Game One
Batista v. Schilling
A chilly night at the Re-Met as the Pelicans look to pull themselves off the mat.......again. It turns out despite their horrid performance and their wretched luck they remain 4 games out of first place.

Schilling returns from his suspension to find that he is still needed to stop a losing streak -- the Pelicans are winless in games preceding a Schilling start -- but the good news is that the Pelicans are undefeated in games started by Curtis.

On with the highlights:

Top 1 -- Schilling allows singles to Kingsale and Sheffield to start it off but then retired the meat of the order to avoid another Notch meltdown. The Pelicans need a lead!

Bottom 1 -- They get it. Notch needs the offense jumpstarted, and he got it. Jeter leads off with a base hit to left, then steals second and third. Ichiro's base hit up the middle scores Jeter, and then Ichiro steals second. Junior slaps a single to right, scoring Ichiro and it's 2-0 Pellies. Batista gets Robin on a 4-6-3 which helps him escape down by a pair. But the Pelicans have a lead with their ace on the mound!

Top 2 -- Schilling shows his gratitude by pissing it away. Infield single by Damian Jackson, stolen base and an error on the throw by Kendall. Rollins' sac fly makes it 2-1. Walbeck singles, Batista moves him over and the Kingsale's slapper to left scores Wally to tie it at 2.

Bottom 2 -- Runners at the corners, 1 out, Ledee nailed at the plate on a grounder to second. Nothin'.

Bottom 3 -- Pelicans again strand two.

Bottom 4 -- With two out and Casey and Schilling on, Ichiro goes yard and the Pelicans again give their ace a lead! 5-2.

Top 5 -- Schilling's allowed only a single since the second, until...............Sheffield leads off with a triple. He will end up scoring when Raffy feeds some Viagra to his bat and then they give it to the baseball real good. Now it's 5-4 Pelicans. One batter later Dmitri Young doubles in the corner, but Schilling uses a couple of groundouts and an intentional walk to get out of the jam and keep the lead.

Top 6 -- Kingsale steals second with one out but they leave him. Still 5-4.

Top 8 -- The Collin County bullpen has been mostly kicking ass, and so has Schilling but Curtis gives up a pair of singles to lead off the inning as Notch gets the pen ready (about as ready as they can be) just in case. But Stairs struck out, Kingsale flied out, and Sheffield's deep drive died in the wind and into Griffey's glove. Still 5-4.

Top 9 -- Kim is in for the save. He's blown two leads with two out in the 9th, so nothing is automatic, but he mowed them down 1-2-3.

CCC 020 020 000 -- 4 12 1
NOP 200 300 00X -- 5 9 1

Cavemen info:
Pitching -- Batista (L) 3.2 IP, Rincon 1.1, Koplove 2, Crudale 1
Catching -- Walbeck 8
HR -- Palmeiro (one on, no out in 5th)
Injuries/Suspensions/Ejections -- None
Limits -- None

Pelicans info:
Pitching -- Schilling (W) 8 IP, Kim (Sv) 1
Catching -- Kendall 8, Blanco 1
HR -- Ichiro (2 on, 2 out in 4th)
Injuries/Suspensions/Ejections -- None
Limits -- None

Player of the game -- Ichiro was 2-for-4 with the biiiiiiiig fly in the 4th inning. 4 RBI total. Stud.

Anti-player of the game -- Batista was awful but I'm sure in a one-run game Collin County could have used their cleanup hitter, Shawn Green. 0-for-5 with a couple of K's.

.

Game Two
Miller v. Vazquez
Welcome to the New Orleans Pelicans' bizarro world. The team is 11-17 because they have an anchor tied to each leg. One anchor says "offense" (team .310 OBA going into this series), the other says "bullpen" (self-explanatory). So how could both of those anchors possibly have disappeared in one game?

This was an exciting back-and-forth game for 2 1/2 innings. Pat Burrell's bomb to left in the 2nd gave the Pelicans a 1-0 lead. Again, this is Pelican baseball as Notch envisioned it; get the early lead, let the starting pitcher do their j-o-b.

Then again, this is Pelican baseball as it's been played: Shawn Green's bases-loaded single scores two in the 3rd. It should be noted for Javier Vazquez's agent that one of those runs was unearned (Vina's error caused Hernandez to reach to start the inning).

Pelican pride in the bottom of the 3rd: Walk to Casey, Vaz bunts him over, Jeter doubles him home.

Here come the Cavemen in the top of the 4th as they bat around, loading the bases thanks to a walk, error, and another walk, then walking in a run, and then Sheffield's single up the middle scored two more, and it's 5-2 Cavemen.

Bottom of the inning: Burrell leads off with a single. One batter later Kendall works the hit-and-run to perfection, and runners are at the corners with one out for Vina. Notch sends Kendall and Vina slaps a single to right, again corners and one out, now it's 5-3. Casey walks to load the bases and set up the key moment of this game.

Even though Vazquez has given up two earned runs through 4 innings, he's given up 5 earned runs, he walked 5 guys and only struck out one, the Pelicans are losing 5-3, the bases are loaded with one out, so Notch pulls him for pinchhitter Ricky Ledee. Line drive right field base hit scores two and it's tied. Miller is tired. Jeter flies out (this would likely have been the third out if Vaz had stayed in, FYI). Intentional walk to Ichiro, and here comes the lefty Chad Zerbe to pitch to Junior. Double in the gap and it's 8-5. Burrell doubles off the wall in left (second hit of the inning) to score Junior, and Robin's single to right scores Burrell and it's now 10-5.

Both bullpens throw BB's the rest of the game -- and yes, this included the PELICAN bullpen -- so it becomes anticlimactic but a Pelican win nonetheless. A win from the bizarro world at that, where the bats AND the bullpen saved the day while the starting pitcher failed to even qualify for the win. Unfrigginbelievable. We'll take it though.

CCC 002 300 000 -- 5 8 0
NOP 011 800 00X -- 10 12 2

Cavemen info:
Pitching -- Miller (L) 3.2 IP, Zerbe .1, Koplove 2, Crudale 2
Catching -- Hernandez 8
HR -- None
Injuries/Suspensions/Ejections -- None
Limits -- None

Pelicans info:
Pitching -- Vazquez 4 IP, Hasegawa 1, Mulholland (W) 4
Catching -- Kendall 8
HR -- Burrell (leading off the 2nd)
Injuries/Suspensions/Ejections -- None
Limits -- None

Player of the game -- Burrell didn't hit the game-winning, back-breaking bases-clearing three-run double to make it 8-5 (that was Kenneth) but Pat did go 3-for-4 with a double and a homer, two hits in one inning, three runs scored, and a pair of RBI. Honorable mention should go to Mulholland (4 IP, 2 H, 0 ER) and Sheffield in a losing cause (3-for-5 with 2 RBI)

Anti-player of the game -- Wade Miller left the game having allowed 5 earned runs and leaving the bases loaded. Wade Miller ended up allowing 8 earned runs because Chad Zerbe entered the game with the bases loaded in a tie game needing to get one out. He waited until the fifth batter he faced before he recorded that out. Five runs scored during that time, two charged to him. Chad Zerbe didn't come back for the next inning, and it wasn't just because the pitcher spot came up the next half-inning either.

.

Game Three
Needing a quality start from Timmy Hudson, Utley and the Cavedweller faithful were sorely disappointed. Big innings in the first (homers by Jeter and Burrell), third (another homer by Burrell), and the fifth (two-run single by ventura and Casey beating out a DP scoring another run) gave Russ Ortiz eight runs to work with.

Ortiz had a perfect game and a 5-0 lead until Green led off the fifth with a base hit, two outs later he was caught stealing, so Ortiz had faced the minimum through 5. Polanco doubled to lead off the sixth, Green doubled with one out in the seventh.............3-hit shutout and an 8-0 lead going to the 9th.

Then the statbusters came out. Leadoff single by Kingsale, two walks, then another Viagra-induced hard-and-long one to right field by Raffy made it 8-4. Rudd stopped farting around and then got the next three guys in order to finish the sweep.

CCC 000 000 004 -- 4 5 0
NOP 302 030 00X -- 8 8 0

Cavemen info:
Pitching -- Hudson (L) 5 IP, Zerbe 3
Catching -- Hernandez 8
HR -- Palmeiro (grand slam in 9th)
Injuries/Suspensions/Ejections -- None
Limits -- None

Pelicans info:
Pitching -- Ortiz (W) 9 IP
Catching -- Zaun 9
HR -- Jeter (leadoff in 1st), Burrell 2 (one on & 1 out in 1st, one on & 2 out in 3rd)
Injuries/Suspensions/Ejections -- For some reason Ichiro was tossed after he K'd in the first. Maybe the ump didn't translate properly.
Limits -- Zaun 3 AB v. R, 1 AB v. L; Merloni 1 AB v. L

Player of the game -- Ortiz was sure to get this until his 9th inning, so Burrell gets the nod (2-for-3 with a walk, 3 runs scored, 2 dingers, and 4 ribbies)

Anti-player of the game -- Hudson lasted the longest of any Caveman starting pitcher this series (5 innings) but like Wade Miller the day before gave up 8 earned runs.

.

The Pelicans head into the break 13-17 but no worse than 2 1/2 games out of the division lead. After the break they play the Cavemen again, this time in Collin County. Most likely Schilling, Vazquez, and Ortiz will go again in that order for the Pelicans.