Sweep avoidance

Paul Maholm takes the mound at 1:05 today to try and avoid a sweep that would pretty much erase all of the optimism that surrounded this team going into the All-Star break. His mound opponent will be Buddy Carlyle, who's been pretty average in eight starts this year. Maholm's been better than that of late, but the week off seems to have affected Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny, so Maholm may be a little rusty, as well (of course Chuck James and Tim Hudson weren't rusty at all, so maybe it's more of a function of good offense vs. bad offense, we shall see). Bouncing back from two pretty bad losses would be a nice thing to see from this team. Will we see it? Well, I'm not holding my breath.