Around the NL Central: August 10 Edition

News and notes from around the Central:

• St. Louis reliever Lance Lynn was lifted from yesterday's loss to the Brewers after he doubled over in pain following a walk to George Kottaras. After the game, the club announced that Lynn has a strained oblique, and, from the sounds of it, Lynn is likely going to wind up on the DL.
• Pirates pitcher Ross Ohlendorf has missed four months with a right shoulder strain, but it appears he's finally ready to rejoin the club: Ohlendorf threw 102 pitches in a rehab start for AAA Indianapolis and reported no ill effects. He's expected to be called up for the Pirates' upcoming series against the Brewers.
• The Reds placed reliever Logan Ondrusek on the DL with a strained right forearm and re-called lefty Travis Wood from AAA Louisville to take Ondrusek's spot on the active roster.
• Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez has been battling nagging injuries for the last couple of weeks, and he added another to the list before Tuesday's game against the Nationals: Ramirez was scratched from the lineup with back spasms, and he'll be re-evaluated today.
• Houston purchased the contract of AAA pitcher Henry Sosa, who was part of the deal that sent Jeff Keppinger to San Francisco earlier this season, and the Astros are throwing the young right-hander into the fire immediately: the club announced that Sosa gets the start tonight against the Diamondbacks.

Yesterday's action:

• The road trip is a success: Milwaukee 5, St. Louis 3 in 10 innings. Want to know how it happened? Then read the recap, kids.
• Cincinnati and Colorado played a back-and-forth affair that ended with the Rockies on top, 3-2. The Reds grabbed the lead in the second when pitcher Dontrelle Willis plated Ramon Hernandez by ripping a triple into the right field corner. The Rox then took the lead in the fourth inning on Troy Tulowitzki's 22nd homer of the year, a two-run laser that scored Carlos Gonzalez, but the Reds answered right back in their half of the fourth with a run to knot the game at 2. But the Rockies took the lead for good on Dexter Fowler's run-scoring single in the fifth inning, making a hard-luck loser out of Willis, who worked eight innings, giving up five hits and just one walk while striking out 10.
  
• The script was flipped for Pittsburgh last night: a day after blanking the Giants, the Bucs found themselves on the short end of 6-0 decision. The Bucs were totally flummoxed by San Francisco lefty Madison Bumgarner, who threw seven outstanding innings (four hits, one walk, 10 punch outs), and James McDonald wasn't up to the task: McDonald lasted six innings, giving up four hits and three walks and three earned runs. Aubrey Huff and Chris Stewart took McDonald deep, and Huff doubled in another run en route to a 3-for-4 day.
  
• Chicago couldn't get anything going against Chien-Ming Wang, who held the Aramis Ramirez-less Cubs to a single hit over six innings, and the Nats rallied for three sixth inning runs against Matt Garza as Washington claimed a 3-1 win over Chicago on Tuesday night. Garza cruised through five innings, but Washington clubbed two homers in the sixth -- a solo homer by Michael Morse, and a two-run shot by new Nat Jonny Gomes -- to hand Garza his ninth loss on the year. The only offense the Cubs could muster was Starlin Castro's solo homer off Tyler Clippard in the eighth inning.
  
• Houston jumped all over Arizona for the second night in a row, scoring seven runs in the first four innings of the game and taking a 7-1 lead into the bottom of the fifth in Phoenix. But these are the Astros, of course, and rookie Jordan Lyles couldn't make the big lead stand up: the D-backs erupted for four runs in the fifth inning thanks to a two-run double by Justin Upton and a two-RBI single by Miguel Montero, and then added four more runs in the sixth inning on Willie Bloomquist's two-run single and Upton's two-run homer. When the smoke cleared, the Snakes bludgeoned Lyles and the Houston 'pen for 11 earned runs and took an important come-from-behind victory, 11-9, to keep pace with San Francisco in the NL West.

Your updated standings for August 10:

The Wild Card race looks like this right now:

On tap for tonight:

• The Crew and Cardinals resume their series at 7:15 p.m. CDT tonight, when Randy Wolf (8-8, 3.61) takes on Jake Westbrook (9-5, 4.83).
  
• The Reds continue their series against the Rockies at 6:10 p.m. CDT. Scheduled to start: for the Reds, Mike Leake (9-7, 3.92); for the Rockies, Kevin Millwood, who's making his 2011 debut for Colorado.
  
• The Cubs and Nationals play game two of their series at 7:05 p.m. CDT at Wrigley Field. Rodrigo Lopez (2-3, 5.17) gets the ball for the Baby Bears, while Ross Detwiler (1-1, 2.66) is on the bump for the Nats.
  
• The Pirates wrap up their series in San Francisco with a 2:45 p.m. CDT matinee contest. Jeff Karstens (8-6, 3.05) tries to pitch the Bucs to the series win, while Jonathan Sanchez (4-6, 4.10) starts for the Giants.
  
• The Astros and D-backs are back in action at 8:40 p.m. CDT. Josh Collmenter (6-7, 3.58) goes for the D-backs, and he'll face Houston rookie Henry Sosa (0-0, ---).