Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra left Thursday night's NL playoff game against the New York Mets in the sixth inning after re-injuring his left quadriceps.

His status for Game 3 Saturday was uncertain.

Garciaparra strained his quadriceps Sept. 15 during a game against San Diego, and hurt it again against the Mets trying to beat out an infield grounder leading off the sixth inning.

I was watching the game on Fox. Nomar was slow getting out of the batter's box. And it hardly looked like he was trying hard to be out the grounder. The announcers even stated that he was told to take it easy on routine plays like that. So if just jogging down the first baseline can aggravate the injury, that's definitely not goods news for the Dodgers.

While running in the outfield during batting practice, Orlando Hernandez tweaked his right calf muscle and was sent to an area hospital to undergo an MRI.

While Hernandez's status won't be officially announced until Wednesday morning, there's seemingly a good chance he won't be able to make his scheduled start against the Dodgers in Game 1 of the National League Division Series. Instead, the Mets could be trotting either John Maine or Dave Williams out to the mound on Wednesday afternoon.

Suddenly the mighty Mets don't seem as mighty, entering this best-of-five Division Series against a Dodgers team that possesses a less-publicized, but just as effective lineup. But having endured adversity created by the slew of injuries suffered by their starting pitchers this year, it's not as if the men of Queens haven't faced this type of adversity before.

Martinez and Tom Glavine combined for just six wins after July 1, and still the Mets managed to win nine more games than any other NL team over the course of the regular season.

Let's see what "the other" New York team can do with their makeshift rotation.

Barry Zito threw eight shutout innings, besting Johan Santana behind two big home runs by Thomas and sending the Athletics to a 3-2 victory over the Twins on Tuesday afternoon.

Thomas went 3-for-4 with two homers, the second one a ninth-inning shot off Jesse Crain. Zito gave up four hits, one run and three walks while striking out one.

The 38-year-old Thomas became the oldest player to have a multihomer game in postseason history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Closer Huston Street gave one back to the Twins after a leadoff triple by Michael Cuddyer was lost in the ceiling by right fielder Milton Bradley. Torii Hunter drove in Cuddyer with a groundout before Rondell White flew out to center to end the game.

The favorite to win his second AL Cy Young, Santana hadn't lost at the noisy Metrodome since Aug. 1, 2005, going 16-0 in 23 starts over that span.

This bad body catcher is the epitome of the Moneyball player the A's drafted for in 2002. He played a major role in the book.

And now Jeremy Scott Brown, all 5'10", 225 pounds of him, took the DH spot with Frank Thomas getting a day off Wednesday night.

He came up at a crucial point in the game; having men on first and third with one out, he grounded into a fielder's choice to third baseman Adrian Beltre (Dan Johnson out at home).

Fellow Moneyballer Nick Swisher seems to have panned out pretty well. Let's see if Jeremy Brown can do the same.

So it looks like we all owe Owner Drayton McLane an apology for ragging on him after he decided to hold onto Roger Clemens (instead of shipping him off to a "contender"). The Astros are live and kicking.

Craig Biggio drove in three runs and Andy Pettitte pitched the surging Astros to their seventh straight victory, 7-4 over the Pirates on Tuesday at PNC Park.

The win moved the Astros to 79-78, the first time the team has been over .500 since June 22 - the day Roger Clemens made his initial start of the season in a loss to Minnesota.

The Minnesota Twins have done the impossible (that is, four months ago people thought it was impossible). The Twins clinched a spot in the playoffs on Monday night by defeating the Royals, 8-1, at the Metrodome.

Entering Monday with their magic number at two, the Twins were given the chance to secure a playoff berth after the White Sox suffered a 14-1 loss at Cleveland earlier in the night to reduce the Twins' magic number to just one.

Starter Boof Bonser gave up a just-barely homer to Angel Berroa over the left-field wall in the sixth and a leadoff double to Emil Brown in the fifth, striking out five and walking two over 6 2-3 innings.

First baseman Nick Johnson had surgery to repair his broken right leg on Saturday night. The procedure lasted two hours, and the Nationals are optimistic that Johnson will be ready for Spring Training 2007.

Johnson fractured his right femur in the bottom of the eighth inning, when he collided with right fielder Austin Kearns on a fly ball hit by Mets third baseman David Wright. After lying on the ground for several minutes, Johnson was taken off the field on a stretcher, and he was transported to New York Hospital Queens, where the surgery took place around 11 p.m. ET.

This is good news for baseball in the nation's capital.

Craig Monroe smacked a three-run homer and scored twice as part of a nine-run second inning to help Detroit clinch its first playoff berth since 1987 with an 11-4 win over Kansas City at Kauffman Stadium.

Magglio Ordonez and Matt Stairs both knocked in a pair of runs for the Tigers, who completed a three-game sweep of the Royals and can be no worse than the wild card representative in the American League. Detroit also remained 1 1/2 games clear of Minnesota in the AL Central.

Justin Verlander (17-9) picked up the win as he allowed two runs on six hits in five innings of work. With the victory, Verlander became the first Tigers rookie to win at least 17 games since Mark Fidrych won 19 in 1976. C.C. Sabathia was the last rookie in the majors to accomplish the feat when he won 17 games in 2001 for Cleveland.

Trevor Hoffman became baseball's career saves leader on Sunday, earning No. 479 to pass Lee Smith and help the NL West-leading Padres beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-1.

With the sellout crowd of 41,932 on its feet and cheering, the 38-year-old Hoffman jogged in from the bullpen, staring at the ground the whole way, with AC/DC's "Hells Bells" blaring, as it has for each of his home save opportunities since July 25, 1998.

Manager Phil Garner said he would be open to having Brad Lidge as his closer to start the 2007 season, despite the troubles that have plagued the righthander this year.

Lidge's 31 saves rank sixth in the National League, and he has six blown saves. He's 1-5 with a 5.54 ERA, which is sky-high for a closer.

It'll be interesting to see how the Closing carousel shakes up this offseason. From Jonathon Papelbon to Brad Lidge to Armando Benitez, I'm curious as to how each situation will be resolved.

According to an eight-month Yahoo! Sports investigation, Reggie Bush and his parents, starting in October 2004 took and took and took.

And now the NCAA needs to take something, too -- Bush's retroactive eligibility and a season and a half of USC victories, setting in motion the BCS' removal of the Trojans' 2004 national championship and the Downtown Athletic Club's repossession of Bush's 2005 Heisman Trophy.

Erik Bedard shut down a Manny-sess Red Sox lineup Wednesday, tossing seven scoreless innings while fanning five. The bullpen took care of the rest with two shutout frames to wrap things up.

In place of Manny in Left was Kevin Youkilis. He went 0-4 with 3 strikeouts. This was the third straight game Manny Ramirez has missed. Fantasy owners take notice. If you haven't done so already, you might want to consider benching Manny for someone who can help you on a daily basis.

Apple's Jobs: "We're adding a new network, the NFL network. They're bringing the whole 2006 NFL season highlights to itunes today. $1.99 per game or $24.99 for a season pass."

How many of you are gonna be downloading clips of LT running over the Chargers on Monday night?

Francisco Liriano (12-3, 2.19 ERA) is scheduled to come off the disabled list in time to start Wednesday's game (taking Matt Garza's spot) against the Oakland Athletics at the Metrodome. It would be his first major league appearance since Aug. 7.

Pitching in his first real game in 33 days, he struck out four and walked one in three hitless innings in an International League playoff game against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons at Lackawanna County Stadium.

Be ready to activate Liriano fantasy owners. Whether or not to start Liriano will be a tough decision. But I think getting him back in your lineup will end up helping your championship hopes.

"The feat has been done 233 times in major league history, making it as unpredictable as a Tim Wakefield knuckleball. But if there's a no hitter thrown, there's a good chance it could be thrown this month.

I whipped out the Sporting News record book and saw that 49 no-nos have been thrown after Aug. 31 since 2001, more than any other month. It makes sense, as rosters expand that month and more lineups have more rookies in them."

Interesting concept. Usually you'd think "Wow, I just saw a no-hitter last week, and it was the first in 2+ years. I guess it'll be awhile until the next one." The roster expansion fact is definitely something to take into consideration.