Dang! Another tie.

Taking note of the recent passing, apparently by suicide, of Oriole great Mike Flanagan, Matt did three things:

1. He wore the 1975 - 1988 Orioles cap:

These years spanned all of Flanny's great years with the Birds.

2. When he took the mound in the bottom of the second, he threw his first pitch left handed. Not a strike, but it did hit the wall on the fly.

3. He took it a step too far when he went ahead and batted like Mike Flanagan... for the whole game. In a major league career spanning 18 seasons, Mike Flanagan had all of 7 plate appearances - all coming in World Series play (talk about pressure). All told, he went 0-for-6 with one walk in his career with the bat. That was much better than Stats' time with the bat today.

In a two-on-two game like today, one slumping batter can kill a lineup, because of course, he's every other batter. On a day when Kurt went 5-for-11, including a triple and 2 doubles, Stats' 0-for11, 8K and grounding into a DP was a killer. Over and over again. Needless to say, they managed no runs off Dave (3 IP, 2H, 7K) or the Commish (3 IP, 3H, 4K).

On the other hand, they didn't surrender any runs either. Kurt faced 2 over the minimum in his three innings of work, striking out 6. It was Matt who pitched in trouble all day stranding 'em at first and second in the 2nd, first and third in the 4th, and leavin' 'em loaded in the 6th to secure the scoreless tie.

Sad scoreboard - but all set for next weekend!

Kurt, Matt - 0

Dave, Peter - 0

A good day for everyone's ERA, Dave and Kurt matched scoreless innings today and lowered their league leading ERA's to 1.50 and 1.81, respectively.

Han-Soo (0.533) was not in the lineup today, and Kurt fell a little further back in the batting race to 0.529. I'm afraid 5-for-11 just doesn't cut it at that altitude.