Now just one save away from 400, Talking Chop looks back on the amazing career of Billy Wagner.

Wagner looks to be throwing as hard as he was when he first came into the league back in 1996. I was skeptical of Atlanta's signing of him because I thought his career was over in 2008 and didn't think much of his comeback attempt with the Mets and Red Sox in 2009. Wagner has been a perfect fit with the Braves, his favorite childhood team. There has been much debate as to whether or not Wagner belongs in the Hall of Fame simply over the fact that he has not performed in the post-season. In his 13 career post-season games with the Astros, Mets, and Red Sox, Wagner has a 10.32 ERA by giving up 13 runs in 11.1 innings pitched. This is an interesting argument because Wagner ranks 5^th all time in saves and is second to John Franco's 424 in all time saves for left-handers. Unfortunately, I think the post-season numbers alone are enough to keep him out of the Hall of Fame for quite some time, which is understandable because success in October is really what makes you remembered. For instance, do you really think players like David Eckstein and Scott Spiezio would be remembered if it weren't for their playoff heroics in 2002 with the Angels and 2006 with the Cardinals...probably not.

The Mets finally decided what they're going to do with twenty-year-old Jenrry Mejia by sending him down to Double AA Binghamton to work on becoming a starting pitcher. Bobby Parnell will takeover his roster spot.

It's about time they made up their mind about Mejia. This has been an ongoing issue all season, but through all the talks regarding what they should do with him, Mejia has performed well in his 30 games out of the bullpen sporting a 3.25 ERA and lit up the radar gun. In the end, this was the right thing to do, Mejia will be a good starter in the league and will hopefully find a way into the Mets rotation next season, pairing himself with Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, and Jon Niese, not a bad starting four if you ask me. The question now becomes how will Bobby Parnell perform? Appearing in 68 games in 2009, starting eight of those, he had a 5.30 ERA and occasionally hit 100 MPH on his pitches. It will be interesting to see how he handles his role with the ball club as the Mets will find themselves in the thick of the playoff race.

The Marlins continue to address their struggling bullpen by calling up RHP Alejandro Sanabia and LHP James Houser.

Sanabia and Houser will be replacing Jay Buente and Jorge Sosa, who walked in to Rays in their game on Saturday night. Sanabia has put up outstanding numbers in his 14 starts in Double-AA, he went 5-1 while posting a 2.03 ERA and allowing only 16 walks in 84+ innings pitched. The issue surrounding Sanabia, the 21 year old from Chula Vista, California, is that he has always been a starter since his arrival to professional baseball in 2006. Houser also has been used primarily as a starter. After being drafted by the Rays in 2003, he started all but four of the 125 appearances he made in the Tampa Bay system. I'm not saying these two will not perform well in their new roles, but as we all know, starting and relieving have two totally different approaches, but at this point, Florida is too desperate to worry about that now.

As we will do each week of the season, today we will look at Accuscore's playoff forcaster to see how last weeks games influenced the division's playoff race. Thanks to impressive weeks by Atlanta and New York as well as a brutal stretch by the Nationals who went winless against the Tigers and White Sox, Washingtons saw their chances drop to 5.4%. The Nationals should have an easy upcoming week at home against Kansas City and up the road at Baltimore. Washington is 4-8 since the arrival of Strasburg and 1-8 in their last nine games, not exactly what the team, or anyone else in baseball had in mind.

PLAYOFF SHIFTS WEEK 11

Stephen Oh on the NL East

The Atlanta Braves have a 2.5 game lead thanks to their 5-1 week and they picked up over 25 percentage points this week.  They had quality wins over Tampa Bay who has had a dominant road record this year.  The Mets nearly kept pace going 4-2 and their road sweep in Cleveland and even winning one vs the Yankees helped NY pick up 9 percent in the playoff race.  Atlanta and the Mets' improvement kept directly at the expense of the Marlins (-9 percent) and the Nationals (-11 percent).  The Phillies went 3-3 and managed to go the week relatively unchanged.

The Chicago White Sox (34-34) picked up where the Tigers left off, sweeping a three game series against the Washington Nationals. The Nationals (31-39) dropped their sixth straight game as Chicago notched its sixth consecutive victory on the strength of Freddy Garcia's solid start. Garcia allowed just three runs on six hits in seven innings, walking one batter and striking out six. Matt Thornton and J.J. Putz pitched the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, each allowing just one hit while striking out two. The Nationals were able to amass eight hits on the day; however, another double digit strikeout performance at the plate (ten) crippled the team's offense.

While the Nationals' offense was neutralized, the pitching was just as poor. Washington suffered another dreadful outing courtesy of John Lannan. Yesterday's game marks the third consecutive start in which the Nationals' lefthander lasted less than five innings and surrendered ten or more hits and at least four runs. In just four plus innings Sunday, Lannan allowed five runs on 11 hits while striking out just one Chicago hitter. He was relieved by Miguel Batista who threw three scoreless innings and gave up just two hits. Rookie Drew Storen allowed one run in his two-inning appearance but also managed to fan three White Sox.

From here the Nationals get a brief respite with consecutive three-game series against the Kansas City Royals (29-41) and the Baltimore Orioles (19-50) before returning to divisional play with the Atlanta Braves. The team will certainly look to break its six-game skid against two teams with losing records.

Bill Ladson of MLB.Com tweeted today that right-handed starter Craig Stammen could work out of the bullpen when he returns to the big league club later in the summer. The 26-year-old was the odd man out several weeks ago when the Washington Nationals elected to assign him to AAA-Syracuse in order to bring up 21-year-old phenom Stephen Strasburg.

Stammen struggled to be effective this season before being demoted in June. In 12 starts he posted a 1-2 record with a 5.43 ERA and only struck out 31 batters in 66.1 innings pitched. Many were hoping that the right-hander would take the next step in 2010 after posting a 5.11 ERA in 19 starts last season.

In two starts with Syracuse since his demotion, Stammen has gone 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA and seven strikeouts in 13.1 innings. His most recent start resulted in a compete-game shutout two-hitter against the Gwinnett Braves.

Stammen has not pitched out of the bullpen since the first half of 2008 playing in high A-ball where he pitched six games out of the pen earning one save.

Analysis:

Despite Stammen's high ERA, a closer look at his numbers show that he wasn't preforming quite that poorly. His .316 BABIP was well above his career .295 average despite an improved Nationals defense. This likely means he was getting a little unlucky. His 4.18 xFIP also indicates that this may have been the case.

Interestingly, Stammen completely changed his pitching approach in 2010, shifting from throwing his slider 1.7% of the time to 21.6% of the time. Thats a major adjustment. Unfortunately, the results weren't as dramatic as the change itself.

The move to try to give Stammen a new career as a reliever makes sense at this point for both the club and the pitcher. With the eventual return of Ross Detwiler, Jordan Zimmermann, and Jason Marquis, there will be no room on the roster for any more starting pitchers. At 26, with 31 major league starts, it doesn't appear Stammen has the package to be a starter at the top level. Perhaps he can experience a similar career resurgence to the one Tyler Clippard has with a move to the bullpen.

Marlins fans rejoice, the team has designated Renyel Pinto for assignment.

Interesting move by Florida, Pinto has a 2.70 ERA in 20 games this season, but lefties are hitting 7 for 20 off him, that is astronomically high for a lefty vs. lefty match up. Its that simple, if your left handed reliever cant get left handed hitters out, then he has no place on the team. I think we will see Pinto in the majors again this season, whether it's with Florida or another team. The Marlins bullpen has struggled all season, this move won't fix all their problems, but at least it's a start.

Brooklyn Mets Fan is pumped as the Mets continue their winning ways.

After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that the Mets truly are a good team, I see them winning 85 games this season and won't be making the same mistakes we are used to seeing this team do. Two consecutive sweeps on the road and now a shutout of their cross-town rivals at Yankee Stadium makes the Mets one of the hottest teams in the league right now. Their success has come from the players you would least expect such as Angel Pagan, Ike Davis, Jon Niese, and R.A. Dickey. The Mets really caught lightning in a bottle with Dickey, I didn't even know he was still in the league until the Mets signed him in the off-season. He looks unhittable out there, probably because no one in the division has ever seen him before; Dickey had spent his entire career in the American League prior to 2010.

Phillies Nation offers some solutions as to where Ryan Howard's power numbers have gone this season.

Ryan Howard has 11 home runs so far this year, the lowest number he has put up this late in a season in his entire career. The numbers show us that the percentage of his fly balls that left the park have declined rapidly since his 2006, the year in which he hit 58 home runs. Maybe pitchers have finally figured out his wheelhouse, and are doing a great job of staying away from throwing any pitches to his hot spots. Howard's ability and talent hasn't gone anywhere, he is still as powerful and dangerous as he ever was, but opposing pitchers have made the adjustments in facing him, so it is now time for Howard to make some adjustments to his hitting approach.

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In front of the President of the United States, armed secret service agents patroling the roof of Nats Park, and a packed home audience, a 21-year-old captured the moment last night.

Stephen Strasburg no longer had to capture the hearts of Washingtonians. He had done that thoroughly just ten days before with a masterful 14 strikeout performance in his debut. However the burden that laid on the rookies shoulders last night was perhaps even harder than in his debut...he had to back it up. no comments

Jordan Zimmermann, the Washington Nationals top pitching prospect not named Stephen Strasburg, continued on his road to recovery today following his season-ending Tommy John surgery last summer. The hard throwing righty threw 35 pitches off the mound this afternoon at Nationals Park, completing two innings in a simulated game.

Byron Kerr of MASN caught up with the 24-year-old today about the next steps in his come back:

"Sunday will be a bullpen session. 20 to 25 pitches, nice and easy, keep my arm in shape and get ready for Tuesday...I think I am heading to Potomac at the beginning of July some time. The rehab starts there. Hopefully everything goes well and I can make it up here by the end of the year."

Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post reported today that left-handed starter Scott Olsen is aiming for a July return following the shoulder injury he suffered in may. He is currently recovering in extended spring training in Florida. Kilgore writes: no comments