Mr. Thursday Night

Jason Michael Barker

It's time again to take that wondrous journey around last night's boxscores, and there's no better place to start than Milwaukee, where the Brewers and Astros had their double-header rained out. Now that's excitement! Seriously, we begin our trip in Philadelphia, where Mark McGwire removed any doubt that he is, as the kids say today, "Da Man."

Big Mac's three homers on the evening brought him to 539 for his career, more than all but seven men ever to have played the game. Perhaps more impressive is that he passed two big names -- Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays -- in two different statistical categories. Mac surpassed The Mick on the all-time homer list, and broke a tie with The Say Hey Kid for second place in multihomer games. McGwire now has 64 such contests, with only Babe Ruth (72) ahead of him. These are big names, folks.

I've written about this before, but it really is too bad McGwire lost so much time to injury early in his career. Without all those missed games it's quite possible we'd be talking about him passing the 600-homer barrier, well on his way to overtaking Mays for the number three spot on the career list. As it stands now, McGwire needs a homer about every two-and-a-half games the rest of the way to pass Frank Robinson for fourth place by the end of the season.

Staying in the National League for a minute, Cincinnati reliever Danny Graves went to 6-0 on the season, picking up the win by virtue of the Reds scoring a run in the bottom of the tenth after he worked a scoreless top half. It seems every year there are a couple of relievers who rack up gaudy win totals based primarily on being in the right place at the right time -- these are the guys Rotisserie players salivate over -- and Graves is just one such example.

Do we need look any further than the Florida Marlins for substantial proof that stolen bases are overrated? The Fish were a perfect ten-for-ten in swiping bases Thursday night against the Padres, but still managed to lose game 6-2. Kind of makes you wonder what was going on with San Diego catcher Wiki Gonzalez, who apparently makes Todd Hundley look like Ivan Rodriguez when it comes to gunning down would-be basestealers.

The big culprit in Florida's loss was the heart of their batting order, as 3-4-5 hitters Cliff Floyd, Preston Wilson and Kevin Millar combined to leave 12 runners on base, five in scoring position with two outs. Perhaps the Marlins can lure proven clutch hitter Joe Carter out of retirement...

Rounding out the National League for the evening we turn to Montreal, where Arizona reliever Byung-Hyun Kim struck out four of the eight batters he faced over two innings to pick up his second win of the season.

Kim was thrust into the closers role when Matt Mantei went on the DL, and so far he's pitched wonderfully, with a 1.45 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 18.2 innings, and opposing batters are hitting just .179 against him. He's also extremely young, having just turned 21 in January. Walks were a problem last season (20 in 27.1 innings), but if he gets that under control (pun intended), look out.

Moving to the American League, the Rangers have two of the hottest bats in baseball in Frank Catalanotto and Mike Lamb. Catalanotto followed up Wednesday's five-for-five by going three-for-five Thursday, raising his season's average to a robust .588. It should be noted that he only has 34 at-bats this season, however.

Still, I've been a fan of his for a few years now, and it's good to see him getting some regular playing time with the Rangers (he just got back from the disabled list) after being stuck with the Tigers the last three years. He's got some pop in his bat for a middle infielder and will take a walk, and he's also the best thing the Rangers have going at second base right now.

Over at the hot corner, Texas has a great young player in Lamb. Lamb wasn't included in my AL Rookie Roundup earlier this month because he has just been called up from triple-A, but he has been hitting extremely well the past couple of weeks. He went three-for-four Thursday, with all three hits doubles, to raise his season numbers to .325/.382/.525. He has to prove that he can keep it up over a full season, of course, but those look like ROY-type numbers to me.

And speaking of big nights, congrats to Denny Hocking of the Twins, who went five-for-six Thursday night and missed hitting for the cycle by a matter of inches. Batting in the ninth needing only the triple for the cycle, he hit a ball down the left field line that just went foul. Hocking ended up striking out, but it was a great game for the utility player nonetheless.

I have no particular reason to root for Hocking, other than that he's the sort of scrappy, play-every-position type of guy you can't help but pull for. He's also a good friend of the evening host on the sports radio station here in Seattle, and is on the air whenever the Twins are in town. He's a pretty funny guy, and doesn't seem to have any reservations about saying what's on his mind in a situation when other players might just give the usual cliché answer you hear all the time.

Way to go, Denny.

about the author

Jason Michael Barker got caught up in television season finale fever this week, and nearly forgot what an RBI was. Remind him that it's "Really Big Igloo" at jmb@strikethree.com.

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