Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the MLB Playoffs with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, who currently serves as a studio analyst for TBS. TBS will be broadcasting all four Division Series and also the NLCS again this season. Ernie Johnson is the studio host while Dennis Eckersley and David Wells join Ripken as studio analysts for these playoff games.
Of all the things Ripken discussed Tuesday, the most intriguing subject, not surprisingly, was one Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod is an oft-maligned regular season superstar, in that he's put up extremely gaudy regular season numbers throughout his career, yet has never played in a World Series and has pretty sub-par numbers in the playoffs overall -- especially of late.
Terry Francona announced the Red Sox rotation for the series on Sunday as well. Jon Lester will take the ball in Game 1 to face Lackey, while Josh Beckett will start Game 2 followed by the young Clay Bucholz in Game 3. The question is, who will Boston's fourth starter be?
It was easy and obviously warranted to be worried about Jon Lester's health coming off his close encounter with a Melky Cabrera line drive last weekend in New York. The fact remains, however, that Lester was rocked for eight hits in less than three innings of work before the line drive even came into play.
In other words, going into Thursday night's start against Cleveland, there was more than his health to monitor.
The Boston southpaw brought his power stuff against the Yankees, but his mechanics and command betrayed him. Lester generates a great deal of his velocity with torso rotation, but he also has to be careful to stay closed long enough to command his pitches.
NEW YORK -- With this weekend's Red Sox-Yankees series serving as a possible ALCS preview (although it would be folly to assume that), Boston came in with the edge in the category that matters most: starting pitching.
Friday's game may have closed the gap some, and nearly did dramatically.
As Joba Chamberlain turned in his best effort since July, giving the Yankees reason to believe they have a capable No. 4 starter if they reach the second round, the Red Sox had to spend a few moments wondering if power lefty Jon Lester will be available for the playoffs after he was writhing on the mound in the third inning.
But Boston "dodged a big blow there," as left fielder Jason Bay said after the Yankees' 9-5 victory.
NEW YORK -- The Red Sox seem to have survived a scare Friday when lefty Jon Lester was diagnosed with a bruised quadricep after taking a line drive off his right leg.
With Lester and Josh Beckett, the Sox looked to have the top 1-2 starting punch in the AL playoffs and the deepest starting corps. The Boston Herald reported Friday that Boston had already chosen Lester to start Game 1 of the AL Division Series, so losing him would be a major blow.
Lester was hit by a Melky Cabrera shot, just above the knee. After staying on the ground for a few minutes, Lester was able to hobble off the field and into the clubhouse.
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.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That Justin Verlander and the Tigers are pretty tough.
They spotted the Orioles five runs Monday in the top of the first inning but somehow came back to win, 6-5, on Clete Thomas' ninth-inning home run.
"I've never hit a walk-off homer before - not at any level," he said. "When I was rounding first and realized it had gone out, I didn't know how to react. It feels better than you even think it will -- and that's something you always dream of doing."
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Heading into 2009, here's what we thought we knew about Rich Harden: Absolutely lights out stuff, but can't be counted on to stay healthy consistently. In 2008, he went 10-2 with a 2.07 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP and 181 strikeouts in 148 innings. Those are elite numbers on a per-start basis. The problem, of course, is that he only made 25 starts. In 2007, he had a 2.45 ERA, but only pitched 25 2/3 innings.
Until Monday night, 2009 had been quite surprising from the 27-year-old right-hander.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That talk about maple bats has died down since last year, but the problem is still there. For proof, look at what nearly happened to Red Sox shortstop Nick Green during Wednesday night's game. The Nationals' Elijah Dukes shattered his bat on a swing, with the pieces of the bat and the ball heading simultaneously toward Green.
Green managed to avoid both. The ball got into the outfield for a hit, but the threat to Green was apparent when the shattered barrel of Dukes bat stuck in the ground like a stake near Green.
"It's scary to see a bat go flying that far," pitcher Jon Lester said. "I thought they did some research this offseason to try to figure that stuff out, but obviously we've still got a long ways to go. You've got to take cover. It's a tough play to make when you've got a bat head flying at you looking to take your head off."
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."
Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the MLB Playoffs with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, who currently serves as a studio analyst for TBS. TBS will be broadcasting all four Division Series and also the NLCS again this season. Ernie Johnson is the studio host while Dennis Eckersley and David Wells join Ripken as studio analysts for these playoff games. 
While we're not going to know who the 
It was easy and obviously warranted to be worried about 
NEW YORK -- With this weekend's 
NEW YORK -- The Red Sox seem to have survived a scare Friday when lefty 
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Starting Five
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Starting Five
