The youngsters reign: Cahill, Bailey, McCutchen, Marte, and more

By Jason Wojciechowski on August 28, 2009 at 3:20 PM

Trevor Cahill and the fantastic duo of Mike Wuertz and Andrew Bailey shut out the Angels on three hits and two walks. Both walks came in the first, but Cahill got out of the jam by picking off Chone Figgins at second base, a grievous error by Figgins when Cahill was clearly struggling. Ryan Sweeney missed a cycle by a double.

J.A. Happ pitched one of those visiting team losing complete games. Unfortunately, he lost 3-2 by giving up two runs in the bottom of the eighth on a Garrett Jones homer. Andrew McCutchen also hit a homer and is batting 290/361/486 in a half-season of work. His UZR, for what it's worth in this small sample, is also excellent, clocking in at five runs above average in center field. He looks, in short, to be every bit the franchise cornerstone he's supposed to be, a Carlos Beltran for the '10s (right down to the base-stealing, 15/18 on the year).

Cleveland beat Baltimore on Andy Marte's top-of-the-ninth two-run homer. Marte was playing first base and batting ninth, and he's hitting 275/338/420 for the year. That's not good, but it's not horrible, either. It is better than such noted starting third basemen in the league as Jack Hannahan, Adam Kennedy, Melvin Mora, and likely a few others that I didn't bother to look up. Of course, Marte's line comes in just 20 games, but if he's a third baseman defensively, then he may well have revived his career.

The Mets had an awesome box-score against the Marlins: each of the one through seven hitters had exactly two hits, and the number eight man, Anderson Hernandez, had three. It added up to a 10-run night for the New Yorkers, overcoming a two-homer night from leadoff man Chris Coghlan.

Kyle McClellan gave up the tying run for the Cardinals against the Astros in the eighth inning, and then followed that by giving up a go-ahead homer in the ninth. Why exactly was a guy like Kyle McClellan pitching the ninth inning of a tie game? Especially after he gave up a run in the previous inning?

Mark Reynolds hit his 39th homer of the season, helping Arizona to an 11-0 drubbing of the Giants. If Reynolds just stops now, he'll have increased his homer total by 11 for the second straight season (17 to 28 to 39) and put himself on pace for 50 next year. "Imprison Mark Reynolds" has to be the rallying cry of the weird-stats contingent, right?

Nyjer Morgan had a sweet day for my fantasy team, making no outs, scoring a run, and stealing two bases. Unfortunately, he broke his hand stealing third and is done for the year. Sadly, I don't own Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, or Derek Lee, each of whom homered.