All hail Leo Mazzone! He who makes lemonade out of lemons and stud closers out of bullpen castaways has done it again. This time, Orioles SP Daniel Cabrera is the beneficiary of Mazzone’s magic.

Cabrera has always been tremendously talented, but his control has been nonexistent in his three seasons in the bigs. He struck out 157 batters in both 2005 and 2006, a feat that would have been a lot more impressive if he hadn’t been busy losing more games than he won, due largely in part to his high walk totals.

But now Cabrera seems to have turned a corner. In his second start of the season, against the AL Champion Tigers, Cabrera didn’t allow a three-ball count to any hitter until his last inning (the eighth). It was his first walkless outing since June 5, 2005, a span of 46 starts.

So far this season, Cabrera is 1-1 with a 3.66 ERA and 19 K compared to 5 BB. Not bad. If he can keep it up, he’ll be on pace for a career high in strikeouts (183) and, almost certainly, his first winning season.

As for Mazzone, you have to give credit where credit is due. Maybe he’s had the good fortune to coach great talents like Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Greg Maddux (much like Phil Jackson was lucky to have Jordan, Shaq and Kobe), but he’s also culled winning seasons from guys who have sucked elsewhere.

In the wake of John Rocker named in an HGH bust and his subsequent denial, then admission (via his publicist), then denial, I asked a friend and former boss, Creative Loafing News Editor Scott Freeman, to chime in on the Rocker controversy. Freeman penned Leo Mazzone’s autobiography. Here’s what he had to say:

In reading about John Rocker and the HGH controversy, I was reminded of a story that Leo Mazzone told me a few years back when we were collaborating on his autobiography: Leo Mazzone’s Tales From The Mound.

According to Leo, Rocker was so muscular that if he pitched more than one inning they’d have to take him down to the hallway leading to the dugout, lay him on the floor on his belly and stretch his back. Otherwise, he’d be too cramped up to pitch. He says Rocker became “high maintenance physically” because Rocker was so muscular from lifting weights. And I can remember walking past his locker and seeing a poster of Goldberg, the WCW heavyweight champ, hanging there.

Of course, Rocker’s outbursts were also noteworthy, not that it would have been ‘roid rage or anything.

Sometimes one plus one plus one equals three; sometimes not. It’s impossible to know at this point. But I do expect this latest HGH scandal to go beyond the scope of BALCO.

Thanks Scott. I just can’t get over the list of guys who have been exposed as steroid or HGH users. It’s the usual suspects (Canseco, Rocker, Giambi, McGwire), the sons of former players (Barry Bonds, David Bell, Gary Matthews, Jr., Jerry Hairston, Jr.) and the nobodies (Ryan Franklin, Jason Grimsley). Who will be next?

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Mark Bradley today lamented the panic that seems to be engulfing the Braves clubhouse:

I’m seeing something I never thought I’d see from the Braves. I’m seeing

desperation — in May, no less.

I’m seeing the organization that has made its reputation on playing from

behind acting as if it can fall no farther behind. Indeed, John Smoltz said

there’d have been no coming back had the Braves lost Sunday to drop 10

games behind. Since when did 10 games back after 31 games played become

the threshold of elimination? Since when did a 10-game lead become

insurmountable where a nine-game bulge apparently is not?

So when is it too early to panic? How far behind can a team fall and still reasonably consider itself to remain in the race?

The Braves trailed the Giants by 10 on July 22, 1993 — after 97 games, as opposed to 31 — and won the West. But that was a different Braves team. That team had a young John Smoltz. This team has an old Smoltz. That team had a young Chipper Jones. This team has an old Chipper. That team had Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Fred McGriff, Deon Sanders and Ron Belliard. This team has Jorge Sosa, John Thompson, Ryan Langerhans and an underachieving Marcus Giles.

Maybe most importantly, that 1993 Braves team had Leo Mazone. Now Mazone is coaching the Orioles.

Interestingly, though, it doesn’t seem to be doing the Orioles much good. From today’s Washington Post:

Sometimes a slump is a mystery. For the Orioles, the reason

they have lost 12 of their last 16 games and now stand at

15-19 is all too obvious: Their pitching rotation has been healthy.

Daniel Cabrera, Erik Bedard, Kris Benson, Rodrigo Lopez and Bruce

Chen — the five men who, under the tutelage of new Orioles pitching

coach Leo Mazzone, were supposed to be the strength of the team –

have not missed a start this season. Their combined ERA is an

atrocious 5.88, with no one lower than Bedard’s undistinguished 4.54.

Will the Orioles pitching ever come around? Will the Braves recover to win the NL East for a 17th straight season?