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We only went 10-10 in our next 20 and we are 55-45. But the Expos are falling apart and we are only 3 games behind them for the wild card. We are 8 back of the Braves, so our only real hope will be the wild card. The Expos can't pitch and their only good starter, Steve Avery, suffered an elbow injury and since then, the Expos have gone 6-14.
We suffered several injuries in these 3 weeks. We lost Seitzer, who is 6th in the NL in hitting, for 5 weeks to plantar fasciitis. We also lost backup catcher Tony Barron for 4 weeks to a broken hand. I wasn't happy with who we had at AAA and I kept some spots on our 40 man roster open, so I claimed Henry Blanco from the Twins to back up Frias for a month, and Shane Halter from the Cubs to play some OF and IF while Seitzer is out. I also claimed OF/IF Robert Stiegele from Detroit, so we turned over 3 spots on our roster.
Frias is still bashing it around. He is up to 27 home runs and 70 RBI while hitting .270. King is impoving from his career high last year with 19 homers and 62 RBI with a .302/.367/.500 split.
Rookie Erstad also suffered an injury, a day-to-day knee injury, but one that will last 4 weeks. I need to be careful in how I play him, so I don't play him against any lefties and don't play him 3 days in a row. He is at .302/.362/.409 as he just turned 21.
We signed Carlos Baerga to a 4 year extension for $9 million total. Since we traded for the UFA-to-be, he's hit .325/.357/.459 with 8 HR in 71 games. He's a career .295 hitter just about to turn 27 and should be a quality player for us for several years.
We are 2nd in pitching and we really have 6 arms for 5 spots in the rotation. Araujo struggled all year with an ERA of 5.43 before 4 straight wins got his ERA down to 4.50 and we signed him to a 3-year extension at $700,000 a year. And then he got hurt for a month the next start. In his absence, Charlie Leibrandt had 5 straight starts going 7 innings each in 4 Marlin wins, so Araujo will have to come back to a bullpen start as all our other starters are good.
We signed 34 year old OF/IF Mike Cole to a minor league deal before the season. Cole played 6 years for me in LA, hitting .280/.401/.343 as he drew over 100 walks 3 times. I called him up after a month to be our 5th outfielder, but he's been playing more the last few weeks with all the injuries. In 128 plate appearances, he's drawn 31 walks, an OBP of almost .250 before adding in hits. He's only hitting .223, but has an OBP of .425 and stolen 8 bases.
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