Game Recap

A crowd of 40,077 braved the cold, wet conditions at Wrigley this afternoon to watch Ted Lilly pitch a gem of a ball game. Lilly took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before Garrett Atkins singled to left field. 

Angel Guzman came in to finish up the seventh, while Aaron Heilman and Kevin Gregg took care of the eighth and ninth innings, respectively.

The Cubs moved into a momentary first place tie with the St. Louis Cardinals, who play later tonight in Arizona.

Reds ace Aaron Harang pitched the best Reds fans have seen him in quite a few starts as he looked dominate.

Harang (1-1) pitched a great day going the distance throwing a complete game shutout.

Aaron Harang gave up a mere three hits while striking out nine and walking none.

Closer by committee? Who needs it? Certainly not Kyle Lohse. 

The young right-hander dominated the Houston Astros with a complete game gem on his way to help the Cardinals win 3-0 on Easter Sunday, completing the series sweep. 

Like many baseball fans believe, sometimes the first pitch of a game can reveal just how the rest of the game could turn out.

Lohse's first pitch of the contest equated to a single from Kaz Matsui.

Last year, Johan Santana had to deal with pitching, knowing he wasn't guaranteed the bullpen would hold his win for him. Today Johan had 13 strikeouts and didn't allow any earned runs but still got the loss. His ERA is somewhere around 0.71, but he still has a 1-1 record.

And this brings us to Daniel Murphy. Daniel made the error that lead to the two unearned runs that lost the game. It came on a deep fly ball the Murphy would have caught right at the wall, if he had made the catch.

The New York Mets fell to the Florida Marlins on Sunday by a score of 2-1, despite an outstanding performance by Met starting pitcher Johan Santana.

Santana, who is now 1-1 on the season, took a loss in a start for the first time since June 18, 2008 despite striking out 13 batters in seven innings and allowing only three hits. The two runs scored on the Mets were not charged to Santana.

Now we can say the Yankees are officially on a roll. Their 6-1 win over the Royals last night marked their third straight. Fans saw a completely different CC Sabathia compared to his opening day start.

And in my mind, I think fans saw the real CC last night. The Yankees were playing a perfect ballgame until the ninth inning when the Royals finally squeaked out their lone run, but let’s see how they built that lead.

Dave Bush showed Saturday night against the Cubs that his performance in the second half of 2008 was no fluke.

Bush went out and held the Cubs in check. He picked up a quality start but unfortunately, the Brewers bullpen let him down and the Brewers took the loss 6-5 at Miller Park. Bush went 6 1/3 innings and gave up only three runs to a powerful Cubs offense. He allowed six hits, struck out five and allowed a home run to Fukudome.

By the time the Kansas City Royals got on the scoreboard it was too late to make a comeback. CC Sabathia had given the Yankees seven-and-two-thirds innings of shutout baseball and Jose Veras held the shutout until Tony Pena Jr. grounded in the Royals' first and only run of the night.

Once again, the Yankees jumped on the Royals' pitching. Johnny Damon singled, Nick Swisher walked, and Jorge Posada doubled in two first-inning runs for the second straight game. In the third, the Yanks' catcher doubled in another run after Swisher tripled in captain Derek Jeter.

It looked like all it took to rejuvenate the Minnesota Twins offense was a whiff of U.S. Cellular Field.

This perception was a wrong number, as the Twins dropped an 8-0 decision to the White Sox Saturday afternoon.