Dorian Gray had a portrait that aged so he didn't have to. Maybe Aaron Heilman could try that trick.

With every bad outing, the portrait would get a little more squinty, a little more hangdog, a little more slump-shouldered, a little more looking like it just built into an industrial-strength lemon or walked into class and […]

John Maine got the win last night…on the very first pitch of the game.

I didn't notice Nelson Figueroa responding to the Nationals' dugout antics Monday night, cocooning deep in my parka between innings as I was, but apparently the Nationals were acting like “softball girls” for encouraging each other on rhythmically. Given that they'd worked […]

Alert the dairies: we need to post pictures of people on the sides of milk cartons. Lots of people. The boxscore says there were 45,321 in attendance at Shea Stadium Monday night, but my educated estimate tells me we started with no more than 18,000 and simple fingers 'n' toes counting says we ended with […]

The baseball gods have a vast assortment of cruelties, but one of their better tricks is the rainout-turned-blowout: You think there's no way the game will be played, only to have the weather hold off so you get a game after all — and then this gift turns out to be a numbing basket of […]

The odd part about the Reds batting out of order in the ninth was I heard about it in the car on the way back from the train station. That was odd because something even more unusual than a team sending up the wrong batter had occurred: I left a game early enough to be […]

This post has been updated to reflect that it was indeed Patterson, not Freel, who tried to bat after Ross. Original post is in strikethrough below that, lest anyone think I'm pulling a fast one.

When a team bats out of order, my first instinct is to grin at the novelty of it. My second instinct […]

The more Gary and Keith patted Mike Pelfrey on the back and/or the head tonight — and the more their sentiments were echoed by Willie's commendation of Pelfrey's “baby steps” in the postgame gaggle — the more I recalled Dana Carvey doing his impression of the first George Bush, specifically when the 41st president would […]

For all I know my son may grow up to be president, a beloved philanthropist, or a Hollywood star. But as I told Greg a couple of weeks ago, in a tone of voice a bit less guilty than it probably should have been, I don't think I could be prouder of him than I've […]

Someday it won't be that big a deal that Johan Santana won a home start for the New York Mets. Today it kind of was.

The matter was never in much doubt, but Johan stretched Shea's patience just the tiniest bit there in the sixth as he couldn't quite close the Reds out for the longest […]