The Day in Sports: September 22, 2005

INNNNN THE NEEWWWWWS!

In cased you missed it or haven’t heard, it came out yesterday that, during his suspension appeal hearing, Rafael Palmeiro indicated that a supplement that an Orioles teammate gave him was a possible cause for his failed test, and while he named that teammate during the hearing, it was not being made public. After literally minutes of speculation, it turned out that Raffy named Miguel Tejada as the guy who gave him the potentially tarnished substance, a shot of vitamin B-12 (not on the MLB list of banned substances). Basically, it seems to be pretty much agreed that the possibility that the B-12 shot caused Palmeiro’s positive test is nonexistent. Major League Baseball has already come out to clear Tejada’s name.

The article is here.

I posted some comments at Camden Chat that you can check out here.

Also of interesting note is that Tejada said that he’s been tested three times and come back clean each time.

Basically, I’m not still sitting here waiting for Palmeiro to give us “the other side of the story,” because I don’t think it exists. As for this incident, I am really hoping that it wasn’t an attempt to take a teammate down with him (and a very poor attempt, at that). I’m going to give Raffy the benefit of the doubt and say that he was just frantically searching for a possible explanation and didn’t mean to indict anyone.

After the news initially came out that Palmeiro had mentioned a teammate, interim manager Sam Perlozzo told the Associated Press that maybe it would be best if Palmeiro didn’t return to the team. Previously, it was thought Raffy might return for the final home stand of the season, which begins tonight against Boston.

In other news, 32-year-old career minor leaguer Rick Short is batting .462 with two homers, four RBIs, four runs scored and a (get this) 1.610 OPS in 10 games with the Nationals. That includes a 2-for-3 night last night in which he smacked a pair of doubles and knocked in a run against the Giants. Go Rick Short!

Now on to those evil, evil recaps.


MLB: Nationals 2, San Francisco Giants 0

They did it! The Nationals played a game against the Giants and didn’t allow Barry Bonds to homer! What’s that you say? He didn’t play? Well ... at least he didn’t homer!

The Nationals got 5.2 scoreless innings from fill-in starter (normal reliever) Hector Carrasco and seventh-inning RBIs from Rick Short and Deivi Cruz to take a 2-0 win over the Giants.

Brett Tomko (7-15) gave up the runs and took the loss, Jon Rauch (2-4) pitched a scoreless inning and got the win, and Chad Cordero shut the Giants down in the ninth for his 47th save.

Tonight at RFK at 7:05, the Nats take on the New York Mets to open a three-game, bottom-of-the-NL-East series. The pitching match-up is Esteban Loaiza (11-10, 3.66 ERA, RHP) against Steve Trachsel (1-3, 3.42 ERA, RHP).


MLB: New York Yankees 7, Orioles 6

The Yankees got their extra-long brooms out on the Orioles, completing a four-game sweep with a 7-6 win last night.

Jorge Posada did the damage last night for the Yanks. After 5.1 stellar innings from Bruce Chen (12-10), having only given up a homer to Posada in the fifth inning, Chen got beat by Posada again in the sixth. With two men on, Posada launched a home run into the left field seats to make it 5-1. Chen was then pulled.

New York added two more in the seventh to make it 7-1, but the Orioles put up four in the top of the eighth to make it 7-5, then Melvin Mora hit a two-out, two-strike homer in the ninth to make it 7-6, but Miguel Tejada grounded out to end the game.

Tejada knocked in his 93rd run of the year in the eighth inning.

Boston was idle, so the Yanks are now a full game ahead of the Red Sox in the American League East.

The loss was the Orioles’ 82nd, so they can no longer finish at .500.

After giving the Yankees the AL East lead, they now get to give it back to the Red Sox in a three game set at Camden Yards starting tonight at 7:35. Daniel Cabrera (10-11, 4.68 ERA, RHP) will face Bronson Arroyo (13-9, 4.31 ERA, RHP). Both have done well in their last three starts.