Quotes, notes and comments

* Jose Mijares on Friday had a one-pitch outing — one pitch, double-play grounder, done. It evoked memories of Dennys Reyes (left), who spent almost three seasons as the Twins LOOGY.

Reyes did that kind of thing all the time, according to Ron Gardenhire.

So I looked. Last season he had six one-pitch appearances. This year, with St. Louis, zero.

Tony LaRussa — who I blame for today's mania for LOOGYs — uses Reyes in much the same manner as Gardenhire: The Big Sweat has 38 appearances for the Cardinals but just 20.6 innings. Eight of his outings have been for one batter.

His ERA is considerably higher, however: 4.35 this year, 2.33 last year. His control is off a bit, but not enough to explain two more runs per nine innings.

But that's one of the things about being a Left-handed One-Out GuY — you clean up other pitchers' messes, and you turn your own over to somebody else, but you seldom get to clean up your own.

* LaVelle Neal of the Star Tribune figured that Francisco Liriano was pitching Sunday to save his rotation job. Perhaps; Neal's certainly closer to the situation than I am.

I'm a bit skeptical of the notion that he proved something Sunday. The results were good — but it was the Cardinals. St. Louis has a team batting average of .226 against southpaws and a slugging percentage of .355. He darned well ought to get those hitters out.

One trembles to think how bad those numbers would be without Albert Pujols. Pujols is actually hitting worse against lefties than against righties this year: .289/.438/.724 vs. lefties, .344/.457/.721 vs. righties.

*The great Ozzie Guillen's response when Lou Pinella tweaked the White Sox for their attendance woes: "Our fans are not stupid like Cubs fans. They know we're (bleep)."

Next question, please.

*More on the subject of the circle change: ESPN's Buster Olney reports that Toronto lefty Ricky Romero's circle change has so much movement it's been mistaken for a splitter or a screwball.

* This box score perhaps explains why stats from the California League have a lot of (thin) air inflating them.