Uggla 'cool' with being fastest 2B to 100 HRs

Maybe we make too much of milestones in baseball. Maybe we have to stop being such big geeks when it comes to numbers and statistics. Maybe we ought to try and be cool like Dan Uggla.

That's exactly what the Marlins All-Star second baseman was like after making a little baseball history Tuesday night against the Brewers. Fastest to 100 home runs among second baseman ever, Dan, how does it feel? “Uh, it’s pretty cool,” Uggla responded. “You know I hadn’t really thought about it until kind of somebody brought it to my attention yesterday. But yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

Just pretty cool to be on pace to hit more homers than guys like Jeff Kent and Ryne Sandberg?  “It means a lot,” Uggla said. “I really don’t even know what to say about it. I’m excited about it. I do it the fastest at my position. But it’s over and done with now.”

Maybe that's a good thing for the Marlins because they certainly need Uggla to keep doing more of what he's been up to lately than how he was performing for the first month and a half. Uggla started this season as the second-highest-paid Marlin at $5.35 million, but his batting average sagged at .182 as recently as May 15. He has picked it up over his past 16 games, hitting .276 (16 for 58) with six homers and 18 RBI -- his 2 for 4 effort with 3 RBI Tuesday included.

> Even he really wasn't pitching with the pressure on, Burke Badenhop deserves some props for what he did over five scoreless innings of relief Tuesday. Badenhop gave up just one hit, the longest relief performance of his career.

> Starter Anibal Sanchez didn't have a triumphant return -- just three innings and 71 pitches. But he made a key out when he needed to in the first with the bases loaded. When I looked up at the scoreboard Tuesday, I didn't see a whole lot of his pitches register in the 90s. But he said afterward his velocity was fine.

"I had a bad first inning. But it wasn’t bad really. The umpire made a couple [calls] there, they hit a lot of fouls," Sanchez said. "I felt better. I know I threw hard today. I just wanted to throw strikes and keep the ball in the zone. Today, it didn’t happen. But I was ok. I had better command today, more on the outside than the inside. It helped me get a lot of ground balls."