In the Bronx, Derek Jeter has left tonights game with a strained quad. Experts predict this is the worse thing to happen to Jeter since he dated Mariah Carey.

In Manhattan, Patrick Ewing has been elected to the basketball Hall of Fame. First pick of the draft and a Rookie of the Year, Ewing helped keep the Knicks competitive for over a decade, but like so many other NBA players of his ERA, just couldn’t lead his team past Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Fellow 80s MSG stallwart Pat Riley was also elected.

In the Borough of Sports We Don’t Care About, the Rangers face the Devils in the NHL Playoffs, surprising the many baseball fans that thought the season ended a month ago, or that the league folded two years ago. Mark Messier may or may not be involved.

Just a quick look at how all those 40+s year old pitchers did in yesterdays almost historic day of old men playing baseball. We all know how Tommy did, so we'll skip him.

The Rocket, lost in his bid for win 350, throwing a shutout for the first five and then losing it all in the sixth. It was the first time in 200 games that he did not strike out a batter. The Yanks lost, 4-0.

Jamie Moyer suffered a similar fate. He gave up his first hit of the night in the sixth. He gave up three runs the next inning before getting pulled, the Phils eventually lost 9-6. He did strike out 8, and ended up with a no decision. Ryan Howard hit his 100th homerun.

Maddux won number 340, over the Giants. He gave up just one run and five hits while going seven. The sole run was a solo shot by Greene in the fifth with no outs. He struck out four, walked one.

Kenny Rogers ruined the night for everyone, by getting rained out. And punching a cameraman. But mainly by getting rained out.

Smoltz had a short night, going just five, but striking out seven and giving up no runs and five hits against the Nats. The Nats were kept scoreless for the night, while Atlanta did its best Atlanta Braves 90s edition impersonation and scored at will. They scored 13 runs, all earned, on 22 hits. Only five of those hits were for extra bases, including a Woodward double. If you let the other team score 13 times while hitting 17 singles, well you deserve to lose. You hear that Washington? (For the record, nine runs were brought in on singles. 9).

And we save the best for last…Woody Williams. he went six, leaving a tied up 3-3 game. He gave up six hits, 3 runs, 2 earned, while striking out four.He's 3-10 for the year, and this is the closest he'll probably ever come to being mentioned alongside pitchers such as Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz, and Rocket.

Zoe over at Pick Me Up reports that Joe Smith was at the cover shoot for Sports Illustrated, was posing in said picture, and…ended up cropped out of the final cover.

Man this rookie hazing is getting out of control.  Between this and having to polish Mr Mets head after every game Joe Smith's feelings are going to get hurt. I just hope SI knows that they've got an angry Zoe on their case now.

Willie Randolph hosted a golf tournament to help raise money for the maintenance of innercity baseball fields.  Randolph has long been a beleiver that lack of access to the game is part of the problem that has resulted in fewer African American players.

Via the Daily News:

Mets David Wright, Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith, and John Maine were also in attendance.

Its good to see Randolph working on something that gives back to both the game and the community. Its also good to see that he is trying to do something to help with the problem of less African American players.  While building good city baseball fields won't solve it, its a step, and if we've learned anything from Randolph and Omar its that a lot of little moves can often make more impact that one large one.

I am surprised a bit that there's no mention of Tom Glavine being there, I was under the impression that he's one of baseball's best golfers. No idea about the other guys, but if Smith is as new to golf as he was to city parking, we at least know who had to buy the post game beer.

Carlos Gomez credits help from El Duque towards what let him snap his streak of at bats without a hit.  The Post reports that Gomez has been taking pitches from El Duque to better learn how to judge timing of MLB level pitching, and strikes from balls.

Hearing these stories of the vets teaching the rookies just makes you feel all warm inside. Now if El Duque can just do the same thing with Julio Franco, we'll be all good.

One has to wonder sometimes, if Omar did something to curse his outfield. Its June 1st, and Alou and Green are both on the DL, one almost ready to come off the other just having gone on. Beltran is out tonight after a collision at first, possible back tommorow possible out for the weekend. Lastings is on the minor league DL, where Ben Johnson also spent some time earlier. All in all, tonights starting outfield will consist of two guys who were not on the active roster when the season started, and a third guy who usually starts once a week and serves as a pinch hitter/late game defensive replacement. So should we be concerned at all?

Alou chances are will be back next week.  Chances are he might see the DL again, but Green probably won't. This is his first trip there for his carreer, and while not the greatest defensive right fielder ever (and by ever, I mean currently on the roster), he's been able to keep himself playing and he's been connecting.  All three starting outfielders being down at once seems more freak occurance than anything else, and chances are two of them will be back shortly. The biggest concern is Endy. Endy isn't really an everyday player, and hopefully this large amount of playing time won't burn him out.  Should that happen we could be in trouble, as our reserves are down to Ricky Ledee and Chip Ambres.  Gomez realistically still needs more time, he's good, but he's a young player and is clearly still making young player mistakes and still adapting to mlb pitching.  After just one start, well its one start, so Ben Johnson is still a big question mark. It should be said though that had he been healthy, he'd have gotten the call up over Gomez back so long ago. Lastings is still weeks away from returning, and anyone behind Ledee is either not ready or not good.

So far though, despite some struggling plate appearances by Gomez and a slight cooling from Endy, the team has shown it can continue on with its 3 OF starters down. So we shouldn't be worried. Should the trend of outfielder injury continue, then well…yeah, that could be problematic. But for now, we can relax. Enjoy seeing the enthuisasm of younger than normal players. And try to figure out who put the curse on them to begin with.

Jeff Passan over at Yahoo Sports looks at who baseball is shelling out too much for, and who is a steal at twice the price.  The good new? Passan sees young Mets Wright and Reyes as bargains based on their current salary.  Both signed new contracts last season that extended their time with the Mets well into the future. Passan's feelings on these two can easily be summed up with this little quote:

No arguments here. Reyes has improved drastically as he's matured, and as long as he stays healthy is easily on pace to rack up better numbers than he did last year. We've seen how nervous he makes pitchers, and his increased patience has resulted in him reaching first safely at least once in all but four games so far this season. He'll never be a homerun guy, but considering his speed he'll have plenty of doubles and triples, not to mention infield singles.

On the other side of the coin, his most overpaid athletes include Carlos Delgado, who just recently seems to have broken out of his slump.  Delgado struggled for…seemingly forever. Of course, he hit two homeruns in one game just days ago, so he's back in all of our good graces. He's even broken back out his diary. I mean umm….at bat statistical journal.  Ex Met Armando Benetiz gets the nod for relief pitching.

It was a long slump, and even the elder statesmen in the Mets blogosphere were starting to queston Carlos. So I guess we can't hold it against Passan.  I know he did this by position, but for this one instance perhaps he should have started with the man the overpaid list should be named after: Carl Pavano.  Delgado wasn't hitting, but he was at least out there every day, chasing down pop fouls and providing calming words of advice to young Met pitchers in need, and probably tips on good places to by Cigars to left side infielders. 

Larry Dobrow over at CBS Sportsline talks about players who are better than their numbers indicate. His list includes Met ace Tom Glavine and the currently hot Paul Lo Duca.  Larry, on Paulie:

So far this season, Lo Duca has caught 11 while giving up 15 stolen bases, all while batting .327.  Other players on Dobrow's list include twins reliever Pat Neshek and White Sock AJ Pierzynksi.

The New York Mets swept the Florida Marlins over the weekend getting gems from starting pitchers, Orlando Hernandez, John Maine and Jorge Sosa. This marks the first time the Mets have swept the Marlins in Miami during series since 1993.

The last time the Mets swept the Marlins in Miami came on the final three games of the 1993 season. Dave Telgheder, Sid Fernandez, and Pete Schourek got the wins for the Mets in the series.

Nice to see that we finally did it after 14 years.

For those who missed it on the highlights: the Cubs dropped yesterday's game to the Dodgers with a type of play that might even confuse the guys over at Mets Walkoffs. 

After Angel Guzman walked two batters in the 11th, Carlos Murmol relieved him and intentionally walked Furcal to load the bases with no outs.  He then hit Juan Pierre with a pitch, to bring the winning run home.

I actually caught the end of this game on WGN, and it was tough to tell if he was indeed hit with the pitch. But if he wasn't, the only other option was that the catcher booted it and the winning run still would have scored.  Has there even been a walk off hit by a pitch before?

Either way, a no out, intentional walk to load the bases in extra innings is pretty much a sign you've given up anyway. You're banking on a triple play or a infield hit thats played quick enough to get the runner at home. Even then, there's still two more outs.

The Mets broke ground on a new training facility in the Dominican, according to an official press release.  It will be a state of the art training academy and is schedule to open in April of next year. The academy will include three regulation sized fields, one of which has the same dimensions of Citi Field, extra pitching mounds, bounting fields, batting areas, computer labs, a pool, tennis courts and a golf course.   From his GMness, Omar:

Not much to add to this, just another move by Omar and the Wilpons to help increase the teams presence in Latin America. Once its open I'm sure there will be some well publicized trips down there by Reyes as well as some of the other big name players to help in recruitment and get the Mets name out there more. Figure if it helps find new talent that finds its way to Shea years from now its worth it.  A facility that opens next year may not provide fresh young Mets till the time that Carlos Gomez is a veteran outfielder at Citi Field, but the future of the Mets needs to be taken care of just as much as the present.

While John Maine was great and gave us six full hitless innings, over in Sox territory Mark Buehrle tosses the first no hitter of the year.  Buehrle walked one, Sammy Sosa, who was then picked off.  He threw 105 pitches, struck out eight.  The offense helped as well adding three homeruns, one of which was a grand slam by Dye.  The Sox beat the Rangers 6-0

Everyones favorite crosstown thirdbaseman A-Rod added his 10th homerun of the season in the ninth inning to comeback and beat the Indians.  He's still not clutch.

In our NL East:  Bobby Cox signed an extension, and then suspended Aybar for failing to appear.  Aybar is currently on the 15 day dl, but was due to appear for treatment.  In Philly Ryan Howard is listed as day to day with a leg injury, but don't ask Charlie Manuel about it, cause he'll fight you.   And Jorge Julio is officially on the DL with a right calf injury.  In his last game, he gave up six runs in one inning.  For the season he's 0-2 with 11 walks, two strikouts and an ERA just north of 19. 

After the close of todays game, Julio Franco has made three plate appearances, but has yet to have an official at bat, leaving him with no batting average, though he does have a .666 OBP.  He's walked twice, and sacrificed in his sole other appearance.  Both his walks have led to a run scored.

While the Mets rested, the rest of the NL East had a busy day, for the most part beating up on each other.

In the battle of the former 3rd base coaches, the Manny Acta led Nationals fell to the Marlins (manager Fredi Gonzalez was the Braves 3rd base coach) 9-2.  Two Nats left the game with injuries (SS Guzman, CF Logan).

It's going to probably be a very long year for Manny.

In Philly, the Braves won 5-3, in 10 innings, via two Renteria home runs including the game winner in the 10th.  McCann added a 2 run shot in the 4th. Rollins hit the sole Philly homerun.

After all that talk of the wind in Card-land last night, turns out we played the East's sole homerunless game.