One and Dunn

What a great day it was for sports.  Not one of the great days, but it had an interesting flow to it.  Germany scored the game winning goal (rats!) in stoppage time against Poland and it was the only goal as Germany took the match 1-0.  Edmonton scored the game winning goal in the Stanley Cup Finals over Carolina to force a game 6 in Edmonton, which could mean bad news for the Hurricanes.

But it was a good day for baseball, as well.

Did any of you happen to catch the Reds game on ESPN yesterday?  It was quite the pitcher's duel.  There were some amazing defensive plays made, including Ryan Freel getting an uncredited save for stealing an extra base hit from Rickie Weeks with a dazzling catch against the wall.  Todd Coffey didn't get a save either, but he came up big again, giving up no runs for the umpteenth time this year and picking another kind of save with a "kick save and a beauty" off the bat of young phenom Prince Fielder.  It was scoreless until the 11th when Adam Dunn turned a juicy Dan Kolb pitch into a commercial airliner.  That was the first hit with a runner in scoring position in 25 tries for the magical Reds squad.  Just in the nick of time.

Unfortunately, one of my other favorites, the Diamondbacks, are starting to slip a little bit.  A few weeks ago they were having the look of a champion and were doing all the little things the right way and getting big contributions from unlikely sources.  The stuff that dreams are made of.  But since the Jason Grimsley "distraction", which I scoffed at at the time, as I thought that a team with this make-up had a good chance at overcoming, they're having horrible luck and are starting to play out of character.  Case in point:  Tonight's 3 errors by Chad Tracy.  They need to at least win at home most of the time if they want to take the division like I predicted they would over a month ago.  I still believe in them, but now I'm starting to wonder about the whole Grimsley situation and how much of a problem it is for the team.  I'm also worried about which, if any, D-Backs players will be named in the report.  I sadly have a couple of suspicions, but I hope they are proven wrong.

In other news, there were two other extra inning games, with Tampa Bay scoring 4 runs off Todd Jones in the top of the 12th to win 5-1 against Detroit and Florida winning in the last of the 10th to steal one from the Braves.  This could be the beginning of the end for Mr. Jones.  He has looked awful lately and youngsters Zumaya and Rodney have been looking pretty darn good.  The same could be said for the Braves, who sadly just aren't the same this year.  They don't have "it".  But they sure had an amazing run.  I hope they can turn it around, but I have my doubts.

Also, Colorado forgot where they were and won 12-8 in Washington.  It seems like lakely the Rockies have had trouble scoring at home, which used to be the exact opposite scenario.  It's been a strange year for them.  At one point they looked like they finally had a chance to compete for the division title, but that's looking more and more unlikely to me.

And finally, the Royals won!  It's always good to see them win.  I love rooting for the underdogs and no one is more unlikely to be a winner than this hapless unit.  I hope they can at least avoid the "worst team ever" tag.  That would be one victory they'd really be glad to achieve.