Around the Horn - 6/2

Late afternoon edition of Around the Horn....

First off congratulations to the man-child himself Manny Ramirez on home run #500 (and #501). We didn't have much time this weekend or we would have posted something more deserving. We're shocked that Manny is standing by home plate still admiring his shot.

Manny's Red Sox still trail those Rays. Tampa took 3 of 4 from the White Sox to maintain a 1 game lead in the AL East. These guys are NOT going away.

2 more home runs and 5 more RBI for Josh Hamilton from the weekend. Chase Utley upped his major league home run total to 20. We picked the guy to be the '07 MVP. Perhaps we were just a year off.

The Indians have to get a bat, no? They scored just 8 runs in a 3-game series with the Royals. KC snapped their 12 game losing streak on Saturday and won again on Sunday.

The Diamondbacks posted back-to-back shutouts of the Nationals. Brandon Webb won his 10th game on Saturday with a complete game effort. Dan Haren got some help from the pen to duplicate the feat on Sunday.

Trevor Hoffman is the all-time leader in saves, but he doesn't do so badly in blowing them either. He got his 3rd of the year yesterday when the Giants scored 3 off of him in the bottom of the 10th to win. The Padres may want to think about moving Josh Banks to the starting rotation full-time. He threw 6 shutout innings in last Sunday's 18 inning marathon with the Pads and followed it up with a complete game win on Saturday. He allowed just 1 unearned run and 6 hits. He's yet to allow a run in 17 innings this season.

How bummed does Justin Verlander have to be? He's 2-8 now. He can blame us for picking him to win the CY Young. Felix Hernandez was back on the beam, throwing 2-hit ball for 7 innings to beat him.

Joe Torre's trip back to NYC wasn't so great. The Mets took 3 of 4 from Torre's Dodger blue.

The Jay Bruce ERA is fully underway in Cincinnati. He had the walk off home run in the 10th on Saturday and hit another one on Sunday. So far, the 21-yr old is 13-22 (.591) with 2 HR, 6 RBI, 3 doubles, 6 walks, and 2 steals. His OBP/SLUG/OPS is .690/1.000/1.690.