Corey Patterson Stars for Blue Jays; Chris Iannetta Exacts Rockies Revenge

Players of the Day for Saturday, May 28, 2011

American League

As a guy with 212 steals and a lifetime batting average of .254, Corey Patterson has found himself batting in just about every slot - from leadoff to the bottom of the order - in his 11-year major league career. Now with his sixth different team, the speedy outfielder may have found the sweetest spot of all, batting second, right in front of Toronto's Jose Bautista, and on Saturday he made the most of it.

Corey Patterson

In Toronto's 9-8, 14-inning win over the White Sox, Bautista did his part, going 3-for-4 with three RBI and three runs, including his 20th home run of the season, a three-run, 1st inning blast.

Patterson was seeing the best pitches, however, going 5-for-7 and scoring four times. The first four hits off Patterson's bats were all singles; the last one came in the 14th, a leadoff, walk-off solo homer hit deep into the right field seats, giving the Blue Jays their second straight win over the still-struggling Sox.

With the win, the Blue Jays hung in the AL East race, 3 1/2 games behind Boston. The White Sox have much work to do in order to get back into contention in the Central, however. They are in 4th place, trailing Cleveland by 9 1/2 games.

Patterson, by the way, is having possibly his best years at the plate, batting .287 with 21 RBI and 25 runs.

National League

Chris Iannetta

After being pounded by the Cardinals, 10-3, on Friday, the Colorado Rockies were looking for a little payback on Saturday in the second of their three game series with St. Louis.

Thanks to catcher Chris Iannetta, they got plenty of it.

The five year veteran led an 18 hit attack with two homers as the Rockies buried the Cardinals, 15-4, but just two home runs doesn't tell Iannetta's entire story. He also had two singles, going 4-for-5 at the plate, driving in six runs.

His 1st inning single highlighted a six run uprising, bringing around two runs, and both homers were two run shots, his 6th in the 4th inning and his 7th of the season in the 8th, completing the Colorado scoring.

The Cards are probably not going to take it too hard as they still lead the NL Central by 2 1/2 games, though the Brewers did get one game closer by topping the Giants, 3-2. The Rockies are in third place, 3 back in the West, though Arizona has sliced San Francisco's lead to a mere 1/2 game. The Diamondbacks hammered Houston, 11-3.