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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.

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 Yankees are a .654 team against everyone else, but a .000 team when they face the Red Sox. Yes, Boston and New York hooked up for their third series of the season beginning Tuesday night, but despite the Yankees' surge up the AL East standings since the last time the rivals met, they dropped to 0-6 against the Sox this season.

Much of the focus in New England will be on David Ortiz, who cranked a two-run home run to straightaway center field, ran his hitting streak to seven games and maybe, just maybe, is emerging from a bewildering two month-slump.

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

Remember 'Five Alive,' the juicy blend with five fruits that's fun for all the family? Well, Rick Porcello is a unique blend of rookie flavor who's reeled off five straight victories. You can hardly find that syrupy drink on the shelves anymore, but you can still find Porcello in about 30 percent of Yahoo! leagues. And that's not all there is to like about Porcello. After the jump, it's fun time for all fantasy owners! (sugar rush optional)

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

I think we can all agree that it's far too early to start voting upon who the best 2009 players are when it's only the middle of May. That being said, there are certainly some shining stars at this point who deserve some props. Plus, Major League Baseball recently released their All-Star ballots for our voting pleasure -- we vote on who will start the All-Star Game. If that's not important, I don't know what is. Let's take a gander.

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

After a terrible first week, Texas first baseman Chris Davis was one of the hot topics of concern in fantasy baseball circles. My colleague Matt Snyder recently tried to put those fears to rest in Slump or Suck, and right on cue, Davis went ahead and smashed them with his bat.

Diamondbacks outfielder Eric Byrnes is slowly making his comeback from his battle with hamstring injuries. He played in a minor league game on Sunday and went three for five with a stolen base. He even seems to have his speed back.

He said he was clocked in 4.18 seconds running out a ground ball to first. He said he regularly was timed at 4.2 before he was hurt.

What he doesn't have back is his starting job.

Just where Byrnes - in the second year of a three-year, $30 million contract - would play is another problem. The Diamondbacks' outfield is set with Conor Jackson in left, Chris Young in center and Justin Upton in right. Melvin has talked about Byrnes relieving all three at times.

The worrisome part of that quote is that Melvin seems to have Byrnes slated as the 4th outfielder. That's fine, and probably a good place for him coming back from injury, but it seems that fantasy GM's participating in mock drafts over at Mock Draft Central are picking Byrnes in the 13th round with an average draft position of 155.69.

Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.

Meet the...

Absolute best team in baseball that you've never heard of. The Twins don't spend a lot of money nor do they make a lot of headlines. What they are good at, however, is winning. The Twins won the American League Central Division every year from 2002 to 2004 and again in 2006. In 2007 they finished third in the division and in 2008 they lost a one-game playoff to just miss the post season. This team wins with a small-ball, almost National League feel or approach.

The Minnesota Twins may have come up a run short of winning the AL Central this year, but it was still a pretty successful season for the team. After all, nobody expected them to be competitive this season after losing both Torii Hunter and Johan Santana, yet there they were challenging for another division title.

Another reason that the Twins were a surprise this year is that they played the majority of the season without right fielder Michael Cuddyer, and though Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau get most of the attention in the Twins lineup, Cuddyer has always been a dangerous presence. His absence turned out to be a bit of a blessing though as it allowed Denard Span to get playing time, and Span took advantage of it to emerge as the team's lead-off hitter of the future. Which is why it's entirely possible that Delmon Young will be traded this winter after only one season in Minnesota.

The Twins won't talk about it, but it's expected that Delmon Young, the left fielder they obtained from Tampa Bay before this past season, will be made available on the trade market.

Seeing as how Cuddyer signed a three-year $23 million extension before the season, it's unlikely the Twins will want to move him, so Young seems to be the most logical choice, Delmon didn't really produce as much as the Twins would have liked when they sent Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza to the Rays for him, yet he still has enough value to bring back a third baseman or shortstop for next season.

For a while there, it was looking like we weren't going to have any exciting pennant races this September. About a week ago, all of the races were threatening to wrap themselves up neatly and leave us with a final weekend free of drama. Earlier tonight, we had a lot of NL drama. While all of the NL shenanigans were going on, the Twins were making sure at least one race in the AL is going down to the wire.

It didn't always look like that. The White Sox breezed into Minneapolis this week with a 2 1/2 game lead in the AL Central. Even after they lost the first two games of the series, they were sitting pretty with a 6-1 lead tonight after a six run explosion in the top of the fourth. Things fell apart from there as the Twins were spurred on by a triple by Carlos Gomez in the fourth that scored a run and allowed him to score, then a two-run game-tying triple by Denard Span in the seventh, and finally a walk-off single by Alexi Cassilla in the eleventh.

After dropping three straight to the Twins, the White Sox head home to close out the season with three games against the Indians and a makeup against the Tigers, if necessary. The newly minted division leaders will stay at home in Minnesota to play the Royals. Yeah, the White Sox are in trouble.