Gonzalez, Padres snap skid

Losers of eight straight, the Padres finally got it right in Denver tonight. Edgar Gonzalez hit his first home run since June 11th, and then hit a second homer to cap off a seven-run 9th, going 4-5 with three runs and three RBI in a career game for him. San Diego wins, 15-8.

The Padres put up their 15 runs on 22 hits, as seven different players had multi-hit games including Edgar's little brother Adrian.

Fantasy Impact: Adrian Gonzalez hasn't homered in a week, but he's still hitting the ball well. Edgar was a fill-in for the injured Tadahito Iguchi. Now he's hitting .325 and has three homers in 123 at bats. Although they look very similar despite despite a near four-year age gap, Edgar will never been confused with his brother. Adrian's hit 21 home runs this year and is a fantasy stud. Like the Padres, pick up Edgar for the time being as a hot stop gap.

Pirates batting pitcher eighth

The Pittsburgh Pirates are making batting the pithcer eighth an National League Central trend. The Cardinals started the trend when they played their backup catchers, followed by the Brewers trying it with catcher Jason Kendall hitting ninth. Now the Pirates will bat shortstop Jack Wilson last.

Cordero done for year

The Natinoals' Chad Cordero is out for the year. Jon Rauch inherits the job full-time, which he's handled quite well to this point, notching 16 saves in Cordero's absence. He doesn't get a lot of chances, however, playing for Washington.

Fantasy Impact: Rauch is allowing less than a base runner per inning. That's a good recipe for earning saves. He's no worse than a second-tier closer, and probably one of the best at that.

Ram out

The Cubs' Aramis Ramirez is gone for at least the next three games attending to a family matter in his native Puerto Rico. Chicago is on the road for four games in San Francisco, meaning Ramirez will miss all but Thursday's game at this point.

Fantasy Impact: He's too valuable to pass on in weekly leagues. Ramirez is arguably the most productive third baseman this side of Alex Rodriguez. David Wright also comes to mind.

A.L. dominance

After Sunday play interleague play has resulted in the American League outperforming the National league 149-102 this year for a .594 winning percentage. If the A.L. played the N.L. over a 162 game schedule the Junior Circuit would got 96-66.

The A.L. finished play togday with a 8-6 win total over the national league for a winning percentage of .571. The lower winning percentage for today did impact the A.L.'s overall winning percentage just a touch, but averaged out over 162 games it was not enough to lower the 96-66 record.

Dan (Ugh)la

Florida Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla rolled his ankle Saturday rounding third base, putting a scare into both Marlins fans and fantasy owners. It turns out it's only a sprain as x-rays came back negative. Now the Marlins are saying Uggla might only miss a few days.

Fantasy Impact: Great news for fantasy owners. Uggla leads the National League with 23 home runs, and appears to be a safe bet for at least the end of this week's games.

Houston, you gave the Yankees another problem.

Starting pitcher Chien-Ming Wang wasn't the only Yankee injured in houston a couple of weekends back. Left fielder Hideki Matsui's played with a balky knee ever since that day, and tonight between double-headers with the Mets, the Yanks shut him down.

Fantasy Impact: Significant impact, considering Matsui was hitting .323 heading into the double-header. His power numbers were down, but a couple of weeks off he might spring to life and belt 15 bombs in the second half.

Mulder off DL, Isringhausen to DL

The Cardinals have activated Mark Mulder and put him in their bullpen. It sounds like he's going to be their left-handed specialist for the time being.

Mulder will temporarily fill the void left by Randy Flores, who has left ankle tendinitis and on Thursday became the seventh Cardinals pitcher on the DL. Flores had been the second left-handed reliever alongside Ron Villone.

"I'm definitely excited. Obviously, there's a need for it," Mulder said. "I've always liked facing lefties."

Jason Isringhausen was unavailable on Friday night and could be headed back to the disabled list after feeling a pop in his knee while stretching in the dugout during Thursday's game against the Tigers.

Fantasy Impact: Drop Mulder. He won't get any saves, or so it would seem, and he's not going to help you much as a setup guy unless you play in a league with holds. Isringhausen looks to be less and less a part of the Cardinals future if this sort of things keeps up. He's 35, and certainly on the downslide of his career. The Cardinals might turn things over to their young guns for the rest of the year at the back of the 'pen.

It's a Grand game

Curtis Granderson is beginning to look like himself again. The Tigers centerfielder is 3-4 tonight with two runs scored and a stolen base. He led off the ball game with a base hit, steal and a run scored as Detroit got two in the first on Colorado.

Granderson's average is up to .290 right now, and we're still playing in Detroit with the Tigers up 5-0 through six.

Fantasy Impact: Granderson has just five steals this year, but his numbers are coming up as a whole. If you drafted him early thinking big things, you might not fully cash in. But now is not the time to trade him. Granderson looks like he's going to be strong in the second half.

Yank 'em all

Didn't matter whom the Yankees turned to today, their pitchers all got scored on by the Mets. Dan Giese lasted four innings, giving up six. Three straight relievers followed up with a combined effort of five innings, nine earned. LaTroy Hawkins was the best of the bunch, "limiting" the Mets to one run in two inninngs. Very respectable, and even moreso considering he's got a 6.03 ERA.

Home city, still home-filed advantage

Even going on the road in your own home city is rough this year. With most MLB teams struggling on the road, the Cubs rolled across Chicago to the south side and got lit up by the White Sox today, 10-3. Nick Swisher swatted his ninth home run, a grand slam that put the Sox ahead 8-0 on Cubs starter Ryan Dempster in the third. Just last week the Cubs swept the Sox on Chicago's north side.

Garza gearing up for July

The back end of the Tampa Bay rotation is in constant flux. Seemingly all at once Rays starters Edwin Jackson, Andy Sonnanstine and Matt Garza dominate and disappoint. It's rare for any of them to have three consecutive starts that are either all good or all bad.

Take, for instance, Garza's Thursday. He threw a one-hitter against Florida in which the only hit was a Hanley Ramirez home run. Other than that he was nearly flawless, and although he's had a tendency to hit major highs and lows, Garza did become the first of these three Tampa tossers to string together back-to-back-to-back quality starts since Sonnanstine did so in late April.

Garza is the hot one in the bunch, and now is a good time to stay strong. We're just over a month from the trade deadline, and Double-A prospect David Price is on the fast track to the Majors. In his first Double-A start tonight, Price struggled a bit but still delivered a quality start. Two more of those and, well, he'll have a longer string of success than Jackson has all season. He'll have a better three-game stretch than Sonnanstine's experienced in two months.

Gonzo for, um, Gonzo

It looks like A's rookie Carlos Gonzalez is going to get more at bats now that Ryan Sweeney's gone down with an ankle injury. Anther interesting tidbit in this San Francisco Chronicle article spells out something that bugs me about fans these days -- their expectation level just for being in the right place at the right time is becoming absurd. Check out what happened after Gonzalez hit his first MLB home run last week:

The rookie outfielder didn't get the ball from his first home run a week ago because the fan who caught it wanted more than the three bats and autographed ball Gonzalez offered. He hit his second career homer Thursday, a solo shot in the sixth, and it landed over the wall in right and was retrieved for him.

"It's not home run No. 1, but it's No. 2, and my mom and my family are going to enjoy it," he said.

Sorry, but the fan who won't accept Gonzalez's fair payment for the ball is a meat head. It's merely a home run ball. It's not number 756. A few bats and an autographed ball is more than fair compensation. Get over yourself. You were lucky it landed in your lap.

Fantasy Impact: I'm liking Carlos Gonazalez at this point. He was the prize piece in the deal that sent Dan Haren to Arizona, and he's proving that he can be a consistent contributor at the big league level. He's going to have peaks and valleys, but the fact that he's hit mostly extra base hits to this point is a harbinger for future success.

No relief for Redbirds

When they broke from spring training it appeared the Cardinals's biggest concerns were starting pitching and every starting spot except for Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. The Birds have been generally solid in those capacities, but after blowing a ninth-inning lead in a 3-2, 10-inning loss at Detroit on Thursday, it is relief pitching that's costing them wins right now.

Cardinals starters have the best winning percentage in the majors at 36-17 (.679).

Ryan Franklin, who suffered his fourth blown save when Gary Sheffield homered off him in the ninth, said, "We're also crushing the whole league in holds (60). Our holds are way more than our blown saves. You can't look at just one part of it."

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the Cardinals bullpen converted 75.6 percent of their save opportunities last year, but only 55.8 this year. They blew 11 saves in 2007. They've blown 19 in 2008. If Ryan Franklin Jason Isringhausen aren't the answer, the Cardinals still have potentials answers in Kyle McClellan and Chris Perez. McClellan's had the better run of late.

Lee of faith

Indians' starter Cliff Lee won his 11th game tonight against San Francisco, and looked like he went back to his April/early May bag of tricks to get it done. Lee worked eight innings, striking out 11, while allowing just one run on four hits as Cleveland supported him with four runs. It was his best outing since a complete game shutout against Toronto back on May 12th, which lowered his ERA to 0.67. Now he's at 2.34 after a recent rough patch.

Fantasy Impact: Aberration or a return to dominance? That question seems to follow Lee around. He's had his moments, and then he's had his moments. It looks like this year will be filled with more good moments than bad, as long as he can mix in days like this as the grind gets tougher in the second half.

Edinson's bell rung

Reds' starter Edinson Volquez suffered his worst outing of the year at Toronto Thursday, and his first non-quality start since his first three starts this season. Volquez couldn't get through the fifth, giving up five earned runs on seven hits. He walked three and served up Scott Rolen's sixth home run.

Fantasy Impact: There's no reason to worry about Volquez at this time. His ERA climbed all the way to a measly 2.08. He's the best pitcher in the National League over the first half of the season. If he puts together an above-average second half he'll be looking at 20 wins for his troubles.

Kershaw cursed?

Only 69 pitches by Dodgers' rookie starter Clayton Kershaw today. He threw 40 strikes, going four innings with two earned runs in his second loss of the season. Kershaw hasn't won yet as a professional pitcher, including losses or no-decisions in every start he's made in the minors.

Fantasy Impact: For those that thought Kershaw might come up and dominate at the Major League level, this is discouraging, but Kershaw hasn't pitched that poorly. While he's still looking for that first win, his ERA is a respectable 4.36. He's struggled with control, but tends to limit the big inning. He's a respectable low-end option until he harnesses his impressive stuff.

Roberts wins final battle and war

Brian Roberts and the Orioles come away big winners on Chicago's north side. Roberts outperformed Mark DeRosa in two of the three games, including the series finale, as the Orioles win 11-4 to become the first team other than the Milwaukee Brewers to take a series at Wrigley this year. Here's the second baseman linescore for the game:

BR: 5 AB, 2 R, 2 H, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 2 K
MD: 3 AB, 1 R, 1 H, 0 RBI, 0 BB, 0 K

Here's their combined linescore for the series:

BR: 14 AB, 4 R, 6 H, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 3 K
MD: 9 AB, 1 R, 3 H, 1 RBI, 3 BB, 2 K

Roberts had a better average and scored three more runs in the series. No surprise that the catalyst's team had the better fate in the series. Cubs fans will certainly be wondering "what if" concering the trade that never materialzed for Roberts. DeRosa is still a solid second baseman.

Roberts vs. DeRosa tied, 1-1

Brian Roberts won the first battle of head-to-head productivity against Mark DeRosa, but the Cubs' second baseman bounces back strongly in game two of the three-game Cubs-Orioles series.

BR: 4 AB, 0 R, 1 H, 0 RBI, 0 K
MD: 3 AB, 0 R, 1 H, 1 RBI, 1 K

DeRosa's run-scoring single came in the first inning, leading to Baltimore starer Matt Albers getting lifted after recording just one out. Cubs win, 7-4, and so does DeRosa.

Pujols returns

Albert Pujols is adamant about returning from a strained calf injury tonight in Detroit. He won't DH if he can help it, because it sounds like he really wants to play first.

"If I'm ready to play first base, I think I'm going to play first base," Pujols said, adjusting his stance of the day before. "If I feel the same way I feel today, I think I'm going to be playing (Thursday).

"Something crazy has to happen ... for me not to play."

Pujols continues to impress with both his ability and his willingness to play. He's old-school tough, and here's guessing he goes yard tonight.

Fantasy Impact: Owners must be thrilled, and holding their breath that he hasn't returned too soon. I for one thought Pujols would be shut down for the rest of the season by the All-Star break with his elbow issue. It's been no issue, however, as Pujols is one of the top sluggers in the league. With the Cardinals in the playoff race for what appears to be the long-haul, Pujols isn't getting his elbow worked on any time soon.