Baseball In The Daytime: 8-2-07

It's a nutty one, as we have more games scheduled for this afternoon than this evening. And even though the slate is light on elite starting pitchers, most of the games involve playoff contenders and/or division leaders.

Your leadoff contest comes to you from The Jake in Cleveland, on XM 182 and DTV 734. The revamped Rangers take on the tanking Indians at 10:05 Mountain. Kason Gabbard, fresh off the trade that sent him from Boston to Texas in exchange for Eric Gagne, locks horns with Jake Westbrook. The Indians are still only a game out in the Central even though they're playing their worst possible baseball--this is thanks to the Tigers playing just as bad. Hell, the Twins are playing like shit too but are making up ground in spite of themselves.

I did love the contribution of one Roy F. Almania, calling out his cousin's repeated choice of the Twins as AL Central champs. Delicious.

At 10:35, the Cardinals alight on the shores of the Monongahela to face the Pirates. A couple of youngsters start, Anthony Reyes for the Cards and Shane Youman for the Bucs, on XM 187 and DTV 735. St. Louise is inexplicably back in the National League playoff picture, having taken three straight against the Brewers over the weekend to pull within six in the NL Central.

For some reason, the Red Sox don't play many weekday games at all, at least during the dog days of summer. One of the reasons that the HoG will never be better than the 312th best Red Sox blog in the world is that, by virtue of the fact that I'm several thousand miles away from Boston, I don't have any idea as to why it's nearly all under the lights at Fenway. I mean, they sell out every damned game, what's wrong with a matinee once in a while?

Well, we get one today, that's the good news. The bad news is that depressing Tim Wakefield gets the call, although since I'm at work I won't have to watch him. Rookie of the Year candidate Jeremy Guthrie is your Oriole starter, on XM 177 and DTV 736 at 11:05.

At the same time the White Sox battle the Yankees, with the requisite multimedia full-court press: 176 on the XM, standard-definition 737 and hi-def 731 on the DirecTV. Jon Garland, who was dangled at the deadline, starts against Roger Clemens, who's really old. The Yanks are lingering at seven back of Boston in the East, and they've closed to a scant two games out in the AL wild card race. They get Phil Hughes back Saturday, Jason Giambi next week, and the kid fireballer Joba Chamberlain will probably be called up somewhere in between to bolster the 'pen.

The other New York club visits Miller Park at noon, on XM 188 and DTV 738. Fort Collins native Brian Lawrence is your Met SP, while the Brewers give the ball to Chris Capuano. Milwaukee was finally caught by the Cubs yesterday, as they lost to New York and Chicago won a wild walf-off at Wrigley. Current winning percentages: Cubs .538, Brewers .537.

Those Cubs play their own game in Chicago at 12:20 against the Phillies. Kyle Lohse, just picked up from the Reds, brings his vast repertoire of bad pitches to the hill reflecting Sean Marshall, on XM 183 and DTV 744. Kerry Wood probably won't be activated until the weekend, so the fans on the North Side should be safe from flying elbow shrapnel this afternoon.

Finally, from Petco Park in San Diego, we get the D'Backs and the Padres in a tussle over NL West supremacy. The corporate wags insist on calling it PETCO, and I'll probably get a letter because I refuse to do so. It's kind of like Yahoo demanding that you put that God damned exclamation point in their name. You know what's fucked about that? Yahoo is a web site, so what matters for them is their URL. And URLs can't have exclamation points. So stick that shit up your gold-plated ass, Jerry Wang Yang. Yusmeiro Petit and Jake Peavy get the nods in this one, at 1:35 on XM 189 (no TV). Cheers!