FanHouse Brian Fuentes

Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the MLB postseason.

Looking Forward ...

So what exactly will Mike Scioscia do if the Angels take a lead into the ninth inning Monday afternoon? Brian Fuentes became the latest closer to blow a save this postseason when he surrendered a home run to Alex Rodriguez in the 11th inning of Game 2.

The guess here is that Scioscia will handle Fuentes much the way he handled him down the stretch and the way Charlie Manuel has handled Brad Lidge -- he'll let the situation dictate his decisions. Scioscia has used Fuentes (a left-hander) and top setup man Kevin Jepsen (a right-hander) depending on the opposing hitters, so it'd be no surprise if he continues to do so now, just don't think of it as a slap in the face or a lack of confidence in Fuentes.

NEW YORK -- Of course it would end this way, in such classic, expected fashion. What, you didn't have Jerry Hairston Jr. scoring the winning run for the Yankees in the bottom of the 13th inning, after the Angel infield completely lost its heads? Join the club with millions of other baseball fans who watched Saturday's American League Championship Series melt into Sunday morning, and still aren't sure how and why this astonishing Game 2 concluded as it did.

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In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down the playoffs from a scouting perspective.

Was it the pitching or the offense's inability to produce? It's the question we always want the answer to when pitching shuts down a lineup over an extended period. In Game 2 of the ALCS, we watched two teams scratch and claw through extra innings to push runs across. Of course, there can never be a completely definitive answer, but Saturday night there were some instances where there were some answers.

In Joe Saunders, the Yankees faced a pitcher that generally thrives on throwing first-pitch strikes and changing speeds. And in A.J. Burnett, the Angels faced a pitcher that must be forced out of the strike zone to get him out of his groove. One could argue that both lineups could have done a better job with their approach against these pitchers.

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.

On the day Milton Bradley began serving a team-mandated, season-ending suspension, former Cubs fan favorite Mark DeRosa suited up for the Cubs rival. He's been doing so since coming over in a trade from Cleveland. This past offseason, the Cubs moved DeRosa to the Indians as part of a concerted effort to free up payroll. The target: Bradley.

Thus, it was only fitting the chain of decisions were further cemented as awful when DeRosa hit two home runs and drove in four runs Monday night.

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.

Don't blame yourself if you didn't see a big line coming from Trevor Cahill. Coming off a three-inning, three-run game in Chicago, Cahill had to travel to Texas to take on a pretty good offense. On Wednesday, this offense was without Michael Young and Josh Hamilton, but that still left the hot Julio Borbon (.323 BA coming into the game) and Elvis Andrus (coming off a 16-game hitting streak), stars Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz, and other players that have been hot over the course of September.

BOSTON -- As far as Mike Scioscia is concerned, the Angels' late-inning relief situation isn't "unsettled." It is, however, fluid.

Scioscia explained Tuesday that hot rookie setup man Kevin Jepsen will continue to be used, at times, in the ninth inning as well as the eighth, but it sounds as if Scioscia still wants to use struggling closer Brian Fuentes to get the final out.

Just not always the final three.

"I think it's evolved into -- we're going to look at matchups if they're available," Scioscia said. "If there's some matchups we can take advantage of by rolling [Jepsen] over to the ninth inning, we'll look at it. If there aren't we have every confidence that Brian's going to go out there and get it done."

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.

By now we all know of the greatness of San Francisco pitcher Tim Lincecum. He's the best pitcher in baseball this season, with a 2.34 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 233 strikeouts in 200 1/3 innings. But there's another hard-throwing young kid in the Giants organization that, like Lincecum, has a shot to be one of the league's best very quickly. He's a guy you want to burn that No. 1 waiver priority on, in case he sticks in the rotation for the rest of the season. He is Madison Bumgarner.

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

Every Hot Stove season, each team reshapes its roster in an attempt to better themselves. After each transaction, whether a free agent acquisition, trade or something else, writers and bloggers everywhere provide knee-jerk reactions on each particular move. Though the majority of the analysis is educated, it's still just conjecture. Today, we'll take the long view and look back at some of the maneuvering this past offseason and see how it played out on the field.

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

Adam Kennedy: 5-for-7. Mark Ellis: 4-for-6. Orlando Cabrera, Kevin Youkilis, and J.D. Drew: 3-for-5 each. Six other players with two hits. Five more with a single hit. 35 in all, and nary a home run to be found. Boston's Clay Buchholz and Oakland's Vin Mazzaro each gave up nine hits in the game, and Boston was able to piece together five runs in the third to end up with a 6-2 lead after six innings. But as they say, that's when things got interesting.

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.