Say what you want about Milton Bradley but it doesn’t look like he’s having a good time in right field. According to beat writer Carrie Muskat, Bradley’s enduring a fair amount of “hatred” during games courtesy of Cub fans.
Bradley doesn’t hold back:
"All I’m saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home."
Wow. Good natured ribbing or fan abuse? Or just a over-sensitive rightfielder?
Either way, maybe the fans are targeting the wrong guy. It’s easy to look at Bradley’s season batting average of .259 and think he’s not pulling his weight. But look at his stats in the last 20 days. In that period, he’s batting .306 with a nifty .411 OBP (and that’s not including tonight’s game when he hit a homerun).
Since he’s moved to the second spot, the Cubs have leveraged his on base potential the best that a team in their position can. MB has had two 4-hit games in that same period.
So Cub fans, go easy on the guy. Pick on the beer vendor.
Neither closer has had all that much success this year, neither Matt Capps, nor Brad Lidge. Capps spit out a one run 9th inning lead, allowing back to back doubles, and then with two outs Shane Victorino lined a ball right at Andrew McCutchen, McCutchen froze, and the ball took off over his head, and gave the Phillies a one run lead. Now it was time for Brad Lidge to protect a one run lead. Hits by Luis Cruz & Brandon Moss, with a wild pitch in between, tied the game when Jayson Werth over ran the ball, and pinch runner Brian Bixler scored. That brought up the kid, Andrew McCutchen. Andrew talked with Lastings Milledge during the game, talking about what he’d do if he hit a walkoff home run, and told him he’d be like a basketball player taking the dunk to the hoop when he reached home plate. He thought he might get the bunt sign, but when he didn’t, he focused on the job at hand and looked for a ball to hit hard. And BANG it happened!
Ryan Spilborghs put an exclamation mark on last night’s Rockies come from behind victory over the Giants in 14 innings, with a walkoff grand slam! The teams were down to bare bones as evidenced by the fact that Colorado manager Jim Tracy told pitcher to take three strikes right down the middle for a strikeout, rather than risk hitting into a game ending doubleplay, he wanted to see Spilborghs hit with the bases loaded, Justin Miller issued a bases loaded walk to Eaton, then Miller was replaced by Merken Valdez, who let up the bags juiced jack.
De Pere, WI native Jason Berken took the mound against the White Sox Sunday at US Cellular Field. The Orioles righthander won his debut the end of May against the Blue Jays, but winning has been a long time coming, 2-11 coming into today. He brought his own rooting section, about 25 vocal friends & family members were on hand to back up this cheesehead. They almost came on the field after Robert Andino & Melvin Mora, who committed first inning errors. But this rookie has learned to overcome adversity, coming to the majors after Tommy John surgery, and today was no exception, as he bested Mark Buehrle & the White Sox for his 3rd win of the year, 5-4. In addition to myself, Dick & Bea, Steve, Roland, Debbie & George, Nancy Faust, and Caramel Corn Mike, were all in the house, the sad house.
Last night was Elvis Night at the Cell as the White Sox hosted the Orioles. Big Elvis was not there, but something you should see before you die is waiting for you at the Barbary Coast in Vegas. Jamie Aaron Kelley performed outside Gate 4 before the gates opened (then did the National Anthem & performed on the field after the game), all of his fans braved the raindrops as he sang Kentucky Rain, and thanked him very much before going inside the ballpark. Flying Elvises (or is it Flying Elvi) dropped out of the sky with the American Flag to America the Beautiful, quite inspiring, even to a non-patriot like myself. Then after the game there was a terrific fireworks display done to Elvis songs, the rain waited until after the game, but got quite wet while ewing & awing.