Morning Wood

Seattle Mariners 6 Chicago White Sox 3

Now that was the Gavin Floyd I know. Gavin's been having a terrific season for the White Sox so far, but he looked a lot like the guy I was expecting to see this season on Sunday afternoon. Floyd lasted only 3.2 innings and gave up five runs.

Still, in spite of Gavin's performance, the Sox had their chances in this game. Blowing opportunity after opportunity to push more runs across the plate. "We let [Miguel Batista] get off the hook," Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen said. "We only scored two when we had a chance to score more. He struck out big people making good pitches to get out of a jam and then all of a sudden he started to pitch better."

Orlando Cabrera did go 4-for-5 for the Sox, as they compiled 11 hits, but left 13 runners on base.

Chicago Cubs 6 Arizona Diamondbacks 4

Daryle Ward finally got a pinch-hit this season, as his two-run double in the 8th inning provided the winning runs for the Cubs as they finished a three-game sweep of the Diamondbacks this weekend.

"I love the game of baseball," Ward said. "It's something I knew that I was going to do when I was about 3 years old."

Of course, I doubt this does much to soothe the soul of Cubs players who remember being swept out of the first round of the playoffs by these same Diamondbacks. Also, while this was a very big series for the Cubs, don't go getting too carried away with yourselves.

Arizona is a good team, but they aren't as good as everyone seems to think. It's seldom brought up that while they're 17-5 against the NL West, they're now only 6-10 against the NL Central and East.

AL

• Rays 8 Angels 5
• Royals 4 Orioles 0
• A's 12 Rangers 6
• Twins 9 Red Sox 8

NL

• Mets 8 Reds 3
• Marlins 5 Nats 4
• Brewers 5 Cardinals 3
• Padres 6 Rockies 1
• Giants 4 Phillies 3
• Astros 8 Dodgers 5