FanHouse VictorMartinez

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.

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

"This concludes our test of the emergency attendance enhancement system. We now return to the regularly scheduled season."

Yes, the 13th season of interleague play wraps up Sunday, except for a Cubs-White Sox makeup game. We have survived six San Diego-Seattle games (that's more zeroes than an A-Rod paycheck).

We didn't learn much we didn't already know: the system has inherent flaws and the American League rules.

For the sixth straight year, the AL has had** the better record in interleague play – 129-108 going into today.

Take out Cleveland and Oakland, and the AL is 119-84.

"It probably is" as big a gap between leagues as in past years, one AL team official said, "until you get to the World Series. Then it doesn't matter."

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

You Oughta Know ...
That Ichiro Suzuki has another hitting streak going. Suzuki singled in his first at-bat on Saturday and ran his hitting streak to 23 consecutive games. Since Ichiro got to the big leagues in 2001, this is his seventh hitting streak of at least 20 games.

In that time, no one else in the majors has had more than two streaks of that length.

"It's not a fluke that a guy like that has consistency in his game," Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said. "He's so strong mentally that you see the exact same approach day in and day out with him. Even if he does struggle a little bit, he seems to find a way to get either an infield hit, hit the ball the other way or pull the ball. So he has a lot of weapons, and obviously the ability to still run at his age allows him to do that."

Here's what's weird though. Although Ichiro has gotten to 20 seven times, he's never gotten past 25, the franchise record he set in 2007. Fifteen players have had hitting streaks of 26 games or more during that time.

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

You Oughta Know ...
That there were two particularly thrilling games Monday -- of totally different ilk.

The Cardinals and Brewers, who entered the game tied for first in the NL Central, played a classic pitchers' duel. St. Louis' Chris Carpenter (0.00 ERA in 23 innings this season) took a perfect game to the seventh, but Yovani Gallardo matched the zeros. Then Milwaukee scored a run off Kyle McClellan in the bottom of the 10th to win 1-0.

Later, the Indians rallied from a 10-run deficit against the Rays, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the ninth for an 11-10 win. Cleveland benefited from five walks in the ninth inning, including three straight by Jason Isringhausen before Victor Martinez snapped a 0-for-18 slide with the game-winning, two-run single.

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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.

While it's entirely possible the Blue Jays do hit a snag, isn't it about time columnists across the internet stopped doing Can the Blue Jays Really Keep This Up? pieces by now? I've seen at least 10 in the past three weeks. There are almost as many The Rangers Are For Real posts. The discrepancy in the media's faith in those two is likely due to the divisions in which the teams reside, but seven weeks isn't a small sample. At some point, you have to start giving credit where it's due.

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.

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.

What a zany week for a pair of pitchers with amazing stories: Zack Greinke is America's favorite story right now, somehow managing to be hotter than Twitter. (And if Oprah starts doing him too, I'm just quitting. And I mean everything.) Meanwhile, Rick Ankiel (you may hear word of this "podcast" we're doing about him, but that's because I'm shameless like that), a former star on the mound as well, nearly decapitates himself running into an outfield wall. And yet, life goes on. Just like our Power Rankings.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

The days where boos rained down upon Kosuke Fukudome seem like a distant memory.

Through nine games on the new season, the formerly-embattled center fielder is batting .375 with three homers, eight RBI, six runs and a steal for good measure. Compare that to his rookie campaign, where he only managed 10 big knocks in 501 at-bats. Should we believe in this new and improved Fukudome, or is it only a matter of time before fans are ripping him to shreds again?

After Cliff Lee got rocked on Opening Day, it's hard to blame him for being in a bit of a bad mood afterward. You work hard all offseason to get yourself ready for the new season, and then after your team gives you the honor of taking the mound in the first game, you go out and give up seven runs in five innings as your team gets pasted. It's not much fun.

Still, that's no reason to go out and blame your teammates for your performance afterward, which is what a lot of people thought Lee did to Victor Martinez on Monday. Lee said that none of it would have happened if Martinez "lays out and is able to catch that ball."

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.

Meet the...
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.