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Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

At some point in the next two or three weeks, the Pittsburgh Pirates will lose their 82nd game. There's no real debate at this point with their 53-72 record. Still, over the past nine games, the Pirates have reeled off seven wins and last night, they wrapped up a series win over the defending world champion Phillies with an eighth inning home run by Garrett Jones, turning a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win. On the heels of Andrew McCutchen's walk-off homer on Tuesday, it was certainly a good week for the Pirates and their two rookie of the year candidates.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

When you select Carlos Pena in fantasy baseball, you know you aren't getting batting average help. Still, his career-low .223 mark this year was well below expectations, and up until August 5, the power numbers weren't nearly high enough to console disappointed Pena owners.

Well, that has all changed. Since that date, Pena has slugged 11 home runs and driven home 22. His average has been respectable (.286) and his OPS is ridiculous (1.307). On the season, Pena now has a six home run lead on the rest of the AL with 37. He's also third in RBI (91).

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

Mired in the middle of a quite reprehensible offense, Adrian Gonzalez had been struggling at the plate for quite a while. Sure, he was still hitting home runs and drawing walks, but his batting average from May 1 to August 9 was an atrocious .228 in 298 at-bats. He hadn't had a multiple hit game since July 29 and hadn't had more than two hits in a game since June 18.

Tuesday night, Gonzalez went 6-6, giving him more hits in one night than the rest of August combined.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

A few weeks ago we discussed the possibility of the Padres promoting 21-year-old phenom Mat Latos. Well, he now has four major league starts under his belt, and, needless to say, he's doing just fine. After a solid outing Monday night, Latos is 3-1 with a 2.66 ERA and a sparkling 0.89 WHIP. He's struck out 16 while only walking 6 in 23 2/3 innings. He's also pitching in one of the best pitcher's parks in baseball.

So, he should be owned in all fantasy leagues, right?

Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

The reason that Futilitywatch wasn't made a weekly feature earlier in the season was fairly simple; I wasn't sure the Pirates would be interesting enough to do weekly updates on. The three weeks since we've looked in on the Pirates' slow march towards infamy is emblematic of that; there just isn't much that happens week to week. In a basic week, the Pirates win two or three games and lose four or five, their record slowly eroding, with hope slowly extinguishing.

That said, three weeks encompasses almost the entire career of Garrett Jones and with the trade deadline looming, it's certainly time for an update on the team that's a mere 29 losses from setting one of the most dubious records in sports history.

Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.

The most remarkable thing about this season as we hit the not-halfway halfway point of the All-Star break isn't Albert Pujols' RBI total. Or Zack Greinke's ERA. Or the PED suspension of one of the game's biggest stars.

It's the standings. And they not only reflect the season so far, they give us a clue as to the weeks head leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline.

The Phillies and Dodgers are the only first-place team with a lead of more than 2 1/2 games. And 21 of the 30 teams are within 7 1/2 games of a playoff spot: nine of 14 in the AL and 12 of 16 in the NL.

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

It's a funny thing, sometimes, to see how Power Rankings shape up over the course of the season. Just like when we started the year, there are a number of teams from one particular division sitting atop the rankings. Of course, there are plenty of surprises -- WHERE DID THE FREAKING GIANTS AND ROCKIES COME FROM?? -- and some other interesting stuff, like the fact that the Mets and Cubs just haven't been that good, which we discussed on the inaugural BaseCast recently.

With the Steelers and Penguins reigning as champs of their respective sports, it's certainly a fun time to be a Pittsburgh sports fan. The trouble now, with the Penguins' season over and Steelers camp still a month away, is that the only game in town is the Pirates. That's fine for a baseball geek like me, but many more casual Pirate fans are trying to make this rebuilding club, barely hanging around .500, into something they're not.

All those fans had their fires stoked a bit this week when Beaver County Times columnist Bob Hertzel decided to compare Andrew McCutchen, the Bucs' exciting rookie, to the golden standard of Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente. I shouldn't have to tell anyone why this comparison is both unfair and ridiculous, but I'm going to anyways.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

By the looks of his season stats, you wouldn't know that Jordan Zimmermann has actually been one of the most dominant pitchers in the majors over the past month. We're talking a 1.90 ERA and a .198 batting average against. On that same note, Minnesota's Scott Baker is holding opposing hitters to a .205 average over his last five starts. The turnaround of these pitchers teach fantasy owners an important lesson about staying patient and swooping in when the time is right.

Futilitywatch '09 is a our semi-regular update on the Pittsburgh Pirates and their march toward their record 17th consecutive losing season.

Despite the fact that I've started each of the last five or so seasons with very little hope that the Pittsburgh Pirates will do anything (push for a playoff spot, finish .500, not embarrass me as a fan ... anything), I still try to be as positive as possible about the Pirates' chances during the season. It's not easy, but it's the only way to keep going as a fan.

At some point each summer, though, the Pirates do something to crush my soul, be it one awful loss or 13 in a row. This year, the Pirates have teetered on the edge of that breaking point a couple times, but to their credit they somehow haven't passed it yet.