FanHouse Rafael Perez

Every Sunday, MLB FanHouse empties out its notebook in Baseball Brunch.

The most remarkable thing about this season as we hit the not-halfway halfway point of the All-Star break isn't Albert Pujols' RBI total. Or Zack Greinke's ERA. Or the PED suspension of one of the game's biggest stars.

It's the standings. And they not only reflect the season so far, they give us a clue as to the weeks head leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline.

The Phillies and Dodgers are the only first-place team with a lead of more than 2 1/2 games. And 21 of the 30 teams are within 7 1/2 games of a playoff spot: nine of 14 in the AL and 12 of 16 in the NL.

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.

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Team that should have more doctors on staff. Lofty expectations turned sour when major keys to the Indians lineup went down with injury in 2008. Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, Fausto Carmona, and Jake Westbrook all lost significant time to various maladies. The health and or hasty return of these guys, and the continued health of Kerry Wood are crucial to the Indians having any success in 2009.

After the first five completed series in this post-season saw the losing team in the series win exactly one game, we've finally got a match-up that's living up to the hype. The Indians and Red Sox both won 96 games in the regular season and now they're playing toe-to-toe in the ALCS. Tonight's Game 6 features a guy who will go to the Hall of Fame based on his post-season resume, Curt Schilling, and the young Fausto Carmona, ace #1B in the Indians rotation. Neither pitched well in Game 2, though both were awesome in their respective division series.

Anyways, Fenway will be rocking tonight as the Red Sox try extend their season one more day and the Indians try to avoid the daunting task of playing at Game 7 at Fenway. This is by far the biggest game of this October, so follow along after the jump for the liveblog of the festivities, the McCarverisms, and the game, because games like tonight's are the reason that we all watch baseball all year.

Since the playoffs have started, Joe Borowski has been getting knocked by just about everyone with an opinion. When I picked the Indians to win the World Series, my fellow 'Housers screamed "WITH BOROWSKI?!?" Tony Gwynn was incredulous that Eric Wedge brought him in to close out game 4. Bill Simmons and Slate are piling on mercilessly today and I could probably furnish 100 more links if I really wanted to. But instead, let's look at Borowski's 2007 and see if it was really all that bad.

First off, he's a relief pitcher. He only pitched 65 and 2/3 innings this year. That means that his high ERA (5.07) could easily be inflated by a couple of bad outings, like, say the two outings in April and May when Borowski gave up six and four runs in less than an inning. Since May 13th, the four run outing that raised his ERA to 9.00, Borowski's line has looked like this: 3.91 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 40 Ks, 10 BB, all in 50 and 2/3 innings. It's not fantastic, but it's certainly passable or better. Another way to look at it is to compare the Indians' record in games Borowski has appeared in to the other closers left in the playoffs. The Tribe is 58-11 when Borowski takes the mound. The D'Backs are 54-11 when Jose Valverde takes the mound while the Red Sox are 50-9 with Jonathan Papelbon on the mound.

Yes, they're both better relievers than Borowski and I'm not arguing that. Keep in mind that Eric Wedge hasn't used Borowski for more than an inning all year while Rafael Betancourt has made 25 multiple inning appearances and Rafael Perez has 26. That suggests to me that Wedge pretty clearly knows the limits of his closer. So long as Wedge keeps using Borowski like he did during the season and in the ALDS and not like the Red Sox used Keith Foulke in 2004, I think all of the Borowski dumping could well turn out to be much ado about nothing.