There have been a few media reports that the Nationals are planning to fire Manager Manny Acta.  The Nats aren’t commenting which just leaves Acta twisting in the wind.  Manny is a smart guy who simply got stuck with a bad team.  Word is that he is not well-liked in the locker room which is not a good thing when you’re losing as often as the hapless Nats are.  Hopefully if the let Acta go the front office will give the next manager some good young talent to work with instead of bringing in past their prime veterans. 

The Red Sox plan on pitching John Smoltz on Thursday against the Marlins, one day before the Red Sox/Braves series.  How great would that have been to see Smoltz make his first ever start for someone other than the Braves against the Braves? The other question that hasn’t been answered is who will get bumped from the rotation to make room for Smoltz? Penny signed a reasonable contract with the Sox, has pitched okay and would be a prime trade candidate to other teams (like the Phillies) looking for rotation help so the Sox will probably keep him in the rotation, and Beckett and Lester certainly are safe.  That leaves Wakefield and Dice-K.  Wakefield is 8-3 while Dice-K has struggled.  Wakefield has relieved in the past so it would make sense to put him in the bullpen, especially since the knuckler can pitch multiple innings in each appearance.  I’m a little surprised that the Sox don’t start Smoltz out of the pen since he was a top closer a few years ago and made a relief appearance last year for the Braves right before getting shut down for the season. 

Johann Santana has had two real tough starts back-to-back.  He gave up 4 homers to the Phillies (he still won the game) and got bombed by the Yankees yesterday, allowing 9 runs in just 3 innings.  The Mets say its a blister on his pitching hand that’s causing the problems – others think he could be suffering from “tired arm”.   The Mets better hope its a blister because with Maine already on the DL the last thing they need is for their ace to go down as well.   The Mets sit 4 back of the NL East leading Phillies going into today.  Both teams have the day off.

What do Josh Johnson, Matt Cain, Jared Weaver and Cliff Lee all have in common (besides being Major League pitchers)? They all pitched complete game wins for their teams yesterday.  It was almost five – Brian Bannister of the Royals pitched 8 innings against the Reds in a Royals 7-1 win.

Finally lets hope this trend continues in respect to the NL All-Star voting in the outfield.  Manny Ramirez has dropped to 6th in the voting.  What message would that send if Ramirez, suspended 50 games for violating MLB’s drug policy, were to be voted in and then actually showed up? I agree with Joe Torre that the best thing Manny could do is decline to play if voted in.  Matter of fact, I think Manny should’ve made that annoucement so that fans could vote for others who actually deserve this year’s vote.