A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

DO NOT TAUNT THE BASEBALL GODS: So, of course, as soon as the WSJ wonders whether we've reached the end of new things to see in baseball, the next day produced the first no-hitter in Rockies history and, to top it, a 6h53m twenty-inning Jayson Stark classic of a game between the Cardinals and Mets featuring eighteen straight scoreless innings, position players pitching and pitchers in the outfield and some of the weirdest, dumbest managing of Tony LaRussa's career. Really -- letting relievers bat twice with bases loaded and two outs just to preserve your closer? And double-switching out Matt Holliday in the 11th so that the pitcher's slot followed Albert Freakin' Pujols in every subsequent at-bat? Mr. Cosmo, I'm sorry.

added: Posnanski - a "20-inning managerial performance against the Mets on Saturday [that] should replace La Russa's plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was an overmanaging thing of beauty," including a quintuple-switch.

And, yes, Jayson Stark has many tidbits, including:

• This was the first game since the dawn of the modern save rule in which a closer got the win, a starter got the save and a position player got the loss.
• "And you know the best part of that Raul Valdes hit? He got it off Felipe Lopez -- who, as you might have heard, normally plays the infield for a living. And only one day before that development, Lopez had hit a grand slam off Valdes. We haven't been able to find any other case of a guy hitting a grand slam off a pitcher one day, then giving up a hit to him the next day."