FanHouse Frank Francisco

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.

Before we get our heaping of box score browsing, let's look at a related subject: The fantasy baseball stretch run. With the annual ushering in of September baseball, we see roster changes galore. Not only are there call-ups with the legal expansion of rosters, but players with seemingly minor injuries are shut down on teams who have fallen out of the race. You also have younger players being given an audition for 2010, or being shut down so the team doesn't overwork them in their first season of increased workload. If you are in the thick of things in your fantasy baseball race, now is not the time to use a laissez-faire approach.

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

There are times where you see a possible gem sitting on the waiver wire, but you decide to wait. Your gut is pleading with you that he's legit. You just don't want to make a trade-off, dumping one of your struggling stars for the "new flavor."

This time, please know Ricky Romero is more than a new flavor.

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.

In what is most likely music to many fantasy owners' ears, Jose Valverde is back from the disabled list and ready to close out games for the Astros. He's thrown in two games since his return and has struck out three batters and hasn't allowed a hit in 1.1 innings of work. It's likely that he'll re-assume the role of closer for the Astros upon their next save opportunity.

Manny Ramirez still gets all of the press in Los Angeles, even when he's not on the field. That's a shame because Jonathan Broxton has become a dominant force on the mound, and one of the games top closers. He's closed out his last eight save opportunities and leads all closers in strikeouts with 53. He also frustrates hitters more than other closers as hitters only have been able to muster a .103 batting average against Broxton.

So far this season it seems like the Chicago White Sox have been trying to go back in time. After getting off to a bad start to the 2009 campaign, the Sox went out and signed Scott Podsednik to a minor-league deal -- even though most scouts would have told you he was done. Well, it's worked out pretty nicelyl for Chicago as Podsednik is back on top of their lineup and playing surprisingly well.

Then, this week the White Sox signed another player from their 2005 team who most people think is washed up: Freddy Garcia. It seems like the team thinks if they get as many players as they can from 2005 they'll win another World Series. Which is why it's too bad that the Rangers had to go and destroy Chicago's "brilliant" plan.

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

Max Scherzer, the 24-year-old fireballer for the Diamondbacks, has worlds of talent. He also takes a step back every time you think he's finally hitting his groove. This past week, he was a two-start pitcher in the fantasy baseball world. His first start was pure gold (that's gold, Jerry!). He threw 7 shutout innings and struck out 10 before getting chased in the eighth inning -- after allowing a few earned runs. He followed that up with an absolute catastrophe on Sunday. The light-hitting Braves touched him up for 10 hits and 8 earned runs in only 3 2/3 innings.

So, what gives?

It's always nice to know how secure a closer's job is and who's next in line if somebody loses their 9th inning job. The Closer Report will give you that info. And if that wasn't good enough, we'll rank the closers from top to bottom.

As you'll see, Heath Bell has taken over the top spot on this edition of The Closer Report. A few big-name, top-of-the-charts closers from years past have fallen off quite a bit. How weird is it to see Brad Lidge near the bottom of the closer rankings and Joe Nathan stuck in the middle?

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 when Rickie Weeks was a hot new prospect whose quick bat drew comparisons to Gary Sheffield? Yeah, turns out that was four years ago.

Following season after season of frustration for hopeful fantasy owners, Weeks is finally coming through. The speed isn't there, but he's homered in three straight games to give him nine total in only 140 at-bats. By comparison, he only hit 14 in 475 at-bats last year. So has our man-crush of yesteryear suddenly transformed into the new Dan Uggla, or is this impressive power display just another tease?

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

You couldn't have scripted all of the twists and turns the first 20% of the season has taken thus far. And if you could have, would anybody really watch?

Who had Frank Francisco and Ryan Franklin as two of the closers tied for the major league lead with nine saves at this point in the season? And we all knew Zack Greinke had talent and could blow up at any time. But, a 5-1 record with a 0.51 ERA and a league-leading 59 strikeouts. Seriously?

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.

What a zany week for a pair of pitchers with amazing stories: Zack Greinke is America's favorite story right now, somehow managing to be hotter than Twitter. (And if Oprah starts doing him too, I'm just quitting. And I mean everything.) Meanwhile, Rick Ankiel (you may hear word of this "podcast" we're doing about him, but that's because I'm shameless like that), a former star on the mound as well, nearly decapitates himself running into an outfield wall. And yet, life goes on. Just like our Power Rankings.