Jeff Francis returns to form

Being a Canadian and wanting to celebrate a great pitching performance, I had to recognize Jeff Francis of the Rockies. He started his second game of the season after returning from serious arm surgery. He looked extremely sharp as he pitched 6 1/3 innings of shutout ball against the Royals. Francis allowed 5 hits over that time. The 29 year old now has 52 career wins.

I have to include Daiske Matsuzaka in this blog as the Red Sox enigmatic pitcher turned in a dominating performance against a tough Phillies squad. He had quite a few defensive gems behind him and because of that he was able to take a no hitter deep into the game. He just gave up the one hit which was a bloop single with two outs in the eighth. If he could have picked up just four more outs he would have joined Ubaldo Jimenez and Dallas Barden in the no hitter column

Matt Stairs from my hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick made baseball history last night as he hit his 260th career HR. The monumental dinger represents the 11th team that Stairs has hit a homerun for. I watched Matt play ball when he was just a teenager as he played shortstop for the local Royals team in senior baseball. I am not sure any of us would have envisioned Matt having an 18 year career and hitting over 250 HR's. He has also won a World Series Championship and we are very proud of Matt.

Vlad Guerrero continued his hot streak as he hit his 10th of the season and #417 of his career. He still strikes fear into pitchers and he is one of those guys you just expect to hit the ball very hard each time he steps to the plate.