Baseball

The Washington Nationals have 19 games remaining in the 2010 season.  If they win three of them, they will avoid losing 100 games for the third straight season.  It's little solace for Nats fans that harbored illusions of a wild-card berth when the team got off to a 20-15 start.

As fantasy leagues wind down and head into playoff mode, most owners generally have similar goals in mind at this juncture.

Some owners are right smack in the middle of a battle for playoff position while others are looking forward to next season and the opportunity to start over. What you can expect to find in this week’s edition is a smattering of young players trying to impress their club and hopefully cement a spot on next year’s big league team.

By the grace of God, the Reds won the series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, instead of losing it 2-1.

Out of 16 pitchers on the roster, is Coco Cordero the only one who can be entrusted to close a game?

 If so, we should just hand the Central Division trophy over to the Cardinals right now.

Let’s take a look at who had a big day and who didn’t yesterday:

Three Hot:

It’s time to look at the potential two-start options for the upcoming fantasy week.  If I have someone rated as a three, four or five-star option, they are someone I would definitely use.  A two-star option is someone who is borderline, but I’d strongly lean against it unless I have no other options.  The one-star options are an absolutely not scenario.

So, with that said, let’s take a look at the players available to you this week:

Five-Star Options:

Despite the struggles of the Los Angeles Dodgers throughout the 2010 season, two teams in their farm system, the Ogden Raptors and the Great Lakes Loons, recently completed record-breaking years and continue to battle in the playoffs in their respective leagues.

"It's not something I'm going to push at this point," Jay Bruce said Friday about his strained oblique. "I've taken the process this far. I'm going to see it through. When I come back, I want to be 100 percent ready to come back—not 90 percent, not 80 percent."

Read that real carefully.

Look at the calender, too. It points to September, and it has been a very productive year for the team, but by this point, no one is 100 percent.

Nine years ago, the entire world changed as 19 terrorists boarded four commercial jets and committed one of the works acts of violence in the world's history.

On tragic day, those terrorists flew two planes into the Twin Tower in New York City, another plane into the Pentagon and the final plane in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania that was believed to be targeted at hitting the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

Yankees' starter Andy Pettitte is inching closer to his return. If all goes according to plan, he could return right before a key series against the Rays in New York, exactly one month after going on the disabled list with an injured groin.

Pettitte threw a scoreless four innings in a minor league rehab start for Double-A Trenton on Thursday. The outing was pain free, a big step in the right direction.

One of the greatest moments in Yankee history occurred on October 8, 1956.  In fact, it is the only such accomplishment of its kind.  Don Larsen threw the only postseason no-hitter and perfect game in Major League Baseball history.  It was done in Game 5 of the World Series.