FanHouse ToriiHunter

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That on the right night the minor leagues can be awfully interesting, even for someone who doesn't care at all about minor league baseball. Manny Ramirez batted leadoff Tuesday night for the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes, playing four innings and going 0-for-2 in his first rehab game since being suspended 50 games for a violation of Major League Baseball's drug policy.

Ramirez faced former Brewers starting pitcher Manny Parra in both at-bats. Parra, now pitching for the Nashville Sounds, is trying to work his way back to the majors as well after a woeful couple of months in the Milwaukee rotation. He went 3-8 with a 7.52 ERA in 13 starts there before getting demoted, but he was the hard-luck loser against Albuquerque, tossing seven innings of one-run ball. The Brewers could use another effective starter, that much is certain.

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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.

So, quick apology on my part: the Power Rankings were supposed to go live Wednesday, but things happened, I'm a jerkstore, excuses, etc., and here we are. It's not Wednesday! So please note that the records reflect Wednesday -- not Thursday, not Friday, not Saturday. Don't freak out in the comments and call me names. Please. I can't take that in my fragile emotional state right now. I might turn into Raul Ibanez, at which point I would yell at you and then strain my groin. And that wouldn't be good for anyone.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Angels center fielder Torii Hunter, an early MVP candidate, was injured Monday night crashing into the center field fence at AT&T Park on an attempted catch.

X-rays of his right rib cage were normal. Hunter suffered a contusion to his ribs. He'll be re-evaluated on Tuesday.

"I'm a little sore," Hunter said. "That's the hardest I've hit the wall in a long time. ... I'll be all right. I'm not going on the DL. I don't think I'll play [Tuesday]. But I'll be back by Friday."

If Hunter is out for any length of time, the Angels would be without their best offensive player. Hunter was hitting .319 with 16 homers and 51 RBI, the latter two both team highs.

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

I think we can all agree that it's far too early to start voting upon who the best 2009 players are when it's only the middle of May. That being said, there are certainly some shining stars at this point who deserve some props. Plus, Major League Baseball recently released their All-Star ballots for our voting pleasure -- we vote on who will start the All-Star Game. If that's not important, I don't know what is. Let's take a gander.

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

If we define MVP (and let's face it, the definition is always subjective) as the player who came through when his team needed him most, then the AL MVP for April was Torii Hunter.

With cleanup hitter Vladimir Guerrero out with a strained pectoral muscle, Hunter moved up from fifth in the order to fourth – and hit eight homers in the month, 40 percent of the team's total and one shy of the franchise record for April.

Categorically Speaking is designed specifically for Rotisserie GM's. The information is great for all fantasy baseball formats, but for those of you who could use some help bolstering a specific roto category, this is for you. We're going to pay close attention to players who might be readily available on your waiver wire or who you might target in non-blockbuster trade talks.

So, your fantasy baseball team isn't doing so well, huh? We've all been there. Either your hitters are all cold at the same time or your pitchers are getting shelled. Nothing seems to be going right.

Look at the bright side. It's only the end of April. There are five good, solid months left for your team to recover. And, one of the ways to try and make that recovery is to focus on rotisserie categories that you may be deficient in.

If you know that you're getting killed in runs scored but doing well in the other categories, then it may be time to find some run scorers without hurting your other stat categories. The same can be said for each of the stat categories your league uses.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
Micah Owings has no intentions of pulling a Babe Ruth.

So far this year, Owings is 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA as a pitcher and batting .400 as a hitter – including the game-winning double Sunday for the Reds. His pinch hit broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning, and Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News isn't alone in wondering if maybe a Cincinnati team batting .210 overall could use his bat more than a few times a week.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the folks who picked Zack Greinke as a darkhorse Cy Young candidate are feeling pretty good right now. Greinke ran his scoreless innings streak to 34, dating back to last season, with a shutout of the Rangers in Arlington, the first of his career.

Greinke's streak is the longest in Royals history, but it's not the record. Baseball rules say that scoreless innings streaks must be in the same season. Kevin Appier had a 33-inning streak in 1993.

Greinke is the first pitcher since Woody Williams in 2003 to start the season with three consecutive scoreless starts. Greinke has pitched 20 scoreless innings this season.

He became the first Royals pitcher to pitch a shutout at Texas since Bud Black in 1985.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- A series full of drama and emotion got a little more entertaining today, when Josh Beckett whistled a ball past Bobby Abreu's head, inciting a bench-clearing incident that resulted in four Angels getting ejected.

Even after it was all over and the Angels had pulled out another dramatic 5-4 victory, taking two of three in the series, there were some unhappy folks in the winning clubhouse.

"That was as flagrant as anything I've seen in this game, and it's unfortunate," said manager Mike Scioscia, who had to watch the last eight innings of the game on television after he got the boot.

On Sunday the Angels broke some news to Gary Matthews Jr. that most outside observers could see coming. Matthews Jr. was told he's going to be the team's fifth outfielder/DH on the depth chart behind Torii Hunter, Vladimir Guerrero, Bobby Abreu, and Juan Rivera. Matthews looked better this spring, coming off of knee surgery, and was hitting .258 with two homers and nine runs driven in, and more importantly, he looked to be at full speed while running the bases.

So he was hoping that his recovery and decent performance would be enough to get him some playing time this season, but it won't be. After he was told the news, Matthews wasn't exactly happy about it and asked the team if he could leave for 24 hours to cool off.