The Win Streak Ends Applesauce: Pelf's Six Scoreless Goes For Naught, Offense Scores Naught, Naught Excels At First Base

Well, at least it was close through six innings. The foundation of Mike Pelfrey's start began to crumble in the seventh after the pitcher Javier Vazquez reached on a failed pickoff play that morphed into a bunt single. This strange play loaded the bases with nobody out and Emilio Bonifacio promptly singled in the first run, signaling the end of Pelf's evening. Things only went downhill from that point as Tim Byrdak and Ryota Igarashi allowed a small parade of inherited runners to cross the plate, effectively dealing a knockout punch to the gut of an already reeling Mets team, whose offense was stymied all evening by Vazquez. The veteran righty reached an impressive career milestone when he struck out Lucas Duda in the 6th inning. Vazquez became just the 30th pitcher in big league history to reach the 2,500 strikeout plateau. Pretty good stuff for a guy who probably will be remembered most for his two failed stints in the Bronx, as unfair as that seems. He's quietly been an excellent pitcher over the past decade, for sure.

Recaps: MLB.com, NJ.com, ESPN NY, Daily News, NY Times, Yahoo! Sports

Game three of the rare five game series with the Marlins is another 7:10 PM affair. It'll be a battle of the Chrises, as Chris Volstad heads to the hill for the Fish and Chris Capuano, looking to duplicate Friday night's success, throws for the Metsies.

Nick Evans, known chiefly as "Who?" around the Mets front office for the past few years, looks like he's finally getting his deserved chance and making a name for himself, thus proving through the transitive property that if a tree falls in the forest, it does make a sound (this may or may not be an actual example of the transitive property. I'm not a scientist).

So if Who's on first for the rest of the season, who's on second? Can Who be on both first and second at the same time? Either way, I think it's safe to assume that Hu won't be on second. The other question is who will be playing second base come opening day 2012? Now you see...these are the questions.

SNY's Ted Berg spoke with Binghamton manager Wally Backman about top pitching prospects Matt Harvey and Jeurys Familia. Is that how Jeurys' name is pronounced, Ted? I think prospect watchers (namely myself) have been trying to figure out this mystery for a good 2-3 years now.

Finally, some jabroni compares Jose Reyes to Joba Chamberlain. Huh?

Around the NL East

The Nationals pummeled Braves pitching for four home runs, three of them served up by a regressing Jair Jurrjens, as Washington won 9-2. Jurrjens has had an awful August, with a 6.17 ERA and a putrid 11:6 BB:K ratio (no, not a misprint...that's Walks to Strikeouts) over just 23.1 innings. Regression is a cruel mistress. Meanwhile, Stephen Strasburg is set to return to the Nats rotation on September 6th, marking a recovery time from Tommy John surgery of 1 year and 3 days from when he went under the knife. Gulp.

Roy Halladay was unsurprisingly Roy Halladay-ey during his seven innings on the hill and he even contributed a bases clearing 3 run double, as the Phillies tore apart the Reds 9-0. Ryan Howard also added a pair of home runs. The Phillies also acquired journeyman outfielder John Bowker from the Pirates early Wednesday morning. Bowker, who's also played for the Giants, has just 17 at bats in Pittsburgh this season but will join the Phillies bench.

Around the Majors

YANKEES/RED SOX!!!!! Stop the presses, folks! In the most important (cough cough) news in all of the land on Tuesday, the Yankees defeated the Red Sox 5-2 behind a "gritty" pitching performance from C.C. Sabathia. I assume the word "gritty" was used because he allowed 10 hits over 6 innings, but I don't see how you can call it that when the guy still struck out 10 batters.

Light-hitting backup infielder Ramon Santiago hit a walk-off solo home run in the 11th inning for the Tigers, as they defeated the Royals 2-1. For reference, Santiago is a .248/.315/.338 career hitter over 10 seasons and over 1700 at bats in the majors with the Tigers and the Mariners. The home run was just the 24th of his career.

The sale of the Houston Astros to businessman Jim Crane could be approved by MLB sometime next week.

Ozzie Guillen cannot keep his mouth shut. This time, he's making his contract demands public knowledge. Here's hoping that Jeffrey Loria is dumb enough to reconsider dealing Mike Stanton to the White Sox for Guillen.

Finally, a former San Francisco Giants payroll manager was charged with embezzling $1.5 million from the team's employees, including players and using the money to buy expensive cars and a new house. I could legitimately take this in three directions, so I'll give you the three different endings to choose from (and if you're a child of the 90's like I am, let's call this the R.L. Stine's "Goosebumps" style):

Choice #1--Stealing money from a Major League Baseball team? Is her last name Madoff, Bonilla or Perez?

Choice #2-- Looks as if the Giants could use a distraction right about now. It'd probably be a good time for a rogue team official to challenge a bunch of minor leaguers to a shirtless fight and then have the General Manager call out the reporter who uncovered the story, by alleging he was "lobbying" for said rogue, shirtless official's position.

Choice #3-- #BlameBeltran