Anyone see the Twins' Mauer-less line-up last night? Mike Redmond, Jason Tyner and Nick Punto batted 7th through 9th with Alexi Casilla and Jason Bartlett batting one and two. Twins' GM Terry Ryan has plaudits raining down upon him, but isn't that 5/9s of a line-up an example of dereliction of GM duty? Isn't that worse than what Astros' GM Tim Purpura put out there?
Chase Utley went 3-5, hit his 18th HR and 42nd double, and drove in his 84th run in his return from a broken hand. With more than a month to go, the four weeks he missed will have absolutely no effect on his status as the elite 2B in baseball and as a mid-1st round pick in fantasy drafts in 2008.
The Yankees gave Mike Mussina a two-year/$23MM contract, and he appears to be done as a rotation mainstay. What makes it worse is the Average Annual Value is more than the disaster of a contract the Yankees gave Carl Pavano who may help the Yankees more in 2008 by not pitching than Mussina will by pitching.
With another scoreless inning, Giants' rookie reliever Brian Wilson has now thrown 9.2 innings without giving-up a run. Despite closer Brad Hennessey's success, the Giants need to let Wilson close in September to determine how many pitching options the team will have available for trade this coming off-season to acquire youth on the hitting side.
Fantasy Sports with Nate Ravitz at 11AM.
MLB with Rob Neyer at noon.
Fantasy Sports with Matthew Berry at 3PM.
NFL with Pro Football Weekly at 4PM.