NL Central

A very eventful week around the majors. A brawl ensued in the Queen City after Reds 2B Brandon Phillips used some not-so-kind words to describe the rival Cardinals.

The pushing match that landed a seven game suspension for Johnny Cueto and a shouting match between both managers was pretty interesting considering  there are six former Reds on the Cards and five former Cards on the Reds.

The Chicago Cubs ended their road trip on a positive note. 

They may have been out of contention for a while, but playing the spoiler rule is still fun, especially with six more weeks of baseball left in the regular season. 

The long wait is over.

The Cubs fans have been wondering when Opening Day starter Carlos Zambrano could restore his Big Z-type performance.  They got the answer today.  In front of the national television audience and a crowd of 46,313 in Busch Stadium, Zambrano finally got his first win as a starter in his third return to the Cubs rotation.

On Friday, St. Louis Cardinal pitcher, Chris Carpenter was asked by an Associated Press journalist to share his thoughts on the fine he was handed by the commissioner's office for Tuesday nights, now infamous, donnybrook in Cincinnati.

Proving Brandon Phillips' comments correct for at least one Cardinal player, instead of addressing the question he took the opportunity to whine more about Reds pitcher, Johnny Cueto.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories from yesterday’s games:

American League:

Considering that I’m not even sure if I’m playing in a league this year, I’ve spent way too much time lately preparing for a fantasy football draft.

One of the people I can blame for this is an ESPN fantasy sports analyst named Matthew Berry, who writes a ton of entertaining columns for ESPN.com and records daily podcasts to which I am mildly addicted.

In the pre-season it was Roy Halladay.  For the first three months of the year it was Ubaldo Jimenez.  Josh Johnson took over for a little while, but as of now there can be no doubt.

The St. Louis Cardinals' Adam Wainwright is now your front-runner for the National League Cy Young Award.

Remember just under two months ago, when Jimenez won his 14th start of the season to run his record to 13-1 with a 1.15 ERA?

Everyone has perfect 20/20 hindsight. I know I do.

Some think the sweep job the Cards did was in retaliation to Brandon Phillips' name calling and some are in agreement that he should have kept his mouth shut.

If he is attempting to become public enemy No. 1, he took the correct fork in the road. After his "hulkish" posturing after leveling Nationals catcher Will Nieves, he drew the ire of Pudge Rodriguez and many Washington fans.

The Giants and Cubs had a little unfinished business to attend to before they matched up Wednesday night in San Francisco. With the owner's meetings getting underway in Minneapolis, Jim Hendry and Brian Sabean completed a trade that they reportedly began talking about as the trade deadline was approaching.

When yesterday's Reds starting lineup was published, it stirred up quite a bit of controversy on Twitter. Several fans were questioning Dusty Baker's batting order, particularly at the top of the order. In fact, it has been a hot topic for most of the season.

I have no problem with fans second-guessing the manager. I have done it myself. There also is nothing wrong with countering that criticism by supporting Baker's decisions. Besides, we all have the same goal: to see the Reds win!