Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.You Oughta Know ...
That the AL East is tight.
Just four days ago, the first-place Blue Jays led the Red Sox by three games and the Yankees by 4 1/2.
Now Boston is a half-game back after a three-game home sweep of Toronto, while New York is 1 1/2 games out.
The Red Sox out-scored the Jays 15-5 in the sweep. Toronto is 19-6 against teams that currently have a losing record and 8-11 against over-.500 clubs.
"If we are going to be in first place, we will have to beat the Sox and the Yanks," [Blue Jays first baseman] Lyle Overbay said. "We can beat these teams. We just have to figure out how."Meanwhile, the Yankees have won nine straight, hitting 18 homers and pitching to a 3.00 ERA as a team.
Those three AL East teams have the best, second-best and fourth-best records in the AL (Detroit is No. 3).
The Rays, who have not been over .500 since their record was 4-3, are lurking 5 1/2 back in the East.
From the Trainer's Room ...
Conor Jackson's mysterious illness has been diagnosed as valley fever. He went on the Diamondbacks' disabled list on May 12 with a .182 average.
Jackson said he had a cough, was sore and achy and had been feeling constantly tired.Numbers Game ...
"By the third inning, it felt like I had played 20 innings with an 80-pound backpack on," he said. "It was brutal."
After days of being nearly bed-ridden, Jackson finally was semi-mobile Thursday, leaving home for the first time in about a week. ...
"I haven't lifted a weight, I haven't run, in three weeks pretty much," he said. "We haven't even talked about timetable. One doctor told me, 'You're going to be fatigued for the rest of the year.' The infectious-disease guy said everybody reacts differently, so I don't know what to expect."
Edwin Jackson's 132 pitches -- he went eight innings for the win as Detroit took its sixth straight, 4-3 over Texas -- were the most by an AL pitcher since Curt Schilling threw 133 on April 25, 2006.
In Their Own Words ...
"I always think positive. Colon will be real fresh for his next start. That's all I can say about Colon today." – White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen on starter Bartolo Colon, who allowed eight runs in two innings as the Twins romped 20-1 in Chicago, matching the White Sox team record for margin of defeat
Advance Scouting ...
It's the first day of interleague play, and our advice is buy American. The AL last year went 149-103 against the NL, and since 2004 the advantage is 703-557. That's a .558 winning percentage, the equivalent of a 90-win season. Among tonight's more compelling matchups: Phillies at Yankees (7:05 PM ET); Mets at Red Sox, with Johan Santana facing Daisuke Matsuzaka (7:10 PM ET); Angels at Dodgers (10:10 PM ET); and Giants at Mariners (10:10 PM ET), the latter mainly because Randy Johnson is scheduled to pitch in Seattle.
