SAN FRANCISCO -- You know your team is having one of those magical seasons when an injury to your closer reveals that you had two all along.
Rockies closer Huston Street has been out since Sept. 1 with biceps tendinitis. That injury came just after the Giants swept the Rockies to pull into a tie for the wild-card lead.
In Street's absence, Franklin Morales has emerged as yet another pleasant surprise for upstart Colorado. He has converted all six of his save opportunities as the Rockies' wild-card lead has ballooned to 4 1/2 games heading into the start of a showdown series in San Francisco on Monday night.
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.
For about five months of the season, Diamondbacks outfielder Chris Young was a draft disaster. Those who picked him in fantasy leagues suffered through the nausea of a sub-.200 batting average and anemic power numbers. Where was the dude who hit 32 homers in 2007 and 22 in 2008? Absolutely nonexistent ... at least until the last four games.
Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel replaced Brad Lidge with Ryan Madson once before as the team's closer, but that was due to a Lidge injury. Now Lidge may be losing his job due to poor pitching.
On Tuesday night Lidge gave up a hit, walked one, let loose a wild pitch and hit a batter in the ninth inning while only recording one out. Manuel hopped out of the dugout and took the ball from Lidge, giving it to Madson with the bases loaded. Madson recorded his fifth save as he retired the next two batters, striking out one and ending the game with a ground ball to shortstop.
Manuel said later that he had no idea who would be the Phillies closer moving forward. He was only trying to win games.
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.
By now we all know of the greatness of San Francisco pitcher Tim Lincecum. He's the best pitcher in baseball this season, with a 2.34 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 233 strikeouts in 200 1/3 innings. But there's another hard-throwing young kid in the Giants organization that, like Lincecum, has a shot to be one of the league's best very quickly. He's a guy you want to burn that No. 1 waiver priority on, in case he sticks in the rotation for the rest of the season. He is Madison Bumgarner.
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.
It wasn't a good day to be a top-ten closer on Wednesday. Both Mariano Rivera and Huston Street are on the shelf for a few days.
After the game Wednesday night, the Yankees told the media that Rivera was unavailable due to tightness in his groin. The 39-year-old Rivera, who has battled this injury for a while, sat out the final game of the Baltimore series but feels that he'll be back to full duty after a few days of rest.
Street seems just as optimistic after being shut down indefinitely due to biceps tendinitis in his right arm. He hopes to test the arm this weekend. If all goes well he'll be back to action in short time.
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.
Big ups to Prez for taking the PR reigns over while I was off last week. But we're back in the saddle, fresh out of the All-Star break and ready to incite you with our rankings. Also, I should point out that this is, relatively speaking, the "home stretch." Where even the most minuscule of mini-streaks can change a team's fate. Or something like that. Anyway, let's go to the list, where we'll find out if an attack on Jack Nicholson by the Phanatic and the addition of Petey was enough to vault the Phillies into the top spot of the Week 16 MLB Power Rankings. Cue drumroll.
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 news that probably means a lot more to fantasy baseball players than real baseball fans -- with all due respect to the Pirates and their true fans -- Ryan Doumit is going to miss the next 8-10 weeks. He'll be undergoing wrist surgery and have some pins inserted. As fantasy owners, we must march on and look at how to replace the production of a very solid offensive catcher.
The first few days of the season are a great time for fantasy owners. We can enjoy a hot start for our team -- which obviously means a championship is on the way -- or we're stuck scouring the waiver wire for guys who have already shown they are going to be a stud all season long. Then, we remember Chris Shelton. In 2006, Shelton had 9 home runs and 17 RBI with a .471 average through 13 games. Thus, he is our namesake for Stud or Shelton.
Today, we'll check out a bevy of unheralded and/or maligned starting pitchers who have shown their true studly colors in their first start. Or have they? The lightning round of judgment follows the jump (because we heart lightning rounds).
It's not easy being a top prospect. Despite being only 23, many people probably recognize Franklin Morales' name because of his role in the Rockies' improbable run to the World Series in 2007. Last year, he bounced between Triple-A and the majors and mostly struggled at both levels. This was a bit disappointing to some, but given his age it wasn't all that discouraging.
He was all set to begin 2009 as part of the Colorado rotation and he had a decent spring when the Rockies traded for Jason Hammel right before the season started. That lead to an awkward situation Wednesday: he knew he was being demoted to Triple-A after an afternoon game against the Diamondbacks, so he went out and tossed six sparkling one-hit innings to pick up the win.
Trade talks between the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the rare teams with surplus pitching, and the Colorado Rockies have resumed, with an official with one of the teams telling FanHouse, "Something may happen this weekend."
The Rockies are in need of pitching. The Rays have not publicly decided between Jason Hammel and Jeff Niemann as their fifth starter, and the Rockies were known to have interest in Hammel last week.
SAN FRANCISCO -- You know your team is having one of those magical seasons when an injury to your closer reveals that you had two all along.
Phillies
Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
The first few days of the season are a great time for fantasy owners. We can enjoy a hot start for our team -- which obviously means a championship is on the way -- or we're stuck scouring the waiver wire for guys who have already shown they are going to be a stud all season long. Then, we remember 
It's not easy being a top prospect. Despite being only 23, many people probably recognize 
Trade talks between the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the rare teams with surplus pitching, and the Colorado Rockies have resumed, with an official with one of the teams telling FanHouse, "Something may happen this weekend."
