Barry Bonds was moved to third in the lineup on Saturday and Sunday, for the first time since May 23, 2003, in an effort to shake him from his recent slump.  But after an 0 for 2 on Sunday, he is now hitless in his last 14 at bats, and had just 1 hit in 18 AB on the homestand against the Cubs and Dodgers.  Bonds, who has not homered since May 7 in Philadelphia, now takes his quest for the Babe to Houston, the site of his record tying 70^th HR on October 4, 2001 (off Wilfredo Rodriguez). 

 

Kerry Wood will make his first start of the season on Thursday at home for the Cubs against the struggling Nationals after making his second rehab start and throwing 85 pitches in five innings on Friday night.

 

Highly touted Phillies prospect Cole Hamels made his big league debut on Friday night and held the Reds to just one hit in five scoreless innings after having held opposing minor league hitters to a .165 batting average. 

 

Following up on Saturday, Jon Lieber retired the first 20 batters before Adam Dunn hit a slow roller past Jimmy Rollins to break up Lieber’s bid for perfection and keep intact the longest no-hitter drought since WWII.  Thursday will mark the two year anniversary since the last no-hitter of any kind, Randy Johnson’s perfecto against the Braves, back on May 18, 2004.  Lieber allowed just 2 hits in 8.2 innings.

 

Finally in Sunday’s finale, Brett Myers allowed just 4 hits over 7 innings, giving the three Phillies starters a line of just 7 hits allowed over 20.2 innings (and a 0.43 ERA) this weekend in Cincinnati.  Overall the Reds’ hitters collected just 16 hits total in the 3 game set.

 

Luis Castillo of the Twins bunted into the old 3-4-6 triple play on Sunday night against the White Sox.  Now that’s what you call failing to get the runners over.

 

Ryan Dempster on Saturday blew his first save in 26 chances since July 24, 2005.  The Cubs were three outs away from giving Greg Maddux his 324 career win before Padres catcher Mike Piazza hit a three run homer off Dempster to give San Diego their 13^th win in 14 games. 

 

Maddux stole his eighth career base in Saturday’s loss, earning him a standing ovation from the home crowd. 

 

Going into play on Saturday, the top two hitters in the NL were catchers.   Brad Ausmus of Houston and Brian McCann of the Braves entered play tied at .347.  After play on Sunday, the top two hitters in the NL are shortstops.  Atlanta SS Edgar Renteria (.342) is second in the league behind the Marlins rookie sensation Hanley Ramirez, who is batting .345.  McCann is now third in the league at .340 and Ausmus is tied with Sir Albert for 6^th at .333.

 

Scott Podsednik of the White Sox saw his average drop to .059 (2 for 34) on April 13 after going hitless in 4 at bats.  Since then he has raised his average to .286 by going 34 for 92 (.370) including a 3 for 5 on Sunday.  He is hitting .417 in May.

 

Shane Victorino is also swinging a hot bat of late.  Since the beginning of May, the Hawaiian native is hitting .519 (14 for 27) with a HR and 6 RBI (including a 4 for 4 on Friday in Hamels’ debut) after hitting just .188 (3 for 16) with no HR and no RBI in April.

 

Mike Lamb of Houston also got hot when the calendar flipped.  After beginning the season at .214 (3 for 14) with 0 HR and 0 RBI through the first month, Lamb has gone 10 for 19 (.526) with 2 HR and 5 RBI this month. 

 

The Dodgers’ Jeff Kent has now homered in 5 of his last 6 games.

 

The NL’s ERA leader, John Thomson of Atlanta (1.88), has just one win on the season after taking his third loss of the year in Sunday’s 8-1 loss to the Nationals. 

 

Meanwhile, Josh Towers lowered his ERA from 10.09 to 8.45 after allowing just 2 earned runs in 8 innings against Tampa Bay to earn his first win of the season.  Towers came into the game the major league leader in setbacks, having lost all seven of his starts to date.  He is now 1-7 on the year.

 

Jorge Sosa of Atlanta (13-3 last season) is now the major league leader in losses without a win at 5. 

 

Free Swingers – Update Pt I – Over the weekend, Kerry Robinson of the Royals drew his first walk of the year and dropped out of the race to be the player with the most AB without a walk.  Matt Diaz of the Braves is the current leader with 48 times at bat without a free pass through Sunday.  Omar Infante of Detroit is now second with 45 AB and the Mets’ disabled 2B Angel Hernandez is third with 41. 

 

Free Swingers – Update Pt II – Meanwhile, among players with just one walk, the leader remains our favorite: fellow Braves OF Jeff Francoeur, who has but one free pass in 156 at bats.  Doing the math gives us one walk combined between Francoeur and Diaz in 204 at bats.  Francoeur won Saturday’s game with a walk-off grand slam.

 

Free Swingers – Update Pt III – Following closely behind Francoeur with just one walk are Minnesota OF Rondell White (130), KC SS Angel Berroa (127), Tiger 2B Placido Polanco (125, which also gives him and Infante a total of 1 in 166) and Mariners SS Yuniesky Betancourt (120).  St. Louis OF Juan Encarnacion dropped out of this race by drawing his second walk of the year over the weekend and he now has 2 in 135 AB.

 

Bonds, on the season, has been walked unintentionally 21 times.  He has 18 hits and been intentionally walked 17 times. 

 

After play on Sunday, and after an off-season of most pundits saying how weak a division it would be, the NL West currently sports the best cumulative record in all of Baseball at 100-89, a .529 winning percentage.  The next best record belongs to the AL East (.524) followed by NL and AL Central divisions (.502), the AL West (.466) and finally the NL East (.443).  The Padres, the hottest team in Baseball, took over first place in the West from Colorado on Sunday by completing a sweep of the Cubs and winning for the 14^th time in its last 15 games.    

 

The Longest Streaks – After running their league-high winning streak to 3 games, the Royals, over the weekend, got swept to put a quick end to any simmering October dreams.  Now holding the longest win streak in the Majors is the new NL West leader, San Diego, which has won now 5 in a row after seeing their league best 9 game run snapped on May 9 by Milwaukee.  The longest losing streak in the league belongs to the Indians, losers of 6 straight.  They are now 4^th in the Central, 17-21 overall.

 

 

Well done to Major League Baseball who on Sunday, to help raise money and awareness in order to help fight breast cancer, had players using pink bats in all games played this Mother’s Day.  The players who used them (including Jermaine Dye and Lance Berkman who homered using them as well as Bill Hall who hit a walk-off job with his) will sign them before they are collected and auctioned off to raise funds for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. 

 

In addition to the game used bats, each team will also sign a bat to be auctioned off.  Teams also used commemorative home plates with the pink ribbon logo and special pink lineup cards were also used that will all be auctioned off at mlb.com at a later date.

 

In 2006, more than 200,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and the Komen Foundation is a leader in directing funds to the source of the problem.  To learn more about the foundation, please go to www.komen.org.  

 

Happy Mother’s Day to every mom out there, especially mine!