Schilling done for year

So apparently Curt Schiling is out for the year. Not very surprising, but very intriguing considering the state of the Boston pitching staff. A group comprised of a very solid Josh Beckett, a soon-returning Daisuke Matsuzaka, an emerging Jon Lester and Tim Wakefield is still trying to fill out the number five spot. Justin Masterson has been solid in that role, and he looks to stay in the rotation as long as Bartolo Colon is out.

Fantasy Impact: It will be interesting to see what the Red Sox do when Colon is eligible to pitch again in just over a week. Even if Masterson struggles, Clay Buchholz has been dominating in the minors, and was in Boston's rotation to begin the year. The Red Sox have three capable pitchers for Schilling's spot and shouldn't miss much other than Schilling's leadership.

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Rays amusing to musings

David Pinto at baseballmusings.com has analyzed the Tampa Bay Rays and believes they're for real.

While the Rays have been rumored to trade for aging Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who apparently has a home in Orlando, Pinto suggests another Reds outfielder is in Tampa's sights.

If you look at the aggregate offensive numbers of the fielding positions, the Rays have a good chance to improve run scoring. Leftfield, rightfield and designated hitter are three positions that could be upgraded in a trade, and DH should be the easiest of those to fill. Doesn't Adam Dunn fill that spot nicely?

Fantasy Impact: Dunn makes more sense than Griffey. He's younger, and he makes a bigger impact at this point in his career. If he goes to Tampa, he'll continue to produce -- unless he has a tough time adjusting to American League pitching -- which he's never seen on a consistent basis.

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Rangers return to D.C.

I'm not one for nostalgia, but the Dallas Morning News is all over the return of the Texas Rangers' (former Washington Senators) to our nation's capital. It's a pretty detailed account and worth a read.

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Justin Upton looking up

Justin Upton, who entered Thursday hitting .083 in June, went 2-3 with a game-winning homer to propel Arizona past Oakland 2-1. The solo shot was Upton's ninth of the year, but just his first of the month. His two hits almost equaled his previous three in June.

Fantasy Impact: It's hard to believe Upton is not yet 21. He played beyond his years over the first two months of the season, but is now looking like many 20-year-olds would at the MLB level. To his credit, Upton's OBP haD slipped just 10 points during the prolonged slump, and his slugging percentage dipped just 60 points -- and that was before Thursday's breakout. Upton has been patient and still hits the ball with authority when he makes contact. He's more likely than not to come around.

Before the slump: .275 AVG, .369 OBP, .487 SLG
After Thursday: .250 AVG, .365 OBP, .447 SLG

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Russell muscles up with greatness

Brewers third baseman Russell Branyan is defying his own career statistics, which say he's not very good. Branyan hit his 10th home run of the season on Thursday -- his 10th in just 62 at bats. That's a home run every 6.2 at bats, which means he is now hitting homers more frequently than Barry Bonds did in his record-breaking season of 2001. Bonds homered once every 6.5 at bats on his way to 73 home runs.

Branyan, who started the year in the minors, missed almost the entire the first couple months of the Major League season. The Brewers have 90 games remaining. Branyan is averaging 3.1 AB per game since his call-up. If he somehow continues at this incredible home run rate, Branyan will hit 45 more long balls, leaving him with 55 by season's end and well short of Bonds' record.

For his career, Branyan has hit 131 home runs in 1,930 at bats -- just one homer every 14.7 at bats. If Branyan reverts to his average pace for hitting home runs, he'll end up with 29 home runs, which would still beat his career single-season best by nine.

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Dye, Sox rip Pittsburgh

Jermaine Dye had a monster night against the Pirates Thursday. He went 3-4, hitting two home runs against two different pitchers while driving in six runs. Dye has four home runs in his last four games, and the Sox sweep the Pirates out of Chicago by a combined score of 37-15 in three games.

Chicago is now 10 games over .500, five games ahead of Minnesota in the loss column.

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Crosstown Classic, then Fall Classic?

Northsiders and Southsiders will be a little bit more excited for Chicago's Crosstown Classic. Both teams enter in first place. The Second City is daring to dream of an all-Chicago world series.

For a long while the White Sox looked to have the pitching to get it done, but not the hitting. A team that was among the bottom-feeders in the American League is suddenly 11th in average (.263) in all of MLB, third in home runs (97) and sixth in runs (356). The Cubs lead the majors in average (.281) and with 396 runs scored, they are second only to the Rangers (408). White Sox pitching, however, is tops in the league (3.32 ERA) while the Cubs' 3.67 mark is good for fourth behind the A's and Blue Jays.

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On Big Z's shoulder and Cubs hysteria

Carlos Zambrano is going to miss his next scheduled start according to the Chicago Tribune. Sean Marshall is likely to take his spot.

Interesting that the Trib says Big Z's injury has tempered 'North Side Hoopla' the same day that ESPN runs this story. Sorry, but you're a bit late to jump on that bandwagon, ESPN. It's really a full orchestra, which has been blaring since the 2003 team bungled a run at a World Series berth. Anyone who lives in the Chicago area knows this. Cubs hysteria has been on the rise ever since. In a typical year 70 percent of the baseball fans in Chicago will claim to be Cubs fans. Of this 70 percent about 35 to 50 percent actually care and watch the team on a regular basis. The rest is a massive orchestra-wagon of crazies who are either disliked or open-arm welcomed by the constant fans. It's a strange phenomena. I don't know if you'd get it unless you lived there.

One more note on ESPN. Not sure if anyone else ever caught this, but Stuart Scott used to always refer to the White Sox as the Chi-Sox, which is a friendly and accepted nickname for the Chicago American League ballclub. Scott, however, pronounced the nickname as "Chai-Sox" (like the tea) rather than "Shy-Sox" (which is the correct way). Sorry, just a Chicago native venting.

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Small red-faced machine

More on the Reds' struggles against Eric Stults tonight. Cincinnati had scored zero, one and one runs in their last three ballgames entering tonight's affair against a career minor-leaguer. Give Stults credit for allowing just one run himself, but it more or less falls into the pattern the Reds have been putting up since Sunday.

Last-place Cincinnati did end up with four on the board, but only two of the runs were earned. The Reds aren't just last in the N.L. Central, they're also last in the Central in scoring runs with 320 this year.

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Some stunt by Stults

Dodgers' career minor leaguer Eric Stults stunted the Reds offense Thursday night, allowing one earned run in six innings for his first win. Stults came in with just two wins in 18 starts, but handled the struggling Reds offense with the deftness of a veteran. The Dodgers pull a three-game sweep, 7-4.

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Jibber Joba

All the talk is about lengthening Joba Chamberlain out, getting him to throw more and more pitches each time out to complete his conversion from reliever to starter. Thursday was Chamberlain's longest outing. He threw 100 pitches in 5.2 innings, striking out nine Padres in the process. Chamberlain didn't get the win, but the Yankees did, 2-1.

Fantasy Impact: Joe Girardi said he wanted to leave Chamberlain in the game for a shot at his first victory as a starter. Joba still gives up a few too many runners, meaning he's sometimes one unlucky pitch away from a big inning. That big inning, however, rarely comes. Chamberlain has dominant stuff and looks to be settling in nicely as a starter.

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Mariners fire McLaren, Riggleman in charge

After just 156 games as manager, John McLaren is leaving the Emerald City. McLaren will be replaced by Jim Riggleman, who I remember as a solid manager for the Chicago Cubs.

Riggleman helped Chicago win the 1998 N.L. wild card with a 90-72 record. He was fired the very next season. Riggleman has also managed the Padres. I remember him as a good-natured manager who was very straight forward. I interviewed him a few times in 1998 when I was working for local media in Chicago. Riggleman used to take the "El" train to games.

McLaren's firing is hardly a surprise. He inherited the job midseason in 2007 when Mike Hargrove suddenly walked away. Now that the Mariners have made changes with their general manager and field manager it would appear the baseball will change a great deal, too.

Richie Sexson is already rumored to be released. Ichiro switched from center field to right field, but that might stick with McLaren out the door.

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Burnett burning bridges

Call me late to the party on this one, but apparently A.J. Burnett has done/is doing everything in his power to leave Toronto. Richard Griffin's June 17th piece called "Burnett Sideshow" in The Toronto Star offers this:

What are the clues to Burnett's thinking? Let's see. He put his condo, previously owned by Vince Carter (another T.O. escapee), on the market before the season. He tipped his cap to the fans while being booed off the field a couple of starts ago against the O's. Now, while his team struggles, he says he would welcome a deal to the Cubs and that it's not a sign he disrespects the fans, his teammates or the Jays uniform. Hmm.

Peter Gammons recently rumored Burnett to the Cubs, and now with Carlos Zambrano in limbo and the Cubs needing another pitcher anyway, the conversation will likely come up again and again.

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A's ace struggling

Vlae Kerschner, in his latest A's Drumbeat blog for The San Francisco Chronicle writes that Opening Day starter Joe Blanton might need to give way to middle reliever Chad Gaudin for a while.

Not often do you see an Opening Day guy make room for someone who already lost his job. The A's have gotten great starting pitching from an interesting bunch of pitchers. Justin Duchsherer is a converted reliever, Dana Eveland and Greg Smith are rookies, and Rich Harden is good but always injured. All four of these players are doing well this season, leaving Blanton, the Opening Day starter as the one guy who's struggling. Gaudin was in the rotation until Eveland and Smith both edged him out.

Fantasy Impact: Blanton might be the Opening Day starter, but he was mediocre at best in the fantasy world. It wouldn't be a huge hit to lose him, and picking up Gaudin is a risky bet. He might end up back in the 'pen in no time.

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The ever-changing Mets

Jerry Manuel is making his mark as Mets interim manager, deciding to rest his stars more. Stories of David Wright playing every single inning this season may soon end.

Fantasy Impact: Can't see this doing much damage. Wright and Jose Reyes might miss a game here or there, but will still be two of the best players at their position. If Manuel's plan works, they'll be more effective in the games they do play.

USA Today on Chipper watch

USA Today's Devin Clancy talks about Chipper Jones' .400 bid, comparing Jones' season to two players who recently made runs at that mark.

It's too early to start putting Chipper updates in the paper every day, but Jones is already further along than Tony Gwynn was in 1994, according to day-by-day data available at Baseball-reference.com. Gwynn was hitting .394 when the strike happened in August of that season, but his last day over .400 was May 15, when he was hitting .408.

But Jones still has another month to match Nomar Garciaparra's 2000 season. Garciaparra was up to .403 after the first game of a July 20 doubleheader, but dropped down with an 0-for-5 in the second game. He finished with a .372 batting average.

While Clancy's article is well-written, and I understand what he's talking about, it actually doesn't matter much that Jones has a better batting average than Gwynn did further along in the season. Nor does it matter that Garciaparra was at .403 as late as July 20. What matters is that Jones ends up with a .400 batting average when the season is over. Statistically, there's nothing that says Jones can't drop below .400 for some time, then go on tear and bring his average back up to .400.

That said, based on the logic Clancy is using, it still doesn't matter that Jones is further along in his .400 quest than Gwynn was at this point in the season. Career batting average tells us that Jones' .310 career batting average, 28 points lower than Gwynn's career average, would suggest Jones always has less of a chance than Gwynn to hit .400. The only time this changes is if we get much later into this season and Jones still is hovering around .400. At that point he will have a better probability than he does right now of hiting .400 -- much better than Gwynn anyway, whose season and career are both over.

Zero good news on 'Big Z'

Carlos Zambrano is back in Chicago for an MRI after experiencing shoulder discomfort in the seventh inning of Wednesday's 5-4 loss at Tampa Bay. Nothing about this development is good for Cubs fans. Oddly enough, all three of Chicago's young arms (Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and now Zambrano) from the 2003 near-National League Championship team have experienced shoulder problems. Wood eventually returned after a series of injuries to become a very good closer. Prior is still out following a setback in his rehabilitation from shoulder surgery.

Fantasy Impact: Zambrano is the Cubs' ace and probably your fantasy ace. Zambrano wanted to stay in the game, but Lou Piniella though otherwise. Better hope Zambrano's willingness to continue is a harbinger for a speedy return. This could impact the Cubs much more than Alfoso Soriano's injury.

Chipper's chances

Chipper Jones went 2-5 tonight, keeping his average right at .400. David Pinto over at baseballmusings.com continues to develop a probability graph for Jones' .400 campaign. Unless you understand logarithms the graphs are a little bit too statistical for the layman, but if you compare Chipper's chances to the graphs that follow you'll see he doesn't stand much chance of pulling it off. Ted Williams would appear to be very safe at this point.

Wind gusting in Guthrie's sails

Tough no-decision against the Astros tonight for Baltimore starter Jeremy Guthrie. He worked eight strong innings of one-run baseball (Lance Berkman's 20th HR), but didn't get a win. Baltimore did emerge victorious in extra innings, and Guthrie dropped his ERA down to 3.51. Guthrie threw 74 of his 105 pitches for strikes.

Fantasy Impact: The 29-year-old is getting better with age. Guthrie, a former first-round pick (22nd overall in 2002 out of Stanford), allowed just three hits in this latest gem. Save for a hiccup at Boston last week, this makes for seven quality starts the last eight times out. Guthrie is becoming a high-end fantasy pitcher.

Road peeves Peavy, again

Jake Peavy continues to struggle in road games. The Yankees tagged him for four runs in four innings of work Wednesday night in the Bronx, with Alex Rodriguez launching his 14th home run. Peavy drops to just 2-2 on the road this season, but it is his 5.96 road ERA which is shockingly bad. At home he's 3-2 with a 1.26 ERA.

Chase Headley hit his first major league home run in just his second MLB game. Headley, a switch hitter, went deep from the left side of the plate off Kyle Farnsworth.

Fantasy Impact: Peavy's struggles on the road seem to mirror what a number of players are going through this year. ESPN's Jayson Stark tackled the topic recently, giving a number of reasons why teams are struggling so much on the road. Headley is 3-8 in his first two MLB games, and should get every opportunity to play for a weak offensive team.