I’d like to dedicate this opening paragraph to one of our 2008 faves Mark ‘Mini-Donkey’ Reynolds as he reached 200 Ks and is poised to shatter the previous record of 205 Ks set by the very same Mark Reynolds last year. (Luckily, he’s also shattering his record for Runs, HRs, RBIs, and SBs too.) We are tempted to call up MLB to ask how much it would cost to sponsor a Razzball Windmill of the Year Award. It’s got to be hard to fail that much and still have the overall success that Reynolds is having this year. It’s like that guy in the bar who comes onto 10 girls out of his league and then scores with the 11th. You have to be impressed with his triumph but the 10 failures are, in their own way, more impressive. Anyway, kudos to the Grand Diamondhack and onto the rest of what’s going on…
Derek Lowe – D-Lowe forfeited a favorable start tonight when he left after two innings (and 3 ER) with a blister on his ring finger. Luckily the blister isn’t on his little finger or his thumb or he’d really be in dire straits.
Gavin Floyd – He saw D-Lowe’s 2 inning start and saw him one inning better before leaving with a bad hip. A 4th inning might’ve qualified him for a Win…..if you used the Joba Rules. Decent chance he’s toast for the season so don’t waver to waiver.
Hideki Matsui – Hit his 25th HR of the season as part of a Yankee win. I would’ve thought Matsui would’ve needed to move back to one of those glorified Little League stadiums they have in Japan to ever clear 25 HR again. Luckily the Yanks built one instead.
Ian Stewart – Returned after missing most of the last week with a bad back to hit a 2-run HR. He’s now 7-for-30 in September with 5 HRs and 14 Ks. He’d be a 50 HR threat if they ever triple the size of the ball or the bat barrel.
Jonny Gomes – Hit his 20th HR of the season in 254 ABs. Incidentally, that’s 2 more than Jay Bruce, 18 more than Chris Dickerson, and 19 more than Willy Taveras. Hitters moving from the AL to the NL must feel like that kid whose birthday fell a day after the Little League cutoff and got to play an extra year.
Francisco Rodriguez & Brian Fuentes – The former and current Angel closers continue to bedevil fantasy owners with blown saves last night – adding to their already 5.00+ ERAs in the second half. Like a bunch of Latin Lidges. If they are still available in your league, lock in their backups – Kevin Jepsen for the Angels and…um…uh…never mind on the Mets.
Franklin Morales – Closing the circle of blown saves, the interim closer of Fuentes’ former employer gave up 3 ER in the final inning of a 4-0 game. Kazaam!
Roy Oswalt – Being shut down for the season due to lingering back issues. Half price sale on Astros.com for “Roy & Wandy then starve our chances of winning like Ghandi” T-Shirts!
Braden Looper – Improved his record to 13-6 for the Brew Crew despite a near 5.00 ERA. Manny Parra is 10-10 with a 6.42 ERA. Parra is obviously just about 1 1/2 earned runs per game from being a dominant pitcher.
Bartolo Colon – Cleansed from the ChiSox roster today. If I was Vince McMahon, I’d sign him and Sidney Ponson as a tag team christened as the Piñatas.
