During Wednesday's Braves-Brewers game, reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun hit a long fly ball to deep right field. Braves right fielder Jason Heyward got a good beat on the ball, and made a twisting, leaping catch to steal a homer from Braun that would have given Milwaukee the lead. In the first inning, Heyward hit a homer of his own that was nowhere near as catchable as Braun's was, so it's appropriate that he robs a homer the same night he hits one.

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And Dempster will claim his Twitter account got hacked in 3... 2...

Judging by the looks of this somewhat confusing tweet, Texas Rangers pitcher Ryan Dempster needs to either bring someone (and their father) a package of marijuana or someone who runs his Twitter account needs to bring a package of weed to Ryan (and his father). 

Where is our devils lettuce... Ryan and his dad wanted to know if I could bring them a care package?

— Dempster Foundation (@RyanDempsterFDN) September 12, 2012

Don't hold your breath though because whoever composed the tweet doesn't seem to know what "devil's lettuce" is.

Now, before we jump to any conclusions, keep in mind that the Twitter account is for Ryan Dempster's foundation, so it could be some naive intern who tweeted out the incriminating tweet.  Or it could be Ryan referring to himself in the third person because he is high as balls.  Your guess is as good as mine.  Whatever the case, Dempster better hope that the Rangers and MLB don't take notice of the tweet or he might have himself some 'splaining to do.

Just to add to the intrigue, Dempster is starting for the Rangers tonight, so be sure to freeze frame on any close ups of him to see if his eyes are bloodshot and/or if his jersey is stained with Doritos dust if you really want to get to the bottom of the mystery of whether or not the package showed up in time.

UPDATE (because I know you are on the edge of your seat): The tweet was posted via TXT, strongly suggesting the guilty party sent it to Twitter by accident and has yet to realize what they've done.  This should be fun.

UPDATE TWO: And there's our claim of a hacking!

Obviously our account has been hacked...

— Dempster Foundation (@RyanDempsterFDN) September 12, 2012

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The 2013 MLB schedule has been released, the first that will see at least one interleague matchup during every series of the year. There are also some additional quirks to things....let's take a look at it all. The season is back to starting earlier, and Opening Day league-wide will be on Monday, April 1st...well, aside from the Sunday "Opening Night" game on ESPN. All schedule information from MLB.com.

Each division is matched up with another division for interleague games, Each team will play 20 interleague games, with 16 of them being against the division they're matched up with. Each team will play ten interleague home games, and ten road games. Each team will play a two game road series and a two game home series against one team from the other, and will play a four game series made up of two home games and two road games back to back against a team from another division.

For the "traditional" interleague matchups, the AL East is matched up with the NL West, the AL Central is matched up with the AL East, and the AL West is matched up with the NL Central. For the "two and two" series, each team will be matched up with a team from the opposite division in the other league (East/East, Central/Central, West/West). The two and two series will happen during May 27-30 league-wide.

Each team will play 19 games against teams in their own division, and will play six games against four of the teams in the other divisions, and seven games against the other six teams in their league. 

It's not the true balanced schedule we're all looking for, but it's a lot better than what we've been dealing with in recent years. It's also worth noting that the first interleague series of the year will be in Cincinnati between the Angels and Reds. 24 of the 30 teams will have games on the 1st. The season will conclude on Sunday, September 29th with the playoffs probably kicking off on Monday the 30th or Tuesday the 1st, which will likely prevent us from toying with November baseball this year. The final interleague series of the year will be between the Tigers and Marlins in Miami during the final weekend of the year. The World Baseball Classic will also return in March, with dates still to be announced for that.

Honestly, this is a pretty solid job by MLB to get some semblance of a balanced schedule going within the division. It could be much, much worse, and this is a great effort.

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Dear Mike Trout,

Please stop making tremendous defensive plays. You're destroying everyone with your bat, and your defense is just as impeccable. Yoenis Cespedes is having a damn fine rookie year, and you just had to go ahead and rob him of a hit on Tuesday night in Anaheim, in addition to blowing him out of the water in the AL Rookie of the Year race.

XOXO,
The American League

On an aside, we all have to admit that this play was incredible, and has become par for the course for Trout. The Angels would still fall 6-5 to the A's last night despite Trout's stellar defense and offense (3/4 with a run scored and a walk).

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Last season, the Cardinals were beneficiaries of the Braves choking away the NL Wild Card. This year, the Braves appear to be safely locked in to the first Wild Card slot, but the Cardinals are the ones choking it away. After Tuesday's 6-4 loss to the Padres, the Cardinals lead is down to just one game over the Dodgers. The Pirates are 2.5 back, but are sliding fast in the other direction. There are also two more contenders stepping up: the Brewers and Phillies, both of whom are four games back and sitting at the .500 mark. The Diamondbacks are also still somehow in contention, five games out. Is this really happening?!

Game of the Night: A's 6, Angels 5. The A's continue their march to the Wild Card, beating the Angels in the first game in a crucial series between the two teams. Oakland jumped out to an early lead, and didn't look back. The Angels led 2-1 after a Vernon Wells two-run homer in the second inning, but the A's quickly jumped back on top after a two-run homer by Brandon Moss and a sac fly from Stephen Drew. A Torii Hunter homer in the seventh made it 4-3, and the A's got some needed insurance in the ninth after a two-run triple by Coco Crisp. In the ninth for the Angels, the first four batters reached base, making it a 6-5 game in the process. Jerry Blevins came in, struck out Kendrys Morales, and got a double play from Howard Kendrick to end the game and give the A's a solid win.

Orioles starter Jason Hammel, the team's most effective starter, exited Tuesday's game with the Rays after just 3 1/3 innings. Hammel had pain in his right knee, which caused him to miss the past two months after surgery. Tuesday's start was his second since coming off of the DL, and he reportedly felt a stabbing pain in his knee before leaving the game, the same pain he felt before the surgery.

This is absolutely not the news that the Orioles, now tied for first place in the AL East with the Yankees, needed tonight after their 9-2 win over Tampa Bay. While Chris Tillman and Miguel Gonzalez have both stepped up with Hammel hurt, the team needs their veteran ace in the rotation down the stretch to go along with Wei-Yin Chen at the top of the rotation. 

Baltimore's schedule down the stretch is interesting, with five more games against the Rays after tonight along with three against the wild card leading Oakland Athletics. The Orioles can win without Hammel starting every fifth day, but their odds are much, much better if Hammel doesn't miss any more time.

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During Monday's Pirates-Reds 14 inning marathon, Reds fans at Great American Ballpark decided to amuse themselves near the end of the game that lasted over five hours and started howling like wolves. 

This seems to happen in long Pirates games. Remember last year's mess in Atlanta, with the "LET'S GO PIRATES!" girl? Of course. I was almost more offended by Reds TV announcer Thom Brennaman seemingly encouraging the extremely irriating behavior, but whatever.

Less than 17,000 fans were in attendance for the game, and maybe 20% of that crowd was still left by the end of the game...when things like that happen, annoying chants (or in this case, howling) can get magnified and drive everyone insane...like it did on Monday in Cincinnati.

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For years, MLB fans in various parts of the country have been pining for billionaire Mark Cuban to buy their favorite MLB team and use his brains, passion and checkbook to resuscitate their favorite franchise in the same way he did with the NBA's Dallas Mavericks.  Over that same span of time the conventional wisdom in Major League Baseball is that Cuban would never get his hands on a team if Bud Selig, Jerry Reinsdorf and the league office could help it.

This is not idle speculation, mind you, this conclusion came from none other than Mark Cuban himself via his personal blog after he lost out in a bid to buy the Cubs back in 2009:

On the flipside, my dedication to winning  could also make my job of getting  approval with MLB baseball much harder. Some people thought it meant that I would spend on players like I did in my early days with the Mavericks. Back before I learned that sometimes GMs put keeping their jobs ahead of trying to win championships. But thats another story for another time.  I had no intentions of trying to outspend the Yankees or Red Sox.  There was no reason to. I didnt have to beat either of those teams unless I made it to the World Series. The only teams I had to be better than were those in the National League, and more importantly, those in my division.  There were no big spending rivals close to home, so the AL East could spend themselves silly. My plans were to spend to win, not to spend for spending’s sake.  IMHO, the money I could save being in the 2nd tier of payroll could be invested in scouting and development. I made this clear to any and all of the owners that I spoke to across the league. Of course that didnt stop some from trying to convince some owners otherwise.

Since then, Cuban has made other attempts to purchase a team.  He lost out in an auction to buy the Texas Rangers and then once again came up short in the recent auction for the Dodgers.  For Bud Selig, that should have been good news as those fears of Cuban and his big bank account were something he feared to have enter the league.  Reportedly, Selig disliked the direction baseball was heading with mega-budget teams like the Yankees and Red Sox dominating the landscape.  Introducing another big spender like Cuban would only serve to tip the scales further out of balance.

While a big payroll hardly guarantees winning, it is easy to see the logic behind that line of thinking.  The only real problem with it is MLB's complete and utter lack of ability to enforce it. 

This came to my attention this morning after reading a piece on Getting Blanked by Dustin Parkes, where he noted that Brandon Phillips of the Reds accused a mystery Pirate of racism during Monday's game between the two teams. After the game, Phillips tweeted this out:

#RealTalk... Not really surprised by what I heard come outta another player's mouth tonite but DAMN... Still PISSED bout that $h¡+!! #Racism

— Brandon Phillips (@DatDudeBP) September 11, 2012

This is obviously a serious allegation, and Phillips' main issue apparently came after he was hit by Pirates reliever Jared Hughes in the eighth inning. Check out the video below.

The White Sox beat the Tigers 6-1 last night to move to three games up in the AL Central. This series is the last between the two contenders this year, and a series win for either side could potentially decide the division. The Tigers came into Monday's game with seven straight wins over the White Sox, and a 10-4 record on the season. Yet, no series matters more than this one at US Cellular Field. Each team isn't screwing around with their pitchinig in the final three games either, with the Tigers sending Doug Fister, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander to the hill, and the White Sox rolling with Jake Peavy, Gavin Floyd, and Chris Sale on the bump.

Game of the Night: Reds 4, Pirates 3 (14 innings). This might be the game that unofficially killed the Pirates playoff chances. Pittsburgh led 3-1 going into the bottom of the seven, and Wandy Rodriguez was dominant on the mound. He was relieved by Jared Hughes, who immediately allowed a two-run double to tie the game at three. The game remained scoreless until the 14th, with both teams missing scoring opportunities (including a bases loaded, none out situation in the 14th for the Pirates). In the bottom of the inning, Rick Vanden Hurk put two runners out, then got two outs (including a strikeout on Joey Votto). A wild pitch moved the runners to second and third, and that would prove to be key after Brandon Phillips reached on an infield single with a run scoring to win the game.