This Baseball Saturday

The two features stories of course:

The 20 inning Marathon between the Mets and the Cardinals. The major moments in this game were 1. Alex Cora's catch to end the 11th inning. In only his third appearance at first base in his career, Cora made a catch jumping into the stands of Busch Stadium to catch a foul pop by Matt Holiday with the bases loaded. 2. Tony LaRusa double-switching Matt Holiday out of the game. The pitcher spot ended up behind Albert Pujols, allowing the Mets to remove Pujols from the game. This one almost certainly would have ended, had Pujols gotten a chance, as I already discussed the 11th inning, and twice the Mets retired relief pitchers with the bases loaded to end an inning after walking Pujols. Also, props in this one to Felipe Lopez, who pitched an inning of scoreless relief for the Cardinals, and Mike Pelfrey, who did what the great K-Rod could not do, closing the game in the 20th for his first career save.

Ubaldo Jimenez pitched the first Colorado Rockies No-Hitter, defeating the Braves 4-0. Jimenez walked 6, but gave up nothing else. Congratulations to the Rockies organization and to Jimenez, whose last pitch in the game still fired in at 97mph.

Other things happened today (Tim Lincecum was awesome again (including 3/4 from the plate), Garrett Jones walked-off with a Pirate win, Alfonso Soriano still can't play left field), but none of them seem to matter too much.

What a day! (And this was in and around a day of NHL and NBA playoffs)

-APT