Well, you knew I couldn’t be “Mr. May” forever. I just didn’t think my fantasy baseball teams would slide so quickly.
The news for The Scorpions has been harsh. Pitching, normally our strength, has been in the toilet. It doesn’t help that closers Jonathan Papelbon of the Red Sox and Matt Lindstrom of the Marlins have had shaky outings. They are actually the least of my worries. It all began with starter Ricky Nolasco of the Marlins (15 game winner in ’08) going down to the minors to get his mechanics worked out. Then the same thing happened to Indians starter Fausto Carmona (19 game winner in ’07). Couple that with subpar performances from Pirates starter Ian Snell, who normally gets a lot of strikeouts, and a four game skid by starter Joe Saunders of the Angels, and you can understand why my team is 1-13 the past two weeks!
The bright spots for The Scorpions are our younger players. So there is hope for the future. We snagged Orioles outfielder Nolan Reimold just at the right time! He got called up to the big club a little more than a month ago and has 7 homers and 16 RBI in just 78 at bats! Then there’s outfielder Colby Rasmus of the Cardinals. We have had him stashed away in this “keeper” league for two years, and finally he’s producing. He is only 22. In 175 at bats he has 7 homers, 23 RBI and he’s hitting .269. More importantly though, both these guys have fought their way into the starting lineups of their respective teams.
The Swinging J’s are faring better…but it has been a down few weeks. We are in third place after an 8-12 week, followed by a 10-9 week. So far this week though we are 13-3, so improvement may be right around the corner. The trouble has been two of our fantasy studs on the Mets, outfielder Carlos Beltran, and 3B David Wright, were both in a funk until about two or three days ago. Now Wright is somewhat back on track (no power, but .354 average and 16 stolen bases) , and Beltran got rid of the stomach flu that knocked him out of the lineup for a bunch of games.
