FORMER BASEBALL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD -- There is a Subway Series this weekend.
There is one again in two weeks.
There will not be one in October.
Friday night's game at Yankee Stadium, which both teams deserved to lose, showed us that.
It will be remembered forever, at least in the five boroughs and surrounding areas, as the Luis Castillo game. The Mets second baseman dropped Alex Rodriguez's popup with two outs in the ninth, allowing two runs to score and the Yankees to win 9-8.
Bad news for anyone headed to Pawtucket tonight to catch Chien-Ming Wang pitch against the Triple-A Red Sox. The Yankees have called the rehabbing starter back to the Bronx, and he'll be in uniform for the Yankees' game against the Phillies on Friday night.
The Yankees have made the move as a precautionary measure in response to the line drive Joba Chamberlain took off his knee in the first inning on Thursday. Alfredo Aceves pitched 3 1/3 innings following Chamberlain's departure, leaving the team short a long man. There's also a chance that Chamberlain may be forced to miss his start on Tuesday night, so Wang could slot into that spot.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Who knew there was a hulking slugger waiting to bust out of Joe Mauer? After hitting his eighth jack in just 72 at-bats and driving in six RBI, the Twins catcher is putting all concerns to rest. Heck, he hit nine totalhome runs in 536 at-bats last season. So the "ailing" back is just fine, thank you very much, but is the power sustainable?
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.
Let me put this simply: you want no part of being No. 1 in the FanHouse MLB Power Rankings. It just brings discord, losing and possibly suspensions to your baseball team. Such was the case with the white-hot Dodgers and Manny Ramirez, who now have to deal with a 50 game-ban of their star slugger. Who's doomed this week? Let's just say that no one would be too shocked if they weren't there again next Wednesday.
Because Ibañez worries only about the perception of him by his family and peers, he has had no trouble fitting in with the Phillies. And while he says he will never try to justify his new three-year, $31.5 million deal – perhaps the most criticized signing of the offseason – he has thus far done just that.
NEW YORK – For the second straight day, David Ortiz took a wrong turn, got lost in the kitchen, asked an attendant for directions and eventually found the field. He sighed. There was the familiar frieze, the 314-mark in right field. Ortiz knew what he had to do.
"I'm going to introduce myself to that fence," Ortiz told a Yankee Stadium usher. Big Papi then turned to a few observers and laughed. "You think it wants to meet me?" Ortiz wondered, grinning like an alligator that has just spied a guppy.
This was before Tuesday night's game against New York, before the Boston Red Sox added a two-game sweep of the Yankees to their three-game sweep last month in Boston. Ortiz never did say howdy to the fence in the Red Sox's 7-3 win – he's now gone 102 at-bats without a home run – but he was just a sub-plot in a remarkable pitching performance by the Yankees' Joba Chamberlain.
NEW YORK – Joba Chamberlain on Tuesday was once again dominant in relief.
The bad news for the Yankees, though, was that it was in relief of himself.
Chamberlain's outing in a 7-3 loss to the Red Sox provided fodder for the Joba-has-to-start crowd and gave plenty of ammunition to the Joba-in-relief lobby.
(And let's not be mistaken: There are two sides to this debate.)
Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain didn't have it very easy as a child. His mother, Jackie Standley, had problems with both alcohol and drugs and as a result, Joba was raised by his father. Of course, Joba's father didn't have things much better. Sure, he wasn't addicted to drugs, but he did have polio and a host of other maladies while Joba grew up.
Since Chamberlain reached prominence with the Yankees last season, his mother has made overtures that she'd like to get back into her son's life, and even has a shrine of sorts dedicated to him in her home. Well, I'm not so sure that Joba is going to want to give her another chance once he hears what she's been up to lately. Namely that whole selling meth to an undercover cop thing.
There are a plethora of two-start pitchers hurling in week five (Monday, May 4th - Sunday May 10th) of the fantasy baseball season. There are 58 total this week and you late sleepers are luck that all of the Monday games are night games. You won't need to set you lineups until 7:05 PM ET.
[Update: 7:48 AM ET] : Two games were rained out yesterday. The Mets and Phillies did not play and the Angels and Yankees were rained out as well. Here is the fallout from those two postponed games as it relates to two-start pitchers.
The season ends, and I get depressed. But the offseason still needs Dugouts, so I bust "A" and work hard to find stories and interesting situations for Dugouts throughout the offseason, when no baseball is occuring and everything is heresay and conjecture. Five months go by and we've done 2,000 Dugouts about (essentially) nothing. We keep saying, "Man, I can't wait until the season starts, and doing Dugouts will be easier!"
Then the season starts. Suddenly, it is three weeks later and we've been sitting on our butts loving baseball. We turn to our left, see our computer, go "OH CRAP THE DUGOUT" and spend the entire season making up for the first month we missed.
Oh, and I almost forgot: tonight's Dugout is after the jump.
FORMER BASEBALL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD -- There is a Subway Series this weekend.
Bad news for anyone headed to Pawtucket tonight to catch Chien-Ming Wang pitch against the Triple-A Red Sox. The Yankees have called the rehabbing starter back to the Bronx, and he'll be in uniform for the Yankees' game against the Phillies on Friday night. 
NEW YORK – For the second straight day, David Ortiz took a wrong turn, got lost in the kitchen, asked an attendant for directions and eventually found the field. He sighed. There was the familiar frieze, the 314-mark in right field. Ortiz knew what he had to do.
NEW YORK – Joba Chamberlain on Tuesday was once again dominant in relief.
Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain didn't have it very easy as a child. His mother, Jackie Standley, had problems with both alcohol and drugs and as a result, Joba was raised by his father. Of course, Joba's father didn't have things much better. Sure, he wasn't addicted to drugs, but he did have polio and a host of other maladies while Joba grew up.
This seriously happens to me every year.
