View From The Crow's Nest
By Jim Lachimia

*  ESPN's Orel Hershiser on a Yankees-Indians telecast: "Mike Mussina is still effective because he's learned to pitch backwards, meaning he now throws fastballs in breaking ball counts and breaking balls in fastball counts. When you get to that point, your breaking ball can grab a little more of the plate, but your fastball can't." Veteran pitchers whose "stuff" isn't as overpowering as it once was have to make such adjustments. Matt Morris, who was released by the Pirates after going 0-4 with a 9.67 ERA in five starts, wasn't doing that -- which is still surprising for a pitcher of his pedigree.

*The last two National League MVPs-Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins-have been Philadelphia Phillies, and that team is so loaded that two "other guys"-Chase Utley and Pat Burrell-have been their most productive hitters this season. Utley, who had 15 homers before the end of May, is a leading MVP candidate this year. If he does win it, Philadelphia would be the first major league team to have three different players capture the honor since Roger Maris (1961), Mickey Mantle (1962) and Elston Howard (1963) accomplished the feat with the New York Yankees.

*  Read this somewhere last month and found it to be refreshing: The Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays-with a combined payroll of $65.6 million-were both in first place. Meanwhile, the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees-with combined payrolls of $346.7 million-were both in last place. Florida has been successful before, having won World Championships in 1997 and 2003, but Tampa Bay has never had a winning season since it became a major league franchise back in 1998.

*  Pirates color announcer and former pitcher Bob Walk, one year ago: "Barry Zito is an example of the risk involved with signing a high-impact free agent pitcher. It can be a disaster. I'm not saying he's a disaster, but you have to give guys like that a ton of money and too many years, and there are still no guarantees." This year, Zito-who signed a seven-year, $126 million deal with San Francisco prior to the 2007 season-was 1-8 with a 5.65 ERA in his first 10 starts. That is a disaster. "Life sometimes throws you on your ass in order for you to take a good hard look in the mirror," Zito said.