past two games at Rogers Centre. At least the Jays didn't have to use Mike McCoy, a position player, to pitch this time.
3. Almost ... there: The New York Yankees pounded out 18 hits — two by Derek Jeter, who is seven from 3,000 hits for his career — in a 9-1 victory against the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe went 0 for 17 with runners on base and were 0 for 12 with them in scoring position. Cleveland has dropped three straight in the Bronx and nine of 10 overall. As a result, they almost don't have first place in the AL Central to hold onto anymore. Orlando Cabrera picked up his 2,000th career hit, if you'd like to celebrate that.
4. Bulldozer: Nice recovery by Roy Oswalt, who gave up three early runs but stuck around long enough for Ryan Howard to put the Phillies ahead with a two-run single in the seventh, the deciding moment in a 4-3 victory against the Cubs.
5. Jedi mind tricks: Perhaps in the future when our memories are cloudy, this will be the performance people will associate with the no-hitter Minnesota's Francisco Liriano threw back in May. He was that good in a 6-1 victory against the Rangers.
6. Take it easy, Dude: Don't ever complain about a pitcher not running hard after they hit a ball. Apparently they're not supposed to.
In Arizona's 5-1 victory against the Marlins, pitcher Daniel Hudson sprinted to first base to avoid being thrown out by Florida outfielder Mike Stanton. Hudson made it, but there were consequences:
"I told him, 'Hey, you don't have to run that hard,' " Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said. "Then he ran hard on a double-play ball, so I think after that he was pretty much toast."
7. The force is strong with this one: Tommy Hanson dropped 14 strikeouts in seven innings on the Houston Astros in a 4-1 victory for the Atlanta Braves, who kept pace with Philly in the NL East. Also encouraging: Dan Uggla (hugging the heck out of Chipper Jones in the photo) hit a home run for the first time in 21 games. He was 5 for 11 in the series after coming in 7 for 76. Yes, 76.
8. Grinders, to the last: The Giants managed a split with the Reds after rallying for a 4-2 victory. Moribund slugger Aubrey Huff had three hits (really!) and Nate Schierholtz had the go-ahead sacrifice fly. He's always doing stuff like that.
9. In case of emergency... : Matt Stairs started a ninth-inning rally against Padres closer Heath Bell with a pinch-hit single, then Danny Espinosa broke up a scoreless tie with a sacrifice fly that nearly went over the fence at Petco. The Nationals won 2-0.
"That's the first time I hit a curveball in about six or seven years," Stairs said.
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