Marty Lurie Talks San Francisco Giants Baseball
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Excellent National League Games Tuesday

The National League features some excellent match ups Tuesday with some of the hottest pitchers in the league going head to head.

Who has the advantage?

Let’s look.The Marlins, no longer considered surprising, meet the Reds in Cincinnati. The Reds ran into the revitalized Cardinals this weekend and were brought back to earth. The Reds don’t hit that much and need Ken Griffey, Jr. back in the line up, pronto. Griffey should return sometime this week.

AJ Burnett, who Bobby Cox calls one tough kid, goes up against Chris Reitsma. Reitsma throws a terrific change up, which should keep the free swing ing Marlins off balance.

The Marlins are finally out of Pac Bell Park, a place where runs are tough to come by.

They will be swinging for the fences tonight.

Two decent teams, good bull pens, a good series with two of the best young pitchers in the league starting it off.

Greg Maddux matches pitches with Javier Vazquez. The Expos are finally home after a long road trip. Probably have about 3,000 loyal fans in the park to see this terrific game. If Maddux throws like he did last Wednesday night, the Expos will have a tough time scoring runs.

Vasquez is so good that this game could be 0-0 after eight innings. Either way, both pitchers know what to do and work quickly.

Carlos Hernandez, strong lefty for Houston against Jason Simontocchi for St.Louis. One of these days the Cards bull pen will falter from early season over use. Even though Simontocchi has pitched well, he hasn’t faced an offense as good as the Astros in his brief big league career.

Hernandez comes up big virtually every time out for Houston. Jimy williams looks like he finally has his bull pen firing on all cylinders, without an effective pen, Jimy is out of business.

Mets Jeff D’Amico looks healthy and when he is watch out. The Phils scheduled Vincente Padilla to throw the series opener. This is another game that could be scoreless after six or seven.

The Phils are glad to be home after a very tough series in Arizona. Padilla is the best they have, so they will go after this one tonight.

Ishii has a hip flexor, so Kevin Brown goes on three days rest tonight against the Brew Crew in Milwaukee. Why would the Dodgers put Brown in that position in light of the injuries he has suffered lately?

Nelson Figueroa has thrown well for Milwaukee from time to time.

Jason Jennings pitches for Colorado and better yet, he also hits for the Rockies, too. The Rocks are at home which always gives them a nice advantage. Dennis Tankersley hasn’t pitched in Coors yet, so he better be careful even with the dehumidifed baseballs.

The best thing about the Cubs-Pirates doubleheader is Mark Prior pitches tomorrow for Chicago. If the Cubs ever get the offense moving, I still think they can get back into the race.

Count down one more day until Prior’s big league debut.

The Big Unit against Livan Hernandez in the BOB. Livan is a big game pitcher. Trouble is, so is Randy Johnson. The Giants have hung with Randy before, but that was when they were hitting. This team is not hitting right now.

The season series will turn on the depth of the starting rotations. Arizona has the advantage in this two game set, but watch these teams next week at Pac Bell, when the Giants will prevail.

You know something, this league is pretty good.

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