Wright's surprise razing ritual may turn out to be shear genius  —  SAN FRANCISCO - Carlos Beltran hung a shingle on his barber shop inside the visitor's clubhouse, prepping for customers.  He had shears, razors and plenty of towels to blot the blood.  —  Before long there was a parade of Mets lining up to get their domes shaved.

Nats Fall To Their 7th Loss In a Row  —  Washington Roster In a State of Flux: Brewers 6, Nationals 4  —  Hours before the Washington Nationals dropped their seventh straight game, an all-too-familiar 6-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, they lost one player, Chad Cordero …

The Big Picture  —  Rescheduling  —  Whenever a wet April occurs, calls are made to revamp the schedule.  At one time, Major League Baseball tried starting the season in as many warm cities and domes as possible, but the cold-weather teams wanted to start the season at home, too.

Followup on the Vernon Wells Heckler Ball - A Home Run Derby Exclusive  —  This past Sunday, we wrote about some hecklers who got a ball from Blue Jays CenterFielder Vernon Wells.  Wells politely gave back some of the heckling he was getting during the game ...

Meet Your First Two-Time Steroid Offender  —  A disturbing trend has coming out of the Mets organization.  First there was Guillermo Mota's steroid suspension last November, and last week former clubhouse worker Kirk Radomski admitted to dealing steroids to numerous MLB players.

Lincicome: Bonds poll is questionable  —  Abaseball manager once responded to a poll asking him to list his team broken down by race.  —  None, he answered.  More of his team was broken down by alcohol.  —  The point is, you see what you want to in these polls, endless as they are, concluding what they do.

Infield Defense — Back to Basics … In recent years, methods for evaluating defense have been springing up like mushrooms after a spring rain.  We've got UZR and PMR and the plus/minus system, all based on play-by-play data.  Then there are the zone rating-based systems, one from Chris Dial …

Sluggers Cited in Steroid Inquiry  —  Investigators of steroid use in baseball are seeking medical records from at least two of the game's premier sluggers over the past dozen years, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, along with records from dozens of other players suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs …

O's TV host sorry for domestic violence wisecrack  —  BALTIMORE — Rick Dempsey is apologizing for attempting to crack a joke about domestic violence on the air during a telecast of a Baltimore Orioles game on Saturday.  —  Dempsey, a former Orioles catcher and coach who usually hosts …

Pieces found along the trail  —  Picked-up pieces while bracing for Barry Bonds's Fenway visit next month, which looks more and more like a showdown with Hank Aaron's home run record . . .  Something "Evita"-esque about Roger Clemens in George's private suite Sunday.

Pirates Notebook: Tracy sees offense, but it's from his son  —  CHICAGO — Jim Tracy saw a rare sight Monday night — offense.  —  OK, so it was in Lansing, Mich., and not Wrigley Field, but it was pretty sweet all the same.  —  The Pirates' manager and his wife, Debra …