Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That the Phillies calmed a lot of nerves this weekend. The reigning world champs haven't looked quite like themselves for most of the season, but they had plenty of reason to be optimistic after completing a three-game sweep of the Mets Sunday.
Philadelphia entered the series with a 13-22 record at Citizens Bank Park, but won three straight at home against a hated rival. That wasn't the only positive sign. Jimmy Rollins, who has been slumping all season, belted a leadoff homer against New York ace Johan Santana in the 2-0 sweep-clinching win and Brad Lidge, who has blown six saves this year, struck out the side to lock up the victory.
From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.
This coming weekend, Major League Baseball will reveal its 2009 All-Star teams. So what better opportunity than this to run through a list of this season's "Anti-All-Stars." Anti-All-Stars is far too bland a name, though, so we decided to name the team in honor of Andruw Jones. After all, he was the poster child for guys not earning the lucrative contracts bestowed on them last season. We'll sort through each position and find the player who is least helping his team in comparison to expectations -- whether monetary or from management.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
No one said recovering from a torn pectoral muscle would be easy. And for Vladimir Guerrero's fantasy owners, many of his 130-plus at-bats were pretty painful to watch. But on Wednesday night, Vlad came back to life in a big way.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That on the right night the minor leagues can be awfully interesting, even for someone who doesn't care at all about minor league baseball. Manny Ramirez batted leadoff Tuesday night for the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes, playing four innings and going 0-for-2 in his first rehab game since being suspended 50 games for a violation of Major League Baseball's drug policy.
Ramirez faced former Brewers starting pitcher Manny Parra in both at-bats. Parra, now pitching for the Nashville Sounds, is trying to work his way back to the majors as well after a woeful couple of months in the Milwaukee rotation. He went 3-8 with a 7.52 ERA in 13 starts there before getting demoted, but he was the hard-luck loser against Albuquerque, tossing seven innings of one-run ball. The Brewers could use another effective starter, that much is certain.
A bad week for the Phillies got worse Thursday morning when the team placed left fielder Raul Ibanezon the disabled list with a groin strain. The injury has been bothering Ibanez for a while, eliminating the possibility that it had anything to do with providing a stool sample.
The loss of Ibanez won't help the Phillies reverse a trend that's seen them lose four of their last five games. Until they address the need to upgrade their starting pitching, they'll need all the offense they can get to keep winning games. Ibanez, who leads the team in most offensive categories, is a big part of those efforts.
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
There are soooo many things to argue about in the world of fantasy baseball these days. It felt like we waited forever to get our hands on Matt Wieters. Now we have to ask did we get ahold of him too soon? If Robinson Cano is going to hit .300 in the first half, what can we expect from his normally mega-productive second half? But, the argument that I want to touch on today, and I won't be able to hit all of the points in this short space, is about Big Papi. Do you buy low on David Ortiz right now or can you actually sell him high at this point?
The struggles of David Ortiz this season have been well documented. It wasn't until May 20th that he hit his first home run and except for his first two games of the season where he went 1-for-3, Ortiz has never seen his batting average spike above .237. It currently sits at .198.
2008 may have been the dream season to end all dream seasons for Brad Lidge, but 2009 is rapidly developing into a nightmare of epic proportions. Lidge blew two more saves, he's got six overall, in Los Angeles over the weekend, which brought his ERA to an unsightly 7.27 for the season.
Lidge, 32, is 0-3 this season with 13 saves and a 7.27 ERA in 28 relief appearances. Opponents have hit .306 against him. In his last seven games, Lidge was 5-for-7 in save opportunities with a 1.42 ERA and a .182 opponents' batting average.
It's time to run to your waiver wire and sign Ryan Madson, who's owned in only 18% of Yahoo! fantasy leagues. Madson will be handed the closing duties while Lidge is out.
Madson already has two saves filling in for Lidge. He also sports a 2.22 ERA and 1.06 WHIP with 31 strikeouts in 28.1 innings. Batters are only hitting .202 against him.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That Brad Lidge has come back to Earth with a thud this season. On Saturday Lidge gave up a game-tying homer to Rafael Furcal in the ninth, despite the leaping effort of Jayson Werth, right. It was Lidge's second blown save in two days. After being perfect in converting saves to help the Phillies to the World Series title last year, Lidge now has six blown saves, three losses and a 7.27 ERA.
The nature of a closer's job is that a few bad breaks or bad pitches are magnified, but Lidge isn't simply shrugging off this season's struggles.
"The results are starting to frustrate me," Lidge said. "It just seems to be one thing. Tonight, it was the slider he hit. I don't know. I feel good, but I know something needs to change in terms of results. You've just got to get it done, and right now for whatever reason, it's not happening."
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel added a vote of confidence for Lidge: "He'll always be my guy."
The first thing that Randy Wells might want to do today is seek Carlos Zambrano out for guidance. Whether this advice be about punching teammates in the face or taking out aggression on innocent Gatorade machines in the dugout, Wells needs to ask how to properly express the way he feels about Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg.
Wells took a no-hitter into the seventh where Chipper Jones crashed the party. Upon leaving the game, Wells, while disappointed, had to take solace in the fact that he would at least get the victory. Enter Marmol, then Gregg to completely screw the pooch on that one.
Marmol gave up an earned run in the 8th and Gregg allowed a bottom of the ninth two-run blast from Jeff Francoeur to tie the ballgame. The Cubs eventually lost the game in the 12th when Chipper produced a walk-off single.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
A bad week for the Phillies got worse Thursday morning when the team placed left fielder 
2008 may have been the dream season to end all dream seasons for 
It was announced by the Phillies today that 
Starting Five
The first thing that 
