Silva demotion temporary, team says  —  MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Twins made a move with their struggling rotation Monday morning, sending shaken right-hander Carlos Silva to the bullpen temporarily and promoting lefty Francisco Liriano.  —  Liriano, 22, is one of baseball's top prospects …

San Antonio pulls Marlins stadium offer  —  As expected, San Antonio played a game of Texas Fold 'Em on Monday with the Florida Marlins.  —  Bexar County leaders formally pulled out of the Marlins relocation sweepstakes, throwing the spotlight on the team's rising hopes to build a stadium in Hialeah.

Beckett lights up Birds  —  Right-hander celebrates 26th birthday by dominating Orioles  —  BALTIMORE — The game face wasn't quite there when Josh Beckett first entered the visiting clubhouse on Monday afternoon.  The right-hander noticed ace Curt Schilling slumped over on the couch …

Padres-Diamondbacks Preview  —  The San Diego Padres look for a ninth straight road victory as they try to hand Arizona Diamondbacks ace Brandon Webb his first loss of the season when the NL West rivals begin a three-game series at Chase Field on Monday.  —  San Diego (22-16) …

Sturtze's year could be over  —  Scott Proctor could tell something was wrong.  Before the Yankees' 4-2 loss last night to the Texas Rangers, he saw fellow reliever Tanyon Sturtze emerge from Joe Torre's office with a look on his face that made it clear he needed to be alone.  So Proctor kept his distance.

Yanks edged by Rangers  —  Giambi the latest Bomber to be hit by nagging injury bug  —  NEW YORK — When Jason Giambi watched teammate Derek Jeter line a hard, two-out single into center after two were out in the eighth inning on Monday night, the Yankees first baseman wished he'd been on-deck at the time instead of Andy Phillips.

Baseball Is a Game of Numbers, but Whose Numbers Are They?  —  Like no other corner of American popular culture, baseball communicates in numbers.  From .406 (Ted Williams's 1941 batting average) to 755 (Hank Aaron's record home run total) to countless digits bandied about water coolers every morning …

Struggling Vargas demoted to AAA  —  ATLANTA — Left-hander Jason Vargas arrived in spring training with high expectations on how he would follow up his 2005 Marlins Rookie of the Year season.  —  A demotion to the minor leagues wasn't what he had in mind, but that's what he got for struggling to a 1-1 start and 6.40 ERA.

Q&A with Stan Kasten  —  New Nationals president helped build dominant Braves … MLB.com: You were out of the game for the last two years.  What did you miss about baseball during that time?  —  Stan Kasten: I wasn't running a club, but I was still involved with many, many people inside the game.

Prospectus Today  —  He's Baaaaaaack  —  So yesterday afternoon, instead of my usual routine of flipping through a number of ballgames, I had settled on the Yankees/A's tilt.  I liked the pitching matchup, with one of my favorite young pitchers, Dan Haren, going up against someone who's …

Davies to be placed on 15-day DL  —  Right-hander suffered strained right groin in third inning  —  ATLANTA — Kyle Davies will be placed on the 15-day disabled list.  The Braves can only hope that his ailing right groin doesn't cause him to miss a significant amount of time.

Pena answers call when opportunity knocks  —  Tremors from the Bronson Arroyo-for-Wily Mo Pena trade still reverberate deep within Red Sox manager Terry Francona.  —  Arroyo raced out to the hottest start of his career with Cincinnati, while Pena had a fly ball bounce off his glove …