Fuseblown 

Posted 9:37 AM by Sean
I can't be sure, but my suspicion is that the power shut down in Yankee Stadium last night because that vererable old ballpark simply couldn't operate in world in which Ramon Ortiz shut down the Yankees. It just didn't seem possible to the old girl, I'm sure, and so she did the only thing she could - reboot.

Well, maybe she's right. As of Saturday morning, however, the rest of the world appears to have shared this delusion. Ramon Ortiz shut out the Yankees on four hits over eight innings in New York. He needed just 102 pitches to do so, and, though he did give up a couple of hard-hit balls that found gloves, actually looked like something resembling a top-of-the-rotation guy. Of course, we've seen that before - remember when he out-Pedroed Pedro? - but at this point I'm really not interested in looking gift horses in the mouth. Ortiz rocked last night, and that's all there is to it.

It was especially nice to see (hear, anyway) Garret Anderson go yard in the top of the ninth to give the Angels a couple of insurance runs. Anderson's power has been severely lacking lately, and it seems to be an open secret that he's just not right physically. There's been no discussion of surgery for him in the press that I've seen, so the troubling question is whether he'll be right in 2005. In terms of last night's game, although the runs turned out to be unneeded, 5-0 was a much more comfortable margin than 3-0, given the way the bullpen had nearly blown each of the previous two games.

Meanwhile, a few interesting tidbits in the Register this morning:

• The Shea Hillenbrand deal appears to be going nowhere, since Arizona is asking for players who did not clear waivers. This strikes me as fairly odd - wouldn't they know the waiver status of anyone they were asking for?
  
• Andres Galarraga says he's ready to join the big club. Galarraga is batting just under .300 in Salt Lake, and his power seems to have fallen off from his first few games, but it seems likely he'll join the club on September 1.
• Bengie Molina is scheduled to start today's game against the Yankees.
• Kelvim Escobar reports that he's throwing without pain from the blister he developed in his last start, and expects to make his scheduled start tomorrow afternoon.