I think you can safely say that in regards to the Colorado Rockies, the other shoe has dropped. One day after Shelby Miller set down 27 in a row against them, Adam Wainwright threw a two-hit shutout against Colorado, pitching 7 1/3 hitless innings to start the game. Since topping out at 13-4 on April 20th, the Rockies are 6-13 as their schedule has gotten tougher. They've won just one of their last six series, and that was over the reeling Dodgers. Colorado gets a brief respite this week by taking on the Cubs, but then have ten straight against the Giants and Diamondbacks, the two teams ahead of them in the NL West standings. It's nice to see things righting themselves a bit.

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adam dunn playing defense dot jpg (Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Rays 8, Padres 7. Tampa Bay is finally at the .500 mark, and they did it in dramatic, gut-wrenching fashion. After a Chase Headley first inning homer gave San Diego a 2-0 lead, the Rays stormed back and scored six in the second against Burch Smith, making his major league debut. Tyson Ross relieved Smith and threw four scoreless innings to fan the flames, but the damage was done. But in the seventh, Jeremy Hellickson allowed a game-tying grand slam to Jesus Guzman, and Jaret Wright proceeded to walk in a run to give the Padres a 7-6 lead. In the ninth, with Huston Street on to close things out, things got hairy. Street got the first two outs without much trouble, then walked Ben Zobrist to bring up Evan Longoria. Longoria blasted a walkoff, two-run homer to give the Rays the win, and make Padres fans ill.

Boston Red Sox closer Joel Hanrahan's season is over after just 7 1/3 innings. The 31-year old right-hander will have flexor tendon surgery after tearing the muscle off the bone. He's expected to miss six to nine months following that surgery, but may also require Tommy John, which will extend his timetable even further.

However, just beause the timeframe is listed at six to nine months doesn't mean he'll be ready to go for the beginning of next season. Colby Lewis of the Rangers had the same surgery last July, and is still on a rehab assignment. Granted, Lewis has more work to do than Hanrahan to get back as a starter as opposed to a reliever, but it's still not set in stone that Hanrahan is going to be 100% for Opening Day, especially if the Tommy John is required as well.

The back-end of Boston's bullpen has been a mess since Hanrahan's injury, and the team is now on their third closer of the season after Andrew Bailey was (shockingly) also put on the DL. With Hanrahan now out for the year, and Bailey likely still out for another couple of weeks with an inflammed biceps, there is going to be even more pressure on the awesome Japanese duo of Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara, who were in much less high pressure roles just a couple of weeks ago. Boston now needs to count on young Alex Wilson in medium leverage innings, along with the dynamic and erratic Andrew Miller. Luckily for Boston, Craig Breslow just came off the DL and should do a solid job at shoring up their bullpen.

Luckily for the Red Sox, their rotation has been much better than a year ago. Felix Doubront is the only regular Boston starter with an ERA above 3.00, and the trio of Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, and Ryan Dempster has been one of the very best threesomes in baseball. Throw in a resurgent season thusfar from John Lackey, and a lights out bullpen is a much less important part of the Red Sox game than anyone imagined.

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I'm sure everyone knows the story of what happened nearly 100 years ago with Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore.In case you don't, here's a brief recap: Ruth hit the first batter he faced for the Red Sox against the Senators and was ejected. He was replaced on the mound by Shore. The hit batsman was thrown out stealing, and Shore set down the next 26 batters in a row. Well, something similiar happened in St Louis on Friday night. Eric Young Jr started off the game with a bloop single, and stole second base. He'd be the only Rockies hitter to reach base that night, as Cardinals starter Shelby Miller blistered the Colorado lineup by setting down the next 27 batters in a row, striking out 13 (or nearly half). The Cardinals won the game 3-0, and that little bit of offense was more than enough for Miller. By the way, Shelby Miller is 22 years old.

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Ike Davis tags out John McDonald and provides a great Photoshop opportunity for people in the process (Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Orioles 9, Twins 6 (ten innings). Despite the final score, this was a wild game. The Twins jumped out to a 6-0 lead against Jason Hammel, and all looked right with the world. Mike Pelfrey proceeded to allow four doubles in the sixth inning, cutting Minnesota's lead in half. Josh Roenicke then had a particularly awful seventh inning, leading to three more Orioles runs, with a Chris David double tying the game at six. Both teams remained scoreless and we went into extra innings, where Baltimore struck in the tenth. Baltimore put men on the corners for Manny Machado, who singled in Chris Dickerson to put Baltimore in front. Nick Markakis followed with a sac fly to make it 8-6, and Adam Jones followed that up with a single to give the Orioles a three run cushion for Jim Johnson in the ninth, who preserved the win for Baltimore.

Umpire Fieldin Culbreth, who was the crew chief of the crew that horrifically misinterpreted a rule in last night's Angels-Astros game, has been suspended for two games and fined after the incident. The other three umpires in the crew, Bill Welke, Brian O'Nora, and Adrian Johnson, were all fined as well.

Two games and a fine isn't immediately going to solve all of the problems with umpiring, but the league punishing Culbreth and his crew and making it public is a start, at the very least. 

For Culbreth and his crew to blow a call (like Angel Hernandez and his crew on Wednesday in Cleveland) is one thing and keeps the whole "human element" that the league loves to parrot intact, but for them to misinterpret a rule? That's a whole new frontier, and something that deserves a harsh punishment. Could you imagine if say, the umpiring crew let a manager pull back a pinch hitter and replace him with the initial hitter after he were announced because of a pitching change? Something like that would never fly, and while the situation on Thursday in Houston wasn't identical to that, it sure is embarrassing for the league's umpires to not know the rules of the game like the back of their hand.

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On Wednesday in DeLand, Florida, the ceremonial first pitch before the Florida State-Stetson game was thrown out by a man named John Bledsoe, who is the executive VP of a local insurance company. Everything went well for Bledsoe up until the pitch, which he spiked into the ground *extremely* short and wide of the plate. He then followed up his terrible pitch by doing a barrel roll off of the pitchers mound.

It might be time to update this list of the worst first pitches from a year ago.

[WESH.com]

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Announcers love the sophomore slump. It's easy to diagnose, so they throw out a few lines about the league adjusting to the player, and the player failing to make the proper adjustments in return. Case closed. There's no need to dig any deeper. They player just needs to adjust.

Middlebrooks also has the injury angle, since he broke his wrist last year. It's impossible to say how much this is affecting him, if at all, but it's an easy fall back.

A year ago Middlebrooks burst onto the scene in Boston, ripping everything in sight. The 23-year-old hit so well that the club's decision to trade Kevin Youkilis was an easy one. He cooled considerably in the latter half of the year, but still put up an impressive rookie season, hitting .288/.325/.509. The OBP was an obvious concern, but it's not as if Middlebrooks wasn't known for being a free swinger.

Whenever a team wins a game on a walkoff walk, fans go crazy. It's called the shrimp alert, and people go nuts over it (myself included). On Thursday night in Tampa Bay, we had our first shrimp of the season, and it went to...Luke Scott, of all players. Aaron Loup left the game for Toronto with men on first and second, and he was replaced by Brad Lincoln. Lincoln walked Ryan Roberts on five pitches, then got ahead of Scott 0-2. After he stayed alive with a foul ball, Scott then watched the next four pitches sail by, out of the strike zone, and SHRIMP FOR ALL IN TAMPA BAY!

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Colby Rasmus makes a catch look simple, while Rajai Davis...doesn't.  (Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Mets 3, Pirates 2. If you want a really great, detailed report of the way the Pirates screwed up this winnable game, head on over to WHYGAVS and check out our friend Pat Lackey's report. Anywho, this was a solid back and forth game, with Pittsburgh tying the game at one following a Pedro Alvarez sacrifice fly in the sixth. The Pirates wasted a leadoff single in the seventh, but the Mets came roaring back to take the lead on a double by Ike Davis. Pittsburgh tied the game at two in the eighth after a homer by Alvarez, but once again wasted a leadoff single in the ninth (though Juan Lageres had a lot to do with that). In the ninth against Pirates closer Jason Grilli, the Mets got a leadoff single from Marlon Byrd, bunted him to second, and drove him home after a single by Mike Baxter. Very tough loss for the Pirates in a game that they had ample opportunities to win.

It has been a rough week for MLB umpires. First it was Angel Hernandez missing an obvious call via video replay but now Fieldin Culbreth's crew is under intense scrutiny as they completely botched one of the most basic rules in baseball.

The incident took place in the seventh inning of Houston's game against the Angels. Astros manager brought in Wesley Wright to face lefty J.B. Shuck. Wright came in made and his warm-up pitchers but when the Angels predictably pinch-hit for Shuck, Porter decided to bring in right-hand pitcher Hector Ambriz. That is a smart tactical decision except for the fact that, well, it is completely and totally against the rules. As you might expect, Angel manager Mike Scioscia flipped his lid at Porter's move because not only was it illegal but the umpiring crew, after much discussion, decided to allow it. Oy.

See for yourself.

Mike Scioscia and the Angels officially played the rest of the game under protest, though it was later dropped since the Angels went on to win, which is a blessing in disguise for MLB who would've had no choice but to uphold the protest. No protest has been upheld since 1986.

No doubt you are wondering how this all happened. Well, this is where things get even better. Here is how Bo Porter explained the situation.

Porter says if there's a pinch hitter, you have a right to bring in another pitcher.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) May 10, 2013

In case you, like the umpiring crew, were unaware, is absolutely not true. Per Rule 3.05(b):

If the pitcher is replaced, the substitute pitcher shall pitch to the batter then at-bat, or any substitute batter, until such batter is put out or reaches first base, or until the offensive team is put out, unless the substitute pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the umpire-in-chief's judgment, incapacitates him for further play as a pitcher.

Wright was not hurt. There is no ambiguity here. Bo Porter is an MLB manager and just plain doesn't know the rules of the game, which is fairly dumbfounding. Not nearly as dumbfounding as the umpires allowing it to happen though.

When asked for comment on what exactly happened on that ruling, crew chief Culbreth refused to answer any and all question on the matter hiding behind the excuse that all inquiries related to protest situations can only be commented on by the league office.

There, of course, will be no protest, but with such a glaring mistake, we can expect to hear from the league office soon. It will be interesting to see if they find some half-assed excuse to back the umpiring crew or do like they did with Angel Hernandez and somehow beg this off as part of the "human element" of the game.

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The Atlanta Braves were mainly known for their dynamic starting pitching staff in the 1990s. In every year from 1991-2007 (with the exception of 2003), the Braves had at least one pitcher top 4.0 fWAR, according to Fangraphs. And that run of pitching wasn't powered solely by Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz, as Tim Hudson, Jaret Wright, Kevin Millwood, John Burkett, Denny Neagle, and Steve Avery also cleared the four win mark during that run in the 1990s. But things have been a bit different over the last five seasons. Atlanta has had just two four win seasons from starters in the last five years: Javier Vazquez in 2009, and Tommy Hanson in 2010.

Including 2013, only four Braves starters have cracked 100 starts since 2008. The only one still with the club is Tim Hudson, who will be a free agent at the end of the year. Hudson is also the only Braves pitcher to top 10.0 fWAR since 2008, and of the six pitchers aside from Hudson that have amassed at least 6.0 fWAR, four are no longer with the team, one is the team's dominant closer (Craig Kimbrel), and one is a player who has made just 37 starts and accrued a third of his value as a reliever (Kris Medlen). To say that there's a different era in Braves baseball right now is a huge understatement.

However, one pitcher is beginning to stand out from the pack in Atlanta. He was overshadowed in the second half last year by Medlen, but was pretty awesome himself after putting together a 2.16 ERA and 1.8 fWAR in 87 1/3 innings over 14 starts. This year, he's chipped in another 0.7 fWAR in 45 2/3 innings over seven starts while posting a 2.96 ERA. From the All-Star Break last season into this year, he's struck out 104 and walked just 24 in 133 innings with a 2.44 ERA. Because of all that, it's starting to look like Mike Minor is going to be the next Braves pitcher.