Local Sports?

I'm writing this week from a hotel room in rain-soaked Orlando. Tropical Storm Fay is appropriately named. With the historic amounts of rain she's dumping on eastern and central Florida, Fay makes me think of the late Tammy Faye Bakker/Messner welling up and splashing her mascara all over her face.

What makes me want to cry tonight, or at least blog, is the nature of the local sports scene here in Orlando. The local TV guy on the NBC station (I didn't catch his name) just ran a ton of olympic highlights but didn't run a single play of baseball. The first-place Rays played the first-place Angels just a couple of hours down the interstate from here. Where was the coverage? Not even a couple of game highlights? I understand there's a tropical storm, but they still played baseball. You should get something out of St. Petersburg tonight. The Marlins, who are in the playoff hunt, were several innings into their game in San Francisco. No love for them, either. What gives? I get your station thinks the Olympics matter because they're an NBC affiliate, but I'm guessing local sports matter to the locals, too. Figure it out.

The unimportant milestone of the day brought to you by...

MLB.com! A story from baseball's website talks about Derek Jeter tying Roger Maris on the Yankees all-time home run list. Maris, who belted 61 in 1961 (conspiracy theorists never read into 61 in '61 - why not!?) to set a new Major League record, only ended up with 203 for his career. That's not very many. In fact, when Jeter was asked about tying Maris for 11th on the Yankees list, even he wasn't impressed.

"I guess I'm a home run hitter now, right?" Jeter said with a smile. "No, I don't hit too many. They're few and far between."

This sort of thing deserves a blurb in the game notes, not a full story.

Dear Terry Francona,

It is time to remove Clay Buchholz from your rotation. He's terrible. At 2-9 it looks like he's pitching for the Washington Nationals, not the contending Boston Red Sox. Maybe Boston won't contend much longer if he continues to start.

Unlikely duel

The wind blew in from center, and Bronson Arroyo and Ted Lilly both took advantage. Both worked seven innings, but the Reds starter gave up just one run to Lilly's two in an unlikely pitchers duel at Wrigley. 2-1 the final.

Fantasy Impact: These are two of the most enigmatic fantasy pitchers around. They mix great and terrible starts, and their worst stuff can ruin your fantasy staff's entire week. Avoid them, unless you see a good match up.

Rare Jair

Jair Jurrjens continues to struggle to win games. Even when he pitches well the Braves rookie right-hander can't seem to do enough to win, but tonight he struggled mightily early. With five runs in the first, four of them earned, Jurrjens allowed the Mets to sprint by and never look back. Jurrjens pitched only five innings. He's now won once since July 25th.

On the others side Mike Pelfrey went the distance, allowing three runs. He's now 12-8. David Wright hit his 24th home run.

Swatting the Nats

I'm going on record as the first person to say the Washington Nationals will lose exactly 107 games this year. That's 55-107, or just 11 more wins the rest of the way. Just a hunch.

My, My, Myers

Brett Myers continues his impressive run. The Phillies resurgent starter goes a full nine innings, striking out nine, beating the Nationals 4-0. Yes, this is the Nationals. Yes, this is at home, but it's also impressive. After a loss at the Mets on June 23, Myers ERA was 5.82. Now, after five quality starts, it's down to 4.71.

Fantasy Impact: Myers was on the fantasy scrapheap in many leagues, which tells you how frustrating the talented pitcher has been this year. If he's still available, scoop him up. There's still a chance your league got tired of charting his poor performances and missed the recent brilliance.

Just another win

Manny Parra looked terrible, but he got the win. Rickie Weeks scored three runs in one official at bat. Bill Hall, in for the slow-to-heal Ryan Braun, struck out four times in four at bats. JJ Hardy hit home run number 19. Otherwise it was a pretty ho-hum day for the Brewers, who beat Houston, 5-2.

Fantasy Impact: You have to like Hardy at short. He runs hot and cold, but at a position where you don't expect a ton of production after the top three or four players, he's a pretty gifted player. Drop Bill Hall, and hope Braun is back to form in time for September.

Diamondbacks consider multiple moves

This article covers everything, including all the machinations of the potential D'backs moves, but here's the summary:

1. Juston Upton returns from the DL to play right field.
2. Adam Dunn moves from right field to lieft field.
3. Conor Jackson returns from left field to first base.
4. Chad Tracy crosses the diamond from first to third.
5. Mark Reynolds goes from third to second base for injured Orlando Hudson.

I'm exhausted. This might work.

Fantasy Impact: Considering Reynolds can hit tons of home runs, his value at second would make a big impact. That is, only if he can avoid one of his dramatic slumps.

Atlanta hot on Glavine

Tom Glavine not only doesn't have ligament damage in his injured elbow, he also wants to return next year. Glavine, however, only wants to return to Atlanta, and manager Bobby Cox is on board.

“We’ll see what happens afterward,” manager Bobby Cox said Wednesday. “I hope so. Before he got hurt he was pitching lights out.”

The only way I see Glavine back in Atlanta next year is if the Braves are rebuilding. He's really getting up there in age and can't be considered reliable anymore. Atlanta looks terrible right now, so maybe that's the case.

Umps jump on board

It sounds like the umpires got a chance to review how replay will work, and they liked it. That was fast.

Twins, Sox win

Chasing the White Sox by a game in the A.L. Central, Minnesota edged Oakland, 3-1 on Wednesday. The White Sox followed with a 15-3 pasting of Seattle.

There's been a lot made of the Twins' chances recently, but I must say I'm not of the opinion that they'll be hanging around much longer. Minnesota has no pop. They're near the bottom of the league in home runs and slugging, and although Francisco Liriano is back, their pitching staff is pretty average outside of closer Joe Nathan. I'll be surprised if they're within 4 games of the White Sox by season's end. They just can't keep the pace.

Giants awfully small at third

Now that the Giants have dealt Jose Castillo to Houston, here's a recent article addressing their potential options at the position. Good luck, San Francisco. This is a mess.

Fantasy Impact: No thank you on Giants third basemen until next year.

Castillo to Houston

The Astros make another underwhelming move, acquiring Jose Castillo from the Giants. With Ty Wigginton in the outfield, Castillo's got a shot to play third base.

Fantasy Impact: Castillo is unimpressive at the plate, especially for a corner infielder, but he's in a better lineup now, so keep an eye on him in case he warms a bit down the stretch. He can be a stopgap if he improves a bit.

Pumping umps

Umpires voiced their concerns over instant replay by not using their voice at all, ditching a conference call with MLB. Baseball needs an agreement with the union in order to implement replay. Umpires are upset with procedural issues.

"Major League Baseball needs to step up to the plate and iron out these issues."

Considering that other sports like football and basketball have been using replay for many years now, baseball's been hasty about implementing the system this year. It's not like they couldn't do this in the previous offseason, or even years before, and they better make sure everyone and everything is right before moving forward. It's a good thing that umps want to get things right before baseball saddles itself with a potential problem. Give umps credit for taking pause here.