LYNX: JUST A TICK BELOW FOR JOE

Joe Thurston was a .300 hitter for about half a hour in tonight's 3-2 Lynx loss (boxscore, play-by-play) in the second leg of the doubleheader.

He made the final out of the game vs. Rochester closer Bobby Korecky, dropping down to .299, in the extra inning, two innings after he was stranded after a leadoff single in the sixth that pushed him up to that nice round number. There's just no justice.

The Lynx notching their 1,000th win, 1-0 over Rochester (boxscore, play-by-play) in Game 1 of tonight's doubleheader, gets the headline, of course. Don't overlook (believe it or not, some in the Ottawa media might) that Gary Knotts, who gave up just two hits in the 7-inning shutout, flirted with a no-hitter for the second time in five starts since the pitching-hungry Phillies plucked him off the scrap heap.

Knotts, who no one wanted to touch after he had rotator cuff surgery in '05, took a no-hitter into the seventh for Reading two weeks ago, settling for a complete-game one-hit shutout. Reading up on Knotts provided a blast from the past. The pitching coach for the R-Phils is Tom Filer, whom you might remember winning seven straight starts — one-third of his major-league win total — during the Jays' drive to that first division pennant back in 1985.

Gary Burnham needs three RBI in the season-ending four-game series vs. Syracuse to set the club record.