Baseball

Game No. 11 in our journey to score 162 games this baseball season featured the Brewers and Cubs in an exciting finish at Wrigley Field.

Previous Fantasy Baseball Insiders Tonight updates:

A win is a win.

The baseball season isn't yet two weeks old, but there has been a flurry of activity already in bullpens across the country.

In the past three days, four closers have been either demoted or placed on the disabled list, prompting four new pitchers to become must-adds for fantasy baseball players everywhere.

The coveted saves category can make-or-break a fantasy baseball season and if you were paying attention this week, you just might have begun your rise to the top of the fantasy baseball mountain.

Here's the situation as it stands now for four teams:

If you look at the box score for Wednesday night's game in Toronto, the White Sox starting nine, plus a few pinch hitters, are batting .227 as a team.

While I know that seems low, to me it shows promise.

In Saturday's loss to the Minnesota Twins the team was only batting .186, a good 40 points lower.

Don’t look now, but David Price might have found his way in the major leagues. 

After keeping the Yankees in check for more than seven innings in his first start, Price dominated the Orioles for more than seven innings in his second.  He gave up just one run and struck out seven O’s while walking just two on his way to his second win in two starts.  

Miguel Montero will have the surgery on his injured knee and will miss the next four to six weeks.  It has been determined by his second opinion that Montero does not have torn ligaments in his knee.  This is great news for Montero owners as there was a fear that he would miss months, not weeks.  Chris Snyder will fill in for Montero. 

"I can't think of a player who contributes in so many ways...David embodies what we want a Red Sox player to be.  It was just an easy decision for us that David as a player and David as a person is someone we want to commit to and commit to for a long time." - Theo Epstein, April 11, 2006.  

Today, late in the ballgame, Adam Everett was due up in a key RBI situation for the Tigers. Since offense isn’t exactly Adam’s specialty, Jim Leyland looked to his bench for a pinch hitter.

Who did he turn to? Was it young Alex Avila, who with one swing of the bat could have potentially turned the tide for the Tigers? Was it the experienced Ramon Santiago, who while will never be confused with Barry Bonds, has put together his share of key hits over the years?

The Mets' pitching rotation is their biggest key to their season.  Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, and John Maine are all key players for the Mets this year.  If two of those three pitchers have solid years then that will deeply help the team. 

As of now, two of those guys performed while the other didn't.  Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez both had good first starts.  On the other hand, John Maine's first two starts have been a mess.

There has been a lot of talk in the streets, on talk radio, and on the interwebs today about John Maine and whether or not the Mets should keep him in the rotation.

If you read my article from earlier today, you know that I would like to see Maine get at least one more start, so I won’t get into that again.

What we should talk about is if Maine is removed from the rotation, who would take his place?