Pretty quiet night last night with just 6 games on the docket, but still some news as always.
Fausto Carmona had a very nice start yesterday, striking out 8 over 7 innings. He's pitched extremely well in the month of September he has a sub-1 ERA along with 21 strikeouts in 24 innings. While this is a bit unlikely to keep up, his next two starts are looking to be at Minnesota and home versus Kansas City.
Angel Pagan went 3 for 5 last night, and continues to be a very pleasant surprise for the Mets. He also stole his 34th base of the season, has now driven in 67 runs, and is hitting .295. I think that as long as he ends up with a starting job (which seems like it should happen), he could start 2011 as a top-30 outfielder.
How do we rank Paul Konerko for next year? He hit his 37th homerun yesterday, and now has a .323 batting average and 105 runs batted in, but I don't know if there is anyone that believes he can do this again next season. I think he's going to be right around the 10-15 spot in the rankings for next year, but he's going to be one of the tougher cases.
Jonathan Sanchez had a great start last night, striking out 12 in 7 innings and allowing just 4 hits and 1 earned run. There were also no walks from Sanchez in the victory. Always a good sign when there are no walks from him, and I look forward to seeing it more from him.
Jaime Garcia will have his next start skipped so that he can limit his innings, but this is better news for his owners than what had previously been reported. He had been reported to be shut down, but apparently managed to talk his way out of that. I think he's probably only making 1 or 2 more starts at most, and has not pitched all that well since the All-Star break.