Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... Jamie Moyer can still win games.
Moyer bristled when the Phillies demoted him to the bullpen in favor of Pedro Martinez, and when a rain delay Tuesday forced Martinez from his start against the Diamondbacks, Moyer took over when play resumed in the fourth inning for his first outing since the decision.
He went the rest of the way, allowing two hits and striking out five in six scoreless innings and earning his first relief win since May 15, 1996, for the Red Sox. (That day he worked two innings in relief of Tom Gordon.)
Let's start with his 7.2 innings of work on the mound. Wolf gave up three earned runs and five hits. But he struck out an amazing ten batters while walking none. And this isn't the first good outing for Wolf in a while. In fact, quite the opposite.
If you take out the four earned run game on August 6th against Atlanta, you have to go all the way back to June 24th to find another day where Wolf didn't provide the Dodgers with a quality start. Nine of his last ten outings have been quality starts and he's sporting a 3.13 ERA over that time. He only has four wins to show for it, but that sounds like a run support issue and not a dig on Wolf.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Ryan Ludwick scuffled early this season, which was a sign to many about how much of a fluke his huge 2008 season was. Through June 29, Ludwick was hitting just .227 with a .718 OPS. Last season, he hit .299 with a .966 OPS in his career year, with a whopping 37 home runs and 113 RBI. Many thought it was an outlier, but he had never gotten a chance to play everyday in the majors until then.
In July, he's heating up and showing that he is no fluke.
ATLANTA -- Nobody has ever argued the fact that Bobby Cox is a smart baseball guy. But how could he have known that the Braves bats would come alive like this?
Sitting in his office after Thursday night's game, a game which marked the return of baseball from the All-Star break and the return of Jeff Francoeur to Atlanta, in a Mets uniform, Cox said, "I think the hitting you're going to see in the second half is a lot better than the first half."
If you include Thursday's game, the Braves have scored 24 runs in their four games since the break, all against the Mets. They've also averaged 10.25 hits per game and hit six home runs in their three victories (and one loss) against New York.
"I looked at the schedule and I think we have 35 games in the second half between the Mets, Phillies and the Marlins." said Derek Lowe who pitched in Thursday's 5-3 win.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
With Chris Davis safely tucked away in Triple-A Oklahoma City, Andruw Jones feels that he deserves more at-bats for the Texas Rangers. The way he's been hitting over the last month proves his point.
Jones belted three home runs on Wednesday and has 11 RBI and five home runs over his last four games.
Over the course of the past month, Jones has hit nine homers and driven in 19 runs. If his batting average were higher than .224 over that time period Jones would really be forcing the hand of Rangers' management. As it sits right now, Jones will see more playing time at DH, but may not see every-day at-bats, yet.
"He swung the bat well against Tampa Bay," manager Ron Washington said. "He's swinging the bat very well right now. It doesn't mean he'll be in there [Friday]. He may or may not be. But he's productive right now and I'm going to play him as much as I possibly can."
The Atlanta Braves have announced that struggling second baseman, Kelly Johnson has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with tendinitis in his right wrist.
This is the second piece of bad news Johnson has received this week. After Tuesday night's game, Bobby Cox announced that Martin Prado would take over as the starting second baseman for the Braves. Johnson, who is hitting .214 this season in 234 at-bats, has been mired in an awful 9-for-74 slump. Johnson's overall poor hitting, especially his .174 average against right-handed pitchers, combined with Prado's recent success forced Cox to rule out a platoon situation and give the job outright to Prado.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
In yesterday's Rush, we mentioned that Gordon Beckham is heating up and that the power would come. As if right on cue, he posted a 4-2-3-2 line in the box score. That is 4 at-bats, 3 hits, 2 runs and 2 RBI, for those box score challenged. One of the hits was a home run. Beckham went through some predictable growing pains when he was first called up the majors, but he's since raised his on-base percentage to .353. His OPS is 1.396 in his last five games. It's time to keep your eyes on him in all fantasy leagues. There's a reason he was in the majors less than a year after he was drafted.
Sunday, Francoeur decided to tempt fate, announcing that he would wear his lucky underwear for the first time in back-to-back games. On Tuesday (the Braves were off on Monday), the world was going to see just how powerful this lucky charm was for Francoeur and the Braves. However, tragedy struck.
Running late to get to Turner Field, Francoeur returned to his home to find his underwear wet and still in the washing machine. Instead of waiting for the dryer to runs its course, Francoeur left for the game wearing normal undergarments.
Not long ago, PostmanR brought to you the amazing bat control of Martin Prado. If you watch the video of Prado's bat land on its end after hitting a foul ball, you'll hear Mets announcer Keith Hernandez (of "I'm Keith Hernandez" fame), say that would never happen in 100 years.
This young ballplayer sure tried to make it happen again ... on purpose!
It almost looks like the bat lands on it's end after the kid kicks it a couple of times, but he probably cradles it at the very end. Nevertheless, that's some mean bat control there. Amazingly, it took this guy two tries to do that ... two! How many thousands of times would it take you and me?
This is just ... not very likely to ever happen again. Ever. During a Mets-Braves game last week, Martin Prado grounded out, let go of his bat and it stood upright.
I think this caused a ripple in the space-time continuum or something. Stephen Hawking, are you available for comment?
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
ATLANTA -- Nobody has ever argued the fact that 
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
The Atlanta Braves have announced that struggling second baseman, 
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
We've all heard by now that 
