Friday belonged to the American League (and the bugs). Today it’s the Senior Circuit’s chance to shine. Two mid-market NL West teams look to complete sweeps against big spenders from the east.

Diamondbacks at Cubs, 3:00 p.m. PT — The good news, if you’re a Cubs fan, is that this one’s in Chicago. The bad news is that Livan Hernandez gets the start for Arizona. Yeah, he’s got an ERA near 5.00 and his peripherals are nauseating, but the guy has been lights-out in the playoffs throughout his career (the World Series is a different story, but we’re not there yet). …read more

New York Yankees uberprospect Philip Hughes made his big-league debut last week. It didn’t go so well, but that happens. What’s fascinating is this breakdown of Hughes’ delivery by Carlos Gomez at The Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT).
In a nutshell, Carlos looks at video of Hughes as a minor leaguer last year and compares it side-by-side with video from his Yankees debut. Carlos mixes in some still shots so we can see where Hughes is during various points of his windup.
Among many other things, Carlos has determined that Hughes’ arm slot is a little higher this season …read more

Ian at Giving 110 Percent examines Boston right-hander Josh Beckett’s first start and finds reasons to be encouraged:
Beckett was using his curve much more often than he did last year. Some were very good, but he was having difficulty locating it. It almost seemed he was being stubborn with it in the same way he would be stubborn with his fastball last year. It’s like Francona and Farrell told him to throw more curves so he did even though he couldn’t locate it that well.
I don’t know enough about Beckett’s stuff to comment meaningfully on the specifics, but I will …read more