Reds win, Biggio off, D-backs tonight

Aaron Harang and the Reds won the series finale in Cincinnati yesterday by a 9-5 score, but Craig Biggio was given the day off, so he did not have an opportunity to find his elusive 284th HBP. Tonight, the Arizona Diamondbacks visit Houston, and they'll bring Brandon Webb to start tonight's game. Webb plunked Biggio on July 26, 2004, and last year joined Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, Orel Hershiser and Chris Carpenter on the list of pitchers who have plunked Biggio and won a Cy Young award, though only Carpenter, Maddux and Martinez did both in the same season. Maddux is the only one who plunked Biggio as a reigning Cy winner, and he did it twice during his span of 4 straight Cy awards from 1992 to 1995.

Craig Biggio was plunked on May 5th in 1995, 1999, 2002, and 2003, by Jeff McCurry, Todd Ritchie, Josh Fogg and Vicente Padilla. All 4 of those plunks were thrown by Pennsylvania teams, so a Diamondbacks plunk today would buck that trend.