- Lance Niekro's at-bat vs. John Smoltz was marvelous. In a two strike count against a nasty right-handed pitcher, Niekro lined a single to right-center field to plate Barry Bonds, who can still run just a tad...but being watched very closely. Couldn't help but notice a little gimp-hop at the very end of Bonds run from 2nd base, which gives me the freaking willies. It's going to be like that all year until he gets hurt, I imagine.
- After another old guy in Moises Alou showed that he can still run a bit after scoring on a wild pitch, Pedro Feliz did something we'd all wish he'd do more -- go with the outside located pitch to the opposite field instead of trying to pull. It ended up an out, but it was well-hit, and it scored Niekro for a sac fly.
- Two outs, Jason Schmidt up, end of inning, right? Nah. Schmidt flashed the one offensive talent that he has: a skoche of power. Double to deep left-center, and after Randy Winn battles nicely, Schmidt scores on the ensuing double from Winn.
This is the first game I will see in its entirety this year -- caught the end of the win vs. the Padres, but that's been it so far (and thus the reason I haven't yet picked up the amount of posts on O&B as of yet).
Seeing Schmidt hit the mid-90's on the gun is nice as well, although to my eye it still doesn't seem like it's the old Schmidt velocity -- a couple of years ago he had one of the very few mid-90's fastballs that looked like a high-90's fastball. Overall, though, it looks like that he's settling in from the 92-94 range as opposed to the 94-97 range he had before last season.
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