Afternoon Baseball

Yankee fans, take heart. The pitching is wonderful compared to last year, Joe Torre's managing style notwithstanding, because last year we had our famous Kevin Brown watch.
That's right -- one year ago, Kevin Brown gave up 6 runs in the first inning, continuing a trend where he was stellar after inning 2, but gave up an average of 4 runs in those first two innings. At the time, however, it appeared that he would keep getting starts, which was depressing.
Now? He's retired. Rejoice, Yankee fans, rejoice.

Also, just under a year ago, I wrote about the underrated Mr. Consistent, Brad Radke.
Well, like Al Leiter in 2005, maybe the wheels have fallen off of the wagon. Or bus. Or whatever. Unfortunately, he closed last year weakly after his May shutout, winning only 9 games in 31 starts with a 4.04 ERA. A Sept. ERA of almost 7 didn't help.
And so far this year, ugly. 43 hits, 26 innings, 8.89 ERA. In a year, he's gone from "only" 32 to "already" 33.