In Game 3 on Monday night, Philadelphia clobbered the Dodgers, 11-0. Every player on the Phillies scored a run, including starting pitcher Cliff Lee, who had a single in the bottom of the eighth inning and scored on a Shane Victorino three run home run. Raul Ibanez was the only Phillie not to have at least one hit in the game. Ryan Howard had a two-run triple in the bottom of the first to get the scoring started for the Phillies, and Jayson Werth then added a two-run homer to give the Phillies an early 4-0 lead at the end of the first inning.

Tuesday’s 5-4 win was far more dramatic, as Jimmy Rollins’ two-run double with two outs in the ninth inning put the team just one win away from its second straight NL pennant.

Ryan Howard continued his impressive postseason with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first, giving him eight straight postseason games with at least one RBI, tying Lou Gehrig’s major league record set more than seven decades ago. He now has 14 RBIs this postseason and has reached base safely in 17 straight playoff games.

Howard has driven in a run in each of the Phillies’ eight playoff games this year. Gehrig’s streak stretched over two postseasons with the New York Yankees in 1928 and 1932.

Article reprinted from BaseballDigest.com.

This isn’t just a sprint of teams trying to make the final eight.  It’s also a sprint of September call-ups, injured (former) stars and desperate role players all jockeying for a spot on the 2010 roster.  Whose roster?  It really doesn’t matter.  To be on a Major League team is Goal #1.  To have a say in which team?  Like the commercial says: Priceless.

Think of a guy like Carlos Delgado of the Mets.  His contract runs out on October 3rd.  Rather than receive an extension, he’ll be looking for work.  A hip injury put him on the DL in May, and just as he was about to come back to the field, an oblique injury put a stop to that.  A guy like Delgado needs a couple weeks to prove he’s worth an investment by some team for 2010.  Barring recovery in the next 30-ish days, he might be one of those guys you read about in January, trying out for scouts on some back Puerto Rican ballfield.

Lefty Ron Mahay of the Twins has been healthy this year.  The problem is he hasn’t been great, or at least that’s what his statistics say.  Ineffective in Kansas City, he was designated for assignment and released, going from a last place, underperforming Royals team, to an AL Central contender.  Ron’s performance during the next month will either raise his value to another multi-year, multi-million dollar contract or a floater getting picked up just as camps begin in February.

Then there’s a guy like Paul Byrd, who took the majority of 2009 off because, well, he wanted to.  When he decided he did want to come back, the Red Sox signed him.  His first start was six innings of shutout ball.  What’s September mean to him?  It means a Wild Card October and one more shot at a World Series he’s never reached after 3 Championship Series appearances.  But even more than that, Paul Byrd’s September is one more opportunity to see if he wants to play next year or follow through on his most-of-2009 sit -out and retire for good.

There are more stories like these, many of players only the hardcore or fantasy baseball fans know about.  But they’re out there, taking early BP, watching extra video, or doing some extra pre-game warning track wind sprints.  Because the season’s winding down and there’s no time left for marathon training.  Just playing hard and making the most of these last 30 days.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook

But…

I don’t like it.  I am in total, unequivocal favor of a salary cap for draftees.  Isn’t that ironic?  The players have been fighting against a salary cap for years, like in 1994 when the strike took away the World Series (sorry Expos fans), and now I’m saying put a cap on the amateurs.  Ironic, but sensible.  Here’s why.  If I’m on a Major League roster, it took me years to get there.  Chances are good I was signed out of high school or college and then spent between 2 and 5 years in the minor leagues, paying my dues and learning the game at a level I never came close to before I signed.  Then I finally got my call up and heard the whining from management (which you may or may not have heard in the media, depending upon who’s doing the whining) about lack of funds.  In other words, I want them to spend their money on me in the off season.  I don’t want that money to be gone because they spent it all in the draft, going above their budgetary expectations.

Accountants out there are saying, “Jimmy, that’s just it.  Teams have different budgets.  They have their draft budget and they have their player payroll budget and they have their budgets for other operations, etc.  You’re not affected by their signings.”

To which I respond, somewhat thoughtfully, balderdash.  The revenue comes in and streams to each budget.  If they realize they keep going over budget to sign amateurs, then they’re going to allocate more money to the draft and less somewhere else, like, to the guys on the 40-man roster.

That’s where it affects me directly.

The NBA has a rookie salary cap.  That’s a different league, where college is like their minor leagues.  We don’t need a rookie salary cap in baseball.  An overall amateur salary cap is sufficient.

What would be important is the loopholes.  There are probably many of them in this plan.  Think like Scott Boras dealing with this cap.  “Okay, I’m suddenly constricted to what I can get for my guy as an amateur.  Do I have every one of my guys hold out, play one professional game with an independent team, and now, since they’re technically professionals, have I gone around the cap?”  But, Scott, since they now can’t go back to school (most guys are drafted after high school, when they can use going to college as leverage, or after their junior years of college, when they can use going back for their senior year as leverage), have you lost your leverage?  To which Scott says, “Not with Stephen Strasberg.  Not with David Price.  The top guys are going to get top bucks, and I’ll have all the leverage in the world because these guys are the best young talent in the country.  They can change the fortunes of an organization overnight.  Wait and see.”  My guess is most teams have to wait a little longer than overnight.

The point is, MLB players who have done their time in the minors and now live year-to-year in the bigs, or are fortunate enough to earn multi-year contracts, want the pool of funds for them to be as rich as possible.  If that pool is limited because of allocations toward young kids who haven’t put in the sweat and time and effort that you have, you’re not going to want to share it with them.  You’ve made it to the big leagues.  You know there are plenty of “bonus babies” throughout MLB history who never got out of A-ball.  Why should a team gamble “your” potential money on an unsure thing, when you’re right there under their noses, playing your heart out; when you’ve been a member of the union for a few years, literally paying them dues?

If you drive home one day and see a house two doors down for sale, you want that house to get as much as possible so that it raises the value of your home.  In this regard, players like other players similar to them to get paid lots of money, because it can make it easier for them to get paid lots of money.  The players’ market values are worth relatively the same.  But from a Major League player perspective, they’d rather that “relative” money go directly to the guys on the roster who are playing, not the ones who still pop pimples before going out on a Saturday night date.

I should add that this cap will never happen.  Why?  The owners will taste blood.  The seal has been broken on Pandora’s Box.  If the players agreed to this cap, maybe they’ll agree to a cap on rookies too.  And then a cap on pension payouts.  And then a cap on healthcare benefits.  And then a cap on…  See where it’s going?  Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr didn’t spend the last 30+ years fighting caps to suddenly instill one.  The future risks are too uncertain.

But from a simplistic, young MLB player point of view, if I were a pre-salary arbitration player on the Nationals today, I’m publicly saying congratulations to Stephen Strasberg.  And then I’m wondering where the money is going to come from to pay me next year.  That answer lies somewhere in the next six months.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Rollie Fingers, Desi Relaford, Brent Mayne and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

Two major league punchers put on an electrifying show tonight, with the loser showing commendable class in the aftermath.

Phil Williams, a Queens-born barber in north Minneapolis, improved his record to 11-1 with 10 knockouts by TKOing tough veteran Antwun Echols (now 31-11 with 27 wins by knockout) in a thrilling super middleweight bout tonight.  Both men fought with passion and abandon, each throwing all his best shots at his opponent.

Williams had the best of the early going, repeatedly landing power shots from both hands.  But Echols, who has fallen short in world title matches with Bernard Hopkins and Roman Karmazin, among others, showed tremendous grit in sticking it out and hurting Williams with some breathtaking right hands in the third and fourth rounds.

Williams, whose only career loss came last summer to 19-0 prospect Marcus Oliveria, showed this time that he has the toughness and resilience to endure such shots.  In the sixth and seventh tonight Williams threw everything he had at Echols, and though Echols was game, his corner showed admirable discretion in throwing in the towel in the seventh when Williams had rocked Echols twice with thunderous combinations and was chasing his prey into a neutral corner to finish him off.

Given an opportunity to speak after the bout had ended, Echols advised the Minnesota crowd, “I was in with Bernard Hopkins and he couldn’t do nothing with me.  This man is for real. When it comes time for him to make a step up, he’s going to be the man!”

In other bouts on tonight’s card:

• Boxing Digest prospect of the month for April 2009 Caleb “Golden” Truax (12-0 with 8 kayos) won a boring 8-round jabfest against Durrell Richardson of Youngstown, Ohio.
• Marcus Oliveria of Kansas (19-0 with 15 kayos) knocked former reality TV star Otis Griffin out cold in the second round. Griffin, a former reality TV boxing star whose record is now 19-6, was effectively jabbing from the outside until Oliveria caught him with a perfect right uppercut.
• Thomas Snow of Washington DC (11-1 with 8 kayos) beat highly touted prospect Willshaun Boxley of Coon Rapids, Minnesota (now 5-1 with 3 kayos) in a six-round bout.
• Michael Faulk, a Queens native making his professional debut, defeated Mexico’s Marvin Rodriguez (1-2) by majority decision in a four-round bout.
• Ismail “Sharp Shooter” Muwendo of Kampala, Uganda (3-0 with 2 kayos), defeated Josh Jungjohann (0-2) in a scary first-round knockout. When Jungjohann went down for the second time in the first round, his head and neck landed on the bottom rope and whiplashed upward. Jungjohann was able to rise after about two minutes, and was expected to be taken to a hospital for an MRI.

“We have come to completed terms in filling our No. 1 need in signing Francisco Rodriguez to a three year contract with the New York Mets,” Minaya said. “Our goal, from day one, was to improve our bullpen and I can not think of a better reliever than Francisco Rodriguez.”

K-Rod set a Major League record in 2008 with 62 saves. He also converted 23 saves when entering the game with a one-run league and 22more with a two-run cushion. He went 2-3 with a 2.24 ERA.

“I am thrilled to join the Mets,” Rodriguez said in a statement.”Mets fans are very passionate and playing in a new ballpark is going to be great. I am going to do everything I can to help bring a championship to Citi Field.”

Rodriguez, who wore Johan Santana’s No. 57 with the Angels, will switch the number around and go with No. 75 in Queens.

The Mets have seemingly reached this deal after two days of talk between the club and agent Paul Kinzer.

“He’s a tremendously skilled closer,” said manager Jerry Manuel during his media session. “I was impressed with the energy he had when he came out and with that energy came confidence.”

With Rodriguez, the Mets are signing one of the top closers in the game, who went 2-3 last year with a 2.24 ERA and a Major League record 62 saves for the Los Angeles Angels. Over his six year career, the righthander went 23-17 with a 2.35 ERA and 208 saves.

“K-Rod” will fill the void left by the injured Billy Wagner who had to get Tommy John surgery back in August, leaving the Mets short in the bullpen to say the least.

“We lost a lot of games late,” Manuel said. “We did a good job of overcoming them. To have someone of that magnitude, our chances would be much greater.”

This was goal No. 1 for the Mets as they came to Vegas with the goal of obtaining a closer. After having dinner with Rodriguez on Sunday and then meetings the last two days, the two sides came to the agreement this morning.

Originally the club offered a two year deal with an option, but that was a starting off point, and upped the offer to three years with an incentive based option, which would bring the total up to $51 million if everything kicks in.

Yet, the deal is not done yet and something could go wrong in the physical. Rodriguez did lose some speed off his fastball over the past few seasons, which could be a red flag. Yet, it may be nothing, because K-Rod also developed a tremendous curve, which complimented his other pitches.

All this means the Mets got their man. Rodriguez is the first step in revamping an awful bullpen, which derailed the club’s chances last season.

“In the way we lost some close games, we it was critically for us to theoretically address this thing here,” Manuel said. “In the way we lost games and myself trying to interchange pieces late, it wore on the players.

Now the Mets will concentrate on the rest of the bullpen. Reportedly they could offer Fuentes a contract for the eighth inning or they can revisit a trade with Colorado for Huston Street.

Also the club will sign a starting pitcher. Manuel said he was confident in Jon Niese as the No. 5 starter, but general manager Omar Minaya will have to either re-sign Oliver Perez or someone to replace him in the rotation.

Finally the Mets are looking at options in the lineup, but as of right now, they will concentrate on pitching.

And as of today, it looks like they got their first priority done.