Carp's
1-hitter in Toronto the other night was absolutely filthy. 10 K's, 1 BB. Nice. But the one thing it proved to me is that it is
really freaking difficult to throw a no-hitter. For proof, I tender you
this: a Bill James piece from Rob Neyer's site last November about how likely no-hitters actually are.
Elsewhere in the AL East, the Orioles
finished off a sweep of the Astros tonight. And after a 6-7 roadtrip where they failed in a golden opportunity to gain some ground on the Red Sox and Yankees, it couldn't have come at a better time. With the Rockies and their 4-24 road record coming to town this weekend to finish the homestand, the O's have absolutely no excuse not to make it six in a row.
As you can see in the title bar,
PCO is coming to you now from
Kent County, Maryland. There are five MLB teams that play within a radius of 200 miles, so it's nice to be a baseball fan here. And of those five, the one with the worst record on June 11 is, you guessed it, the New York Yankees. Here's the standings in that "division":
| Baltimore | 36-25 |
| Washington | 36-26 |
| Philadelphia | 35-28 |
| New York Mets | 32-30 |
| New York Yankees | 30-31 |
Wow. It's amazing to see that, but I'll give you a million-to-one odds that it won't look that way in September. At least, not the bottom part.
...
PCO is back online! The internet fairy showed up this morning, so I now have regained my license to rant about the thing I love the most: the St. Louis Cardinals.
As I write this, the Cardinals just fell to the Yankees this afternoon, 5-0. There are some obvious flaws to the team -- mainly the bench, defensive problems of David Eckstein, and the lack of consistent middle relief -- and Scott Rolen has missed several weeks with a shoulder injury. But, at this very moment they are the best team in the National League by 4 games over the Washington Nationals (!) and the Padres, have a 5½ game lead on the Cubs in the Central, and are 9 up on the rest of the division, with several games remaining this evening. And it still seems that they're not even on that typical mid-summer "roll" yet, despite playing at a .639 clip.
Anyway, I thought I'd spread the good cheer. Be sure to check back frequently for more updates.
