Cha-ching!

There is a lot of contract news today, but the biggest is that Ryan Howard filed for $18 million in arbitration - only $4 million higher than the Phillies offer. Let the games begin.

The number is so high that only greedy New Yorkers Roger Clemens (I know he was an Astro at the time) and Derek Jeter ever put in for higher amounts. I don't expect Howard to be around Philadelphia much longer. According to Fan Graphs, he has only had one one season (2006) in which he was worth more than $18 million. He was worth $25.7 million in his MVP season, $17.1 million the next year and $14.1 million last year.

The Phillies avoided arbitration with Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, kept in tact Theo Epstein's streak of never going to arbitration by giving a one-year $6.25 million contract to Jonathan Papelbon. Javier Lopez also signed a one-year deal.

I guess this is a fair deal for Papelbon - he's been worth more than $6.25 million the past three seasons - but it seems awfully high for a player in his first year of arbitration eligibility. Like Howard, I wonder if he's going to price himself out of Boston in a couple of seasons. The Red Sox have been hyping up Daniel Bard lately.

David Aardsma was traded to the Mariners. I still think he'll have a productive career, but it's better to trade him for a prospect than cut him in a numbers crunch at the end of spring training.

Personal: SoxandPhils players weren't the only ones cashing in today. Since I was forced into retirement from journalism, Christine urged me to start entering newspaper contests. I won two tickets to a St. Joe's basketball game. Yea! Although, if I had Howard's $14 million to $18 million, or even Papelbon's $6.25 million, I could buy tickets for all my readers.

Treading water

The Red Sox and Rays each split their double headers against the Blue Jays and Yankees, so we remain two games out - not impossible to make up, but it's looking like a sweep in Tampa this week may be necessary.

The Phillies won handily, but only picked up a half game on the Mets, who split their double header against the Braves. OK, that's improvement (2.5 games out) - plus, they picked up a whole game on the Wild Card-leading Brewers, whose lead is now two games heading into tomorrow's double header. The Astros, in limbo because of Hurricane Ike, are a half game behind the Phillies.

Young Cole Hamels may have been paying attention to Jamie Moyer's outing the other night. It wasn't his best start, but he gutted it out for 6.1 innings to get the win as the Phillies beat the Brewers 7-3.

Most of the offense (except Pat Burrell and Carlos Ruiz) pitched in, led by three hits, three runs and two RBI by Jimmy Rollins.

They have to at least split tomorrow's double header, but if they sweep, I'm believing again. {I'm already there; I hope tomorrow's not a letdown.}

Red Sox: In the first game, Paul Byrd pitched like the crappy Paul Byrd I've been expecting, and the Sox lost a gutless performance 8-1 with only five friggin' hits. The box score looks like a spring training game. David Aardsma got beat around, too - when did he come back? Kevin Cash pinch hit for Dustin Pedroia and stayed in the game at third base; that's his first major league appearance at any position besides catcher.

The Sox finally woke up late in the second game. After trailing 5-2, they scored a run in the 6th and 7th and three in the 8th to win 7-5. Bartolo Colon returned, and it looks like Fat Bart didn't do too bad; he gave up five runs, but only two were earned, over six innings. Three-hit nights for Jason Bay and Dustin MVPedroia.

Ugly win for Phils; hideous loss for the Sox

"I'm tired of the Phillies being stuck in jams and sucking," Christine said before Brad Lidge struck out Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley to end the game with the potential tying run on base.

And that quote summed up tonight's game - a rare win for the Phillies, 8-6 over the Rangers.

Cole Hamels didn't have his best stuff but labored for seven innings, giving up four runs. Fortunately, he was matched up against Vicente Padilla, who pitched like he did when he was a Phillie. And we may have a legitimate sighting of the offense - every starter except Pat Burrell had a hit. Chase Utley had three, including a homer, and Ryan Howard also hit one out. Jimmy Rollins tried to stretch a triple into a homer in the 6th, but ran through a stop sign and was thrown out at home. Wonder if he's due for another benching.

Funny moments in the broadcast: Chris Wheeler on Hamels' pitch count at the start of the 7th: "He's thrown 193 pitches." I think he forgot to clarify that it was actually only 93 pitches. Not even Dusty Baker would leave a young ace out there for 193 pitches. ... In the dugout, Brett Myers put on a catchers mask (hmm, with the way he's pitching, maybe not such a terrible idea). He then gave it to So Taguchi, who also put it on. We'd love to hear the conversation between those two.

Stinky Sox: Ugly, ugly, ugly game for what may be the second-place Red Sox. Jon Lester entered with 11 straight starts of three earned runs or less - the longest for a Sox starter since Pedro Martinez in 2002-03. Lester gave up six in five innings tonight in a wild back and forth 11-10 loss to the Astros.

The offense, paced by four hits each by Dustin Pedroia and Mike Lowell, more than did its job. Lester gets a pass - he's entitled to a bad start every couple of months. But the bullpen? Two runs, one earned, for David Aardsma in the 7th, and three for Manny Delcarmen in the 8th.

The Rays are tied with the Pirates in the 13th inning. If they win, the Red Sox are once again the hunters.

Perfect homestand, sorta perfect Dice-K

The Red Sox won their getaway game, 11-8 over the Royals, capping a 7-0 homestand, thanks to grand slams from J.D. Drew and Mike Lowell. Daisuke Matsuzaka is now 8-0 with a 2.40 ERA, but he had another typical Dice-K start: 118 pitches in 5 2/3 innings. He walked six and had two wild pitches.

The team is cruising, but I am not without concern: Dice should be dominating, and the bullpen should be better. When you score 11 runs against the Royals, Jonathan Papelbon shouldn't be needed for a save, but he was because of shoddy middle relief (five runs in two innings from Craig Hansen and David Aardsma). Hansen's been a train wreck despite having one of the best sliders in the game. Aardsma gets a pass today because they were his first runs in a month (8 1/3 innings).

Oh well, onto the West Coast, where Manny has predicted he'll hit No. 500.

Phillies: Playing in the central time zone, the Phils beat the Astros, 7-5. Ryan Howard was 3-5 (single, double and homer) with three runs and two RBIs. Pat Burrell gave them the lead with a pinch-hit homer in the 8th. Brad Lidge was booed for every strike and cheered for every ball in the bottom of the 9th. The count went 2-0 on Kaz Matsui, and from the crowd reaction, you would have thought the Astros won the game. The anticipated match-up of Lidge vs. Lance Berkman ended after one pitch, a pop-up to So Taguchi to end the game. Lights out.

One gimmicky series down, one to go

Wow. How has this not come up before? The New York Times reports that when the Red Sox play the Dodgers in the Los Angeles Coliseum on Saturday, they will be playing with left field dimensions that will make Fenway Park look like a cookie-cutter stadium.

Because of the football dimensions, a 60-foot fence (made of netting) will be placed 200 feet from home plate for the exhibition. Turns out they have done it before - in the 1959 World Series, as shown in this photo.

Juan Pierre is scared:

I’ll be like 180 feet from the hitters, and those Boston guys hit the ball pretty hard. I might have to wear a cup.

Don't worry about Manny Ramirez; he'll probably bounce one off the net in the first inning and still be standing at home watching it when it's time for him to take the field.

Too bad that game won't be on ESPN. I'd wake up at 6 a.m. for that one. Speaking of which, how is it possible that today's game started at 6 a.m. and I was able to leave for work on time? If it were a postseason game or any Yankees game, it would have still been in the fourth inning at 9 a.m.

Bummer of a game. I don't mind the loss, just wish Jon Lester pitched better. David Aardsma looked good.

A real interesting thing happened when Gary Thorne and Steve Phillips discussed Jose Canseco's hatred of Alex Rodriguez. (Hope you read the excerpt before Deadspin had to yank it.) Thorne said, "There will be some real interesting throws from third to first in the Bronx this year." I was tired and had no clue what he was saying until he then referred to Canseco as Jason Giambi. I know all drugged up A's-turned-Yankees look alike. But one is still playing and the other is a Surreal Life alum.

What do you expect from Gary Thorne, who last year "misunderstood" a conversation with Doug Mirabelli and said Curt Schilling faked the bloody sock?