Todays Scores:

TODAY'S SCORES: August 05, 2005

Cleveland: A tale of Two Cities.
Mood:  bright
Topic: Mixed bag
CLEVELAND (Yankees)-"This was one of those movie things," said Joe Torre, still shaking his head in wonder. "Alex, after some tough at-bats, tying the game up. "That was huge for us. That took a lot of pressure off having to tie it," Giambi said. "When he popped it, we felt pretty good about it," Rodriguez said. "To hit one to win the game ... definitely, that's always exciting," Giambi said. "This was a big win for us. We needed it, no doubt. We just can't give them ground night after night." "You can't control the results. But I liked the battle," Rodriguez said. "I felt good about it; it was a building block for my last at-bat."
"And Jason goes up there when a home run is what we can use, and he hits one," Torre said. "To me, that's the most remarkable thing -- not only about the game, but about what he has been doing." “I feel as good as I was feeling when I was winning MVPs," Giambi said. "I'm just going up there, keeping it simple. "I'm relaxed. Every now and then, I'll guess on certain counts, and when I guess right, I don't miss it."
"As long as we win games, it doesn't matter," Chacon said. "I just want to keep the game close enough for this lineup to do its thing."

And 'strange' rummors about steroids

Giambi shrugged and grinned. "I've heard about it, but don't know any more than you do," he said. "But I'm not going to let anyone ruin my fun. I'm so dialed in."

In the other Camp

CLEVELAND (Indians) -"I let the team down," Wickman said. "If it wasn't for me, we would have won three games." "I was trying to throw it down and away," said Wickman. "It didn't go down and away. It wasn't where I wanted it, but it wasn't the worst pitch in the world."

"There were a couple of questionable pitches late," said Wedge. "It was tough to tell," said Wickman. "He hit a slider," said Wickman. "It's the first home run I've given up on a breaking ball all year." "It was tough, but Kevin had worked hard," he said. "He did a great job. That was enough for him. Wicky has been great for us. It was one of those days with Wicky."

"I was done," Millwood said. "I used my last bit of energy in the last inning. If I went out for the ninth, I would have been real tired. I felt like I was pretty much done after the eighth. I wouldn't have had much on the ball." Wedge hands it to the Yankees. "A couple of pretty good hitters got us late: A-Rod and Giambi," he said.

Wickman also liked the Yankees angle."I felt pretty good," he said. "I just didn't make the pitches. They make you pay when you make a mistake. Guys who hit home runs make you pay when you make a bad pitch."

Dodgers get tossed by bad Penny
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Todays losers
WASHINGTON -"He was nasty," said 21-year-old rookie catcher Dioner Navarro, who struck out twice. "I just couldn't make adjustments." Milton Bradley wasn't as generous.
"It was nothing special, but it looked special," said Bradley, who hit the ball hard twice but went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. "All I could say is that what I saw with my eyes was very hittable. You saw the swings I was taking, I wasn't fooled at all. Somehow, he had guys off-balance."
"We could not do anything offensively," said manager Jim Tracy. "Brad Penny did a great job, but when you don't score any runs, you don't have a chance to win."
"I wish we could make it easy, but as we've shown since the beginning of the year, it's not going to be," said Jeff Kent. "We have to fight through this. This is the best we've got right now. I've been on a lot of clubs that were dead in the water and were able to do good things. To jump to conclusions with what, two months [left], you're not going to hear it from me.
"You have to have faith you're going to do good things. You end up believing in yourself and trust in your teammates and believe in your ability. As a free agent, you come to a quality organization with a history of winning, and you understand and you believe and you have faith you're going to win. At the end of the day, you better have given everything you have. You've got to believe it. That's what Dusty said over and over, 'Believe it, believe it.'
"In general, yes, I believe it. But you're talking about a lot of young kids trying to learn, and dealing with failure and walking a rough road. They're not well-rounded yet. In the general scheme of things, yes, I believe we have it."

Orioles Coach Removed
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Todays losers
Mazzilli was removed before the Orioles' game with the Angels on Thursday, and bench coach Sam Perlozzo was named interim manager for the rest of the season, opening with a 4-1 win over the Angels on Thursday afternoon. "It's a bittersweet day for me," he said. "I'm very thankful that Mazz kept me here. We're all a part of him not being here. This is somethig that I've wanted to do, and I have two months to do it, and I'll make the best of it. I'm not concerned about how good I'm gonna do; I'm concerned about how the team's gonna do. "I explained to the ballclub that we need to play better baseball, period."
"Well, it's something we thought about in the past couple of days," Team manager Beattie said. "At some point, you have to do something to try to change the mix. It's not fair to Mazz, but we have to try to do something. It's a baseball move, but we're not trying to assign blame or anything totally to Mazz. It's one of those decisions that just came up."
Beattie informed the team that they share some responsibility for the removal. "I had a very quick message to the players and part of the message was that the coaches, players and organization should bear the responsibility for what happened today," he said. "You can't change the team that dramatically, but you make a change with a coach or the manager."
"We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and not point fingers at other people," second baseman Brian Roberts said.
Center fielder Luis Matos Said: "I know we're playing bad baseball right now, so no one can blame anybody."
"People want to put blame on one person, and that's not the case here," Beattie said. "It's more a matter of the typical response you can't change the team that dramatically sometimes, that you make a move with a coach, you make a move with a manager, and hopefully the players respond in a different way."

Red Sox keep rolling
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Todays Winners
BOSTON -- Jason Varitek hit a grand slam. Thursday afternoon the one thing he had never done before. As the catcher and leader of the Red Sox, Jason adds another first to his list of many accomplishments during his years in Boston. The loudest Fenway roars of all were reserved for Varitek, who turned on a 2-0 pitch by Royals reliever Leo Nunez and belted it into the bleachers in right-center, for his 120 career at-bats, first grand slam with bases loaded.

His first career slam came in the bottom of the fourth inning, snapped a tie and culminated a season-high, eight-run inning by the Red Sox. Per usual, Varitek's timing was perfect. Today the Red Sox extended their season-long winning streak to eight games with an 11-9 win against the Royals. Make no mistake about this, it was a big day from an individual standpoint for Varitek and the team.
"We go through three or four weeks of this every year off the field, and everybody except us gets all excited and in a panic and in a frenzy and all (of a) sudden we start winning games," said Curt Schilling, as he finished this his sixth win in a row.

"You don't go through runs like this without good starting pitching, though," continued Schilling. "Obviously, our offense, on those days you might lose a four-game winning streak because of starting pitcher struggles, we have the offense to counteract that. That's what's happened in the last two weeks."
"There was great support from everybody since I got hit," said Clement. "I can't say enough about the fans. They were awesome from the time I walked out onto the field today cheering for me and behind me." He stepped back on the mound for first time since July 26, when he was struck above the right ear on that ill-fated line drive by Carl Crawford of Tampa Bay. Clement got the win, his staff-leading 11th of the season.

"I just hope that they keep coming now because those are definitely backbreakers," said Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon. "It's off his back. He was bound to get one. It's good he got it. I joked with him that he swung at ball three. Sometimes you just don't know, you're just going up there and trying to drive the ball."