On Deck: Divisional Infighting

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Philadelphia Phillies (60-54) vs. Atlanta Braves (61-54)-7:35PM Est.

Both of these teams are fighting to catch the New York Mets in the NL East, but this weekend they'll have to get through each other first. Currently the Braves trail New York by 3.5 games, and the Phillies trail by 4 games. There's also the wild card well within each team's reach, so this series is rather important. Life as been good in Atlanta since they added Mark Teixeira and Octavio Dotel, as the Braves have won seven of their last ten games. Tonight Chuck James starts for Hotlanta, and he's never lost to the Phillies. He's made four starts in his career against the Phils and is 2-0 with a 2.81 ERA. Cole Hamels starts for the Phillies, and Philly has won six of his last seven starts at Citizens Bank. So you should really take some time out of your busy Friday night schedule of not getting any and tune into this game. You never know, maybe Chipper Jones will say Ryan Howard is on steroids too.


Cleveland Indians (65-50) vs. New York Yankees (63-51)-7:05PM Est.

Speaking of players who've been accused by Chipper Jones, Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees move into Cleveland tonight ready to continue their second half assault on the American League. The Yankees have gone 20-8 since the break to get within six games of Boston, and one game behind the Mariners in the wild card. The problem is that all those games came against bad teams. This series starts a stretch in which the Yankees will play against the Indians, Tigers, Red Sox and the Angels. So now we're going to get an idea of how good the Yankees actually are. Philip Hughes will be making his second start since coming off the disabled list, and I'm sure he's hoping it works out better than the shellacking he received from the Royals last week. It better be too, because the Indians may not be playing great but their offense seemed to wake up against the White Sox, and tonight they'll be sending Fausto Carmona to the mound. Carmona was great in his last start against the Twins, but came away on the wrong side of a 1-0 score. A win tonight, and Fausto will be tied for the Major League lead with 14 wins.

San Francisco Giants (49-64) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (45-66)-10:15PM Est.

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by trying to tell you this is an important game. It isn't. Barry's already broken Aaron's record, and neither team will be making the playoffs. The only reason I'm including this game is because of the trade these two teams made a few weeks ago. I had absolutely no idea as to why the Pirates felt the need to trade for Matt Morris, but then I remembered Dave Littlefield is their general manager and it all made sense. He's stupid! So now Morris will be starting for the Pirates tonight against his old team in his old park. Matt got hit around in his only start so far as a Pirate, and is 0-4 with a 7.66 ERA in his last eleven starts, which also explains why he was so desirable. The other odd thing about this series? How often do you see home-in-home series in baseball? After these two teams finish up their three-game set in San Francisco on Sunday, they start a two-game series against each other in Pittsburgh. That's five straight days of Giants/Pirates goodness!