I took the last few days off to finish up my 1st year in grad school at NAU; I needed to finish a take-home final and turn in final grades for 2 classes I teach. I've got a full week off until the family starts to arrive for some river rafting, so I'll try and post a little more often. Another great start for the Rocket last night - he had 10 K's through 5 innings and ended up going 8 strong. The offense was provided from a 2-run bomb from Biggio, hitting in the 3 spot, and Lance followed with a solo HR. I can't argue with batting Biggio 3rd; he's bee the 2nd best hitter on our team, behind...Morgan Ensberg. Do you really want a guy with a .403 OBP hitting 6th, in front of Everett, Ausmus, and the pitcher? Well, he was last night. That's dumb, Garner. Ensberg's currently at .301 / .402 / .487 and needs to move into the top 3. Hell, it wouldn't be the worst idea to bat him leadoff - Taveras is down to a .313 OBP.

Ensberg / Biggio / Berkman / Lane / Lamb / Everett / Taveras / Ausmus / P, while unorthodox, might be our best lineup, though looking at the 6-9 hitters makes my Honey Nut Cheerios want to come back up.

Here are some quotes that I finid interesting:

But Biggio is normally either a leadoff or No. 2 hitter. Why the change?

"I don't know what I'm doing," Garner said. "I'm just doing something different to see what happens."

I'm just picking on Garner here - I don't have a problem with Biggio batting 3rd. But change just for change's sake isn't the best way to manage.

"He's one of our best hitters, so if he gets an opportunity with more guys on base, it'll be better for us," Bagwell said. "I'm not really concerned about runs. What we're lookng for is RBI opportunties.

You're not really concerned about runs? RBI = runs. For RBI opportunities, we need guys to get on base in front of Biggio, which might not happen that often with Taveras and Palmeiro hitting in front of him.

I'll be very curious today to see who bats 2nd in between Taveras and Biggio. I'm hoping it's Ensberg - the only other guy I can see Garner putting there is Palmeiro or Everett, and if Palmeiro starts again, that's bad news for Jason Lane, who's on my fantasy team, and if Everett goes there, our top two hitters will both have sub-.315 OBP's. So put Ensberg there, Garner.