Mark Prior — the best young pitcher in baseball today — beat the one of the best pitchers of all-time on Monday night as the Cubs easily beat the Stros at the Juice Box, 7-2.
Still rehabbing from an injury, Prior dominated the Stros over five innings, giving up five hits, no runs and striking out eight. The Stros were able to eke out of couple of meaningless runs in the bottom of the ninth after Prior was long gone.
Meanwhile, the Cubs knocked the Rocket around pretty hard, pounding out 10 hits and five runs in Clemens’ five frames. Todd Walker was a one man wrecking crew for the Cubbies, cranking out two homers and a triple among his four hits. Alas, the loss was Clemens’ first of his magical season.
The biggest news of the rather listless evening for the Stros was Jimy Williams‘ move of the second best hitter in baseball — Lance Berkman — from fifth to third in the batting order (Bags was moved to fifth in the order). Although this should have been done weeks ago, the fact that the notoriously stubborn Williams did it at all is tantamount to a breakthrough in diplomatic relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The Stros really need Wade Miller to step up in the Tuesday night game against Carlos Zambrano, who is one of the best pitchers in the league this season. Tim Redding takes on Greg Maddux in the Wednesday game, and Roy O goes against Glendon Rusch on Thursday.