Fantasy Baseball Notes 5/4/2009

- Joe Mauer made his return to the lineup this weekend and he was HORRIBLE!  I mean, come on.  He hit just one homerun (in his first at bat), is hitting lousy .700 and recorded just one RBI in each of his first three games.  Geez, maybe the Twins pulled him out of his minor league conditioning a bit too early. 

(Photo by Reuters Pictures)

- Phillies injured ace Cole Hamels despite throwing a bullpen session on Saturday won't start until Friday due to yesterday's rainout.

- Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs strained a hamstring yesterday and is likely to miss his next start.

- Red Sox outfielder Jason Bay (man, I hated typing that) left Saturday's game with an ankle injury, but played yesterday against the Rays.  I would imagine he'll be in the lineup for the Sox big series against the Yankees this week.

- Despite leaving his last start early with lower back tightness, Royals pitcher Gil Meche returned to beat the Twins on Sunday.  He didn't look very impressive though, striking out only three batters and giving up four runs in six innings.

- Rays speedster Carl Crawford stole six bases yesterday against the Red Sox giving him 17 on the season.  Its good to see Crawford get back into form after stealing just 25 bases in all of last season.

- Even though he's been roughed up hard a few times already, Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander is smoking the batters that aren't taking knocking him around.  He has 45 strikeouts in 35 innings.  Most recently he K'ed 11 Indians in a 3-1 victory.  He's not going to do any favors for your ERA, but he'll give you a ton of strikeouts and if you subscribe the "Nick Fruscello way to build your pitching staff" (strikeout starters and a bunch of closers/middle relievers with low ERA's) then he's a good fit.

- Scott Richmond, the rookie pitcher of the Blue Jays, has looked really good in his first five starts and deserves to get some fantasy attention.  He gets a fair amount of K's and keeps his ERA pretty low.  Plus, he's 4-0 and dominating right handers (.167 BAA, 16:3 K:BB ratio) 

- Meanwhile the Blue Jays other Scott, Scott "Rolen Rolen Rolen Rolen" is continuing his comeback season, as he's still above .300 and just recently lost his 8 game hitting streak.  However, until the Jays move him higher than 6th in the order, don't expect his power numbers to climb at all.

- Carlos Delgado is back in the Mets lineup after missing five straight with a hip problem.  He was able to avoid the DL and was inserted right back into the clean up spot. 

- Josh Hamilton was a different story though.  He hit the 15 day DL with that strained left rib cage muscle.  The move was retroactive to last Monday, so he'll only be out another week, but its still a tough spot in your lineup to fill.