Starting Five: Curses! Or Is It: Bullpen! Foiled Again!

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 Cubs are jinxed.

OK, maybe not. But last night in Atlanta was reason to believe in goats.

Rookie Randy Wells, right, held the Braves hitless for 6 2/3 innings and took a 5-0 lead into the eighth inning.

It got a little dicey after that, but with one out in the bottom of the ninth, Chicago was up 5-3 with no one on base. Then Kevin Gregg (5.24 ERA) struck out Garret Anderson -- except the third strike got past catcher Geovany Soto and to the backstop, so Anderson reached first. And two batters later, Jeff Francoeur hit his first homer since May 1 to tie the game.

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The Braves won in the 12th on Yunel Escobar's single and stolen base and Chipper Jones' game-ending single.

"With a five-run lead in the eighth inning, it shouldn't get away," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "We gave that one to them, with a nice little ribbon."

(Not sure what the curse is in Arizona; the Diamondbacks blew a five-run lead to lose 6-5 to the Dodgers.)

From the Trainer's Room ...
The Rays already have their starting middle infield on the DL -- second baseman Akinori Iwamura (out for the year) and shortstop Jason Bartlett -- and now third baseman Evan Longoria is aching. Specifically, his left hamstring. Longoria felt something grounding out in the sixth inning last night and came out of the game.

Manager Joe Maddon had a lengthy closed-door meeting with head trainer Ron Porterfield following the game and later said Longoria will undergo an MRI exam today. Hamstring injuries have a tendency to get worse in a hurry when a player tries to play through them, so perhaps it wasn't surprising that Maddon seemed more circumspect about what was happening than Longoria.

"Of course -- hamstrings, you're always concerned about," Maddon said, adding that he understood why Longoria might put a positive spin on a situation.

Numbers Game ...
Dan Uggla's homer for Florida was the 100th of his career, all as a second baseman. He accomplished it in his 503rd game at the position, making him the fastest keystone player to the milestone. Alfonso Soriano hit his 100th homer as a second baseman in his 536th career game there.

In Their Own Words ...
"The back door cutter was working and the front door slider was working. There's games when they don't work like that, but when you feel good going to both sides of the plate, you get confidence. When you get ahead in the count like that, you try to put them away." -- Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay, who struck out 14 and threw a career-high 133 pitches in a complete-game win against the Angels.

Advance Scouting ...
Washington's Jordan Zimmermann goes for his third career win Wednesday night as the Nationals host the Giants (7:05 PM ET). Oh wait, let's try that again. San Francisco's Randy Johnson goes for his 300th career win. Johnson has never faced the Nats since they moved from Montreal, but it was the Expos who drafted him in 1985 -- 11 months before Zimmermann was born.