An Overlooked Star

Magglio Ordonez broke his ankle yet again and is done for the postseason as a result (the good news for the Tigers is that Delmon Young will try to play through his oblique issue). There are numerous reports that Mags might decided to hang up his spikes after dealing with constant pain in the ankle for the majority of the season (it appears that he will at least confer with doctors on Monday before making a decision about his future). If he retires, he’ll leave behind one of the better careers that few people truly respect. Let’s examine.

Many don’t know it, but Ordonez owns a career batting average of .309. From 1997-2011, the span of his career, only 13 other men who had at least 3,000 plate appearances in that time had a better batting average. If we up that total to 5,000 plate appearances he’s moves up to 10th on the list.

Never a huge power bat, Ordonez nonetheless still hit at least 29 homers in 5-straight years (1999-2003), reached the 20 homer plateau eight times, and averaged 26 long balls per 162 games played for his career.

A rather prolific run producer, Ordonez has seven seasons of at least 150 games played and each of those seven years he knocked in at least 99 runs. His total of 1,236 RBI from 1997-2011 was the 16th best total in the game.

Put all that together and for his career Ordonez produced a pace of .309-26-108 with 94 runs scored per 162 games. That’s pretty darn good is it not? Furthermore, do you know how many players hit .300 with 275 homers, 1,200 RBI and 1,000 runs from 1997-2011? The answer is six men:

Vladimir Guerrero
Chipper Jones
Todd Helton
Manny Ramirez
Albert Pujols
Magglio Ordonez

Some more Mags facts.

He was named to six All-Star teams.

He won three Silver Slugger awards.
He’s in the top-120 in the history of baseball in batting average (.309 is 116th), SLG (.502 is 91st) an OPS (.871 is 113th).

I’m not saying anything crazy like he should one day be elected to the Hall of Fame one day, but I do think that he is one of those players who history might end up being more kind to with a little bit of distance and perspective. If he had played in another era, perhaps the 1970′s and 80′s, his numbers would have looked much more impressive. Instead, he played during the juiced ball, and juiced player era, which renders his 26 homers per 162 game pace as a less than impressive mark. However, if you need any reminder as to why he was such a good overall hitter just look back up and re-read group list of six men that he belongs to – that should help to bring you around to the realization that he was one hell of a hitter during his career.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, the high school reunion on the weekend went very well. Got to catch up with a few of the old gang, pulled back on a few Long Island’s, and was able to relieve some of my past glory (I felt like Al Bundy from Married with Children). I also caught up with my best gal friend from high school, and that was a blast. I know what you’re all thinking – your single Ray, go for it. She’s happily married so that’s a no go. Anyway, you know I already have the neighbor’s wife around if I want to go to hell for being the guy that breaks up marriages.

By Ray Flowers

In the Bowls of Hell

I’m in Washington DC this week, before I saunter on over to St. Louis mid week. It’s a ton of fun getting a chance to spend some quality time with the great folks I work with at Sirius XM Fantasy Sports Radio. To the last person, a class act group. But I gotta tell ya, this heat is killing a kid. As a California born and raised boy, 90 is pushing the limits of my heat tolerance. As you are all likely aware, there is a historic heat wave hitting the east coast right now. The other night at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and it’s a spectacular place to view a ball game, it was 102 degrees at first pitch. I know your thinking that’s super hot for a day game, but the problem is it was 102 degrees at 7:05 PM. It’s almost too hot to live. Thank goodness there were copious amounts of beer available because what’s better when it’s hot than continuing to dehydrate yourself with booze?

This past weekend saw the HOF induction of Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar take place. While I have some doubt about the efficacy of Blyleven, there is no doubt whatsoever that Alomar was worthy of induction, a fact that I covered in The 2011 Hall of Fame Class. If you ask me, Alomar is one of the five greatest second basemen of all time so I can’t understand why he wasn’t inducted in his first year of eligibility. I’ve also written a few other pieces about the HOF, and two of them are What is a HOF Closer?, and Innocent Until Proven Guilty if you have some time to kill.

Now on to a Mailbag question…

I’ve been holding onto Desmond Jennings and now I can finally get him in my lineup. I need someone to sit between Coco Crisp, Delmon Young, Eduardo Nunez and Magglio Ordonez. Weekly lineup. Steals is not an issue for me, but in a race for R, RBI, HR still.
— Vinny

Desmond Jennings is an elite talent that I profiled back in The Prospect Trinity (the piece also discussed Dustin Ackley and Brett Lawrie, the other two arms of the Trinity). Jennings has taken forever to get to the big league level. The Rays were reluctant to start his arbitration clock early, and then he suffered an injury down on the farm. However, he’s making up for lost time rather quickly as he he killed it since being called up to The Show going 4-for-6 with two runs and two steals making him pretty much a must add in all formats.

Looking at your group, here’s what I would suggest doing.

Magglio Ordonez is hitting .322 in July. He still isn’t showing any power, and he has no speed, but his bat should play as a 5th outfielder type in mixed leagues as long as he’s healthy.

Eduardo Nunez is hitting .333 in July, and he has stolen four bases each of the past three months. However, you say speed isn’t a big need for you which mitigates the main value add of Nunez.

Delmon Young is hitting over .300 his last 34 games, but he has only two homers and 26 RBI in over 250 at-bats.

Coco Crisp has only one steal in his last 10 games, but he’s up to 27 thefts on the year and it’s pretty hard to say adios to production like that.

I’d add Jennings and let go Mr. Nunez if you have your infield covered. If you have outfield depth, there’s really no reason to keep the limited upside of Ordonez.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: May 13, 2011

(1) Carlos Pena finally hitting. Be wary though.

(2) Magglio Ordonez (ankle) to the DL. Brennan Boesch to take over. For more on Boesch see Buy or Sell – AL Version.

(3) Delmon Young and Logan Morrison come off the DL.

(4) Joe Nathan improving – up to serving as a setup man for Matt Capps.

(5) Grady Sizemore missing time with a knee issue for Indians.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: Offseason Moves

Mariano Rivera wants two years from the Yankees – and they will be more than happy to give him that on his next contract offer. Derek Jeter, on the other hand, wants at least four with some reports hinting that he would actually prefer five or six years. Seems like the Yankees aren’t buying as they are set to officially offer him a 3-year, $45 million deal. Given that Jeter’s defense at short is sliding, that he is 36 years old, and that he is coming off the worst full season of his career (.270-10-67-111-18), it’s more than a fair offer. At the same time Jeter is Mr. Yankee, and if he were to bolt the team the revolt from the fans would be a P.R. nightmare. Look for the two sides to eventually settle on a four year deal – Jeter isn’t going anywhere – even if he isn’t the player he was just a couple of seasons ago.

Magglio Ordonez is apparently fully recovered from ankle surgery and he is ready to start looking for a place to ply his wares in 2011. His agent is Scott Boras, so you can count out small market clubs since Boras has probably put together a presentation saying that Ordonez is a better right-handed hitter than Albert Pujols. I will say this for Ordonez, he rebounded in 2010 after a terrible 2009 effort that saw him hit only nine homers with 50 RBI in 131 games. Limited because of injury to 84 games in 2010, he socked 12 homers, had 59 RBI, scored 56 times and hit .303 for the Tigers. Also, let me give Mags some props. In 10 of the last 12 years he has hit .300, and in each of his last eight seasons of more than 500 at-bats he has knocked in at least 99 runs. He is no Albert Pujols, but he is still a darn effective big league hitter.

Less than a week away from Thanksgiving, an I’ve already started to salivate over the thought of mashed potatoes and yams with marshmallows. Time to do a few extra sit-ups to make sure I can gorge next week.

Jonathan Papelbon is arbitration eligible, and it appears that after making $9.35 million last year that he will be asked for something like $11.5 million for the coming campaign. Would the Red Sox simply non-tender Papelbon and allow the 9th inning to be taken over by Bard? After all, Bard made a mere $416,000 last year and still isn’t eligible for arbitration. It seems unlikely, honestly I can’t envision it happening, but it’s doesn’t appear to be crazy when you compare the 2010 performance of the two righty relievers to one another.

Papelbon:1.27 WHIP, 10.21 K/9, 2.71 K/BB, 0.94 HR/9, 0.87 GB/FB, 3.51 FIP
D. Bard: 1.00 WHIP, 9.16 K/9, 2.53 K/BB, 0.72 HR/9, 1.23 GB/FB, 3.37 FIP

Pretty darn close isn’t it? It’s also a concern that Papelbon posted the worst BB/9 mark of his last five seasons (3.76), and also his worst K/BB (almost a batter and a half below his career mark of 4.02). Papelbon also allowed a five year worst in HR/9, WHIP and ERA (it was 3.90, more than a run an a half above his career 2.22 mark). That’s a lot of indicators going in the wrong direction to be giving a guy a raise to over $11 million.

Dan Uggla appears to be happy with the Braves, an as expected, he also seems interested in staying with the club for a while. Uggla said that he wants what is “fair” in a contract offer, but that he isn’t going to try and become the highest paid player of all-time or anything like that. “A lot of people know that this is the closest big league team to my home [in Tennessee], and it creates an incredible opportunity for my family and friends to be able to come down and watch on a more consistent basis,” Uggla said. For my thoughts on Uggla and the great move the Braves made to get him make sure you give Who is the AL Cy Young a read.

By Ray Flowers

April 8: Baseball Notes

I’m all over the place today, but what better way is there to be when you want to read about everything that is fantasy related in the first week of the baseball season?

The average price for a major league ticket went up 1.5 percent this year to $26.74. That number pales to what is happening in Minnesota where the new stadium, and Joe Mauer’s $184 million deal, have helped lead to a 45 percent jump in ticket prices over last year to $31.47. The cheapest average ticket in baseball belongs to the D’backs, In addition if you are a fan of the NL West you’re in good shape – two of the six teams in baseball that saw their ticket prices go down for 2010 are the Padres (15.4 percent) and Giants (1.8 percent).

Bronson Arroyo allowed one run over eight innings against the Cardinals on Thursday. You may want to sit down before you read this, but according to Stats Inc., since July 10th of last year Arroyo has the best ERA in baseball for any pitcher who has tossed at least 100-innings at 2.01.

Frank Francisco blew the Rangers game on Thursday as he picked up a blown save and the loss as he allowed the Jays to score three times. Earlier in the game Neftali Feliz needed 13 pitches to strike out the side in his lone inning of work. It’s way too early to be talking about a changing of the guard in the 9th inning, but it’s certainly something to keep in mind.

The Yankees have been estimated to be worth $1.6 billion. You’ll only need to sell the Pirates ($295 million) five times to get close to that number.

Jonny Gomes had a walk-off homer on Thursday. Reds, please give this guy 500 at-bats. If you do, I can almost guarantee that he’ll sock 30 dingers.

Ian Kinsler is starting to make me nervous. He had a second cortisone shot today, meaning his goal of getting back on the field by mid week next week may or may not happen.

Victor Martinez likes hitting early in the year before his body gets beaten up from the rigors of catching. In April, his career batting average is .321 with 19 homers and 77 RBI in 126 games.

Don’t look now, but Magglio Ordonez has a 16-game hitting streak dating back to last season, and he has produced at least two hits in 6-straight outings. Adding his 7-for-14 start this season to his work from his last 28 games from last season nets you a .446 average. I don’t care if he hits as many homers as Juan Pierre if he can stay within 25 percent of that mark. Hell, over his last 63 games he is batting .383. Astounding.

Speaking of Mags, care to see my thoughts on the Tigers for 2010? You can also see a really serious picture of me if you click on the link to Tigers’ 2010 Season Prediction Roundup.

Vernon Wells hit his fourth homer of the year on Thursday to become the first Blue Jay in history to hit four homers in the first three games of the season. Wells hit only five homers in his final 64 games last season.

Dontrelle Willis allowed two runs over six innings on Thursday and hit 93 mph on a couple of fastballs. There is a caveat, it was against the Royals, but he walked only two batters – a very positive sign. I highly doubt he will be fantasy relevant in ’10, but it would certainly be a great story for baseball if he was.

By Ray Flowers

MLB: Ups and Downs

Day 2 of the major league season has been a bore (OK, it was Day 3, but the first day only had the Yankees and Red Sox playing, so you know what I mean). A day after all that excitement, the Albert Pujols homers, the 6-inning no-hit bid from Shaun Marcum, and the homer in his first major league at-bat from Jason Heyward, everyone was fired up. Roughly 24 hours later, it’s like your dog died. Major league baseball, in it’s unfailing wisdom, scheduled seven games for the second full day of games, but not a single one was scheduled to start before 7:10 PM EST. That’s right. A day after all of that excitement to kick off the campaign, major league baseball didn’t schedule a single day game, not one. I’m all for making a buck, but seriously MLB, how greedy can you be? Schedule a flipping day game. There is no excuse, none, that there should ever be a day in which at least one game is played during the day. I don’t care about TV rights or gate receipts, baseball was meant to be played during the day under the sun. So get with it MLB – some things are more important than the almighty dollar.

Zack Greinke hurled two run ball over six innings on Monday against the Tigers but wound up with a no decision when the bullpen blew his lead. That isn’t overly surprising for Greinke who was let down frequently last year. Amazingly, Greinke has allowed one or zero earned runs in 19 of his last 34 starts. That’s 56 percent of his starts since the beginning of the 2009 season.

Scott Kazmir was “very surprised” to learn that some shoulder weakness landed him on the DL to start the year. I’m only surprised that Kazmir still has a shoulder.

Casey Kotchman hitting third for the Mariners? Maybe they should have kept Russell Branyan after all.

Tim Lincecum was questioned about his struggles in camp both with velocity and results. After tossing seven shutout innings in dominating the Astros, no one is saying anything today.

Anyone else hate doing drafts on computers? The other day I was doing an AL-only auction and my computer crashed in the middle. I returned to learn that I missed out on Joba Chamberlain and Magglio Ordonez, two players I had been targeting in the middle rounds to get on the cheap. I did land Matt Guerrier though, and for $4, even though I didn’t have him in my queue, so I have no idea how he ended up on my squad. At least the computer didn’t give me Jason Berken for $4.

Jon Rauch has been named the closer with the Twins. He has some experience in the role and is a decent choice to fill in for the injured Joe Nathan. At the same time, he clearly shouldn’t be looked at as someone who has the job locked down. I just wish Pat Neshek was fully healthy (he is coming back from arm surgery though he has looked good so far).

Jose Reyes is still targeting a return to the Mets this weekend after an extended minor league game on Monday. In related news, the Mets are hoping that Oliver Perez can find the strike zone before then.

You gotta feel for the Giants’ Nate Schierholtz. Thought to be the man in right field after biding his time the past few years, he ended up struggling in spring and lost his starting spot to John Bowker who led the club in homers and RBI. Though you may not think things could get worse for Nate they did on Tuesday when the Giants, facing the Astros’ lefty Wandy Rodriguez, decided to go with Andres Torres in right field essentially meaning that Nate is the third right fielder at the moment. Schierholtz has the highest upside of that trio and still profiles as a decent outfield option in NL-only leagues, though I will admit the start to the 2010 season is certainly distressing.

Huston Street got good news on his injured shoulder. It doesn’t look like it will fly off at any point in the near future according to Dr. James Andrews. Street still hopes to return to the Rockies in early May, though who knows when he will be able to reclaim his ninth inning role from Franklin Morales.

By Ray Flowers

Trying to Focus

I’m tired, a bit hungry, wondering when/if I will meet the love of my life and generally dealing with an overall malaise as the NFL season gets under way. Now I’m also dealing with a shoulder I strained while lifting weights the other day – I think it was during that grueling set of bench pressing 95 lbs – so yes, I’m in a sad state. Let’s see how that translates to my entry today. I’m betting there will be some biting analysis.

Troy Glaus is now out of action with a sore oblique. Apparently pinch hitting was too much for the guy as Glaus has but three hits in 17 at-bats this season. For a guy who had back-to-back 40-homer seasons in 2000-01, and one who has averaged 34 homers per 550 ABs in his career, this year has been a flippin’ waste of time. Thanks Troy.

Another youngster with a luminous future has been shut down do to workload concerns. Brian Matusz of the Orioles has thrown his last pitch of the season. The 22 year old tossed 157.2 innings this season, deemed by the Orioles as more than enough. Though disappointed, Matusz was still proud that he was able to ascend the minor league ladder to force the club to promote him to the bigs. “It was never in the plan for me to be here this year,” he said. “I’m really proud that I went out and didn’t give them any choice but to bring me up. I really learned a lot and am proud of my progress.” I’m proud of my progress too Brian, but I’m not looking over my shoulder as I’m fairly sure that Fanball won’t shut me down as ownership seems to be operating under the belief that I’ve got the stamina to type articles well into the month of December.

Magglio Ordonez will make $18 million next season – $18,000,000 – when he picks up a handful of plate appearances to trigger next seasons extension. What did he do for that dough? He has hit all of .294, just slightly off his .311 career mark, and his .365 OBP is also barely off his career mark as well (.371). Still, the guy has undershot his OPS by more than .100 points (.769 compared to .883) and with seven home runs and 40 RBI in 401 ABs he will end up with the worst numbers of his career in a season of at least 400-plate appearances. Goodness gracious, the man averaged 24 home runs and 115 RBI the past three years meaning he hasn’t even offered 50 percent of his “normal” production this year, yet he will still make more money next year than the total 2009 salaries of everyone who will read this article in the first hour after it is posted. Only in America, isn’t that what Don King says?

Apparently Jose Valverde is worse off than me right now. He has a 101 degree fever which has him unavailable to pitch leaving closing duties to LaTroy Hawkins. The veteran righty has 11 saves on the season, with four blown ones, and has also picked up 17 holds in what has been a rather fine season.

Delwyn Young was hitting .312 as recently as August 19th. Alas, the man has forgotten how to hit, and no, that isn’t hyperbole I’m using – he literally has forgotten how to hit. Young hasn’t produced a hit in 10 games during which time he is 0-for-24, and going back a bit further he has produced just five hits in 59 at-bats (.085) to drop his overall average down to .268. Think of this: if we quadruple his batting average the past couple weeks, quadruple it, we are left with a batting average of .340 which is still some .021 points behind the NL leading .361 batting average of Hanley Ramirez. That’s a frightening statement to make with Halloween still a month and a half away.

By Ray Flowers

Thursday's AL Beat

Normally I just ramble on about whatever baseball topics catch my fancy. I’m not really changing that up today, I’m merely going to throw one topic out there that I’ll have to follow to somewhat focus my ramblings – I’m only going to discuss happenings in the American League.

The Blue Jays used eight pitchers in a nine inning game for the first time in team history on Thursday as they emerged victorious 8-7 over the Phillies. If you quickly glance at the scorecard you’ll see that recent called up Jeremy Accardo picked up the save. Huh? With Scott Downs on the DL with a sprained big toe the thought was that the team would turn to Jason Frasor to shut the door in the ninth, so why did Accardo pick up the save? Frasor did enter the game late, but it was in the bottom of the eighth inning. Frasor then proceeded to blow the save though he allowed only one hit while recording an out. The club then turned to B.J. Ryan to start the ninth inning, and he picked up a walk and a strikeout before he too was removed for Accardo who recorded two outs to pick up his first save of the season in his first big league appearance of the year. Despite all this craziness if I had to grab Blue Jays’ reliever at this point I would line them up as Frasor, Ryan and Accardo as I think today was the exception and not the rule. Oh yeah, I also should mention that despite the blown save, Frasor picked up his fifth victory of the year once again proving just how ineffective it is to judge a pitcher by his record (he is now 5-0). Frasor now has more victories than Javier Vazquez who has only four victories despite posting a 3.41 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 112 Ks in 92.1 innings this season for the Braves.

Gavin Floyd was screwed on Thursday as the White Sox’ bullpen betrayed him. Floyd left the game with a 5-1 lead after seven innings before a collection of arms conspired to help the cross town Cubs to emerge with a 6-5 victory. In the outing Floyd only struck out two batters but he allowed just seven base runners in his seven innings to lower his ERA to 4.65 and his WHIP to 1.36. Those numbers still don’t match his totals from last season (3.84 and 1.26), but given his poor start to the year they are rather remarkable. Floyd has now hurled 6-straight “quality starts” for the Sox even though he has only two victories to show for it despite a 1.62 ERA in that time. I don’t think he will be able to get his numbers down to the point that they will rival what he did last season, but as of now he is pitching better than the likes of Zack Greinke and Johan Santana, and that is certainly saying something.

Magglio Ordonez has been benched by Jim Leyland in Detroit for his continued struggles at the dish. Mags is hitting .273 with only two home runs and 22 RBI putting him on pace to roughly hit six bombs with 60 RBI this season. For a guy who has averaged 24 home runs and 115 RBI the past three seasons, that is a shocking fall. His BB/K rate is still strong at 0.76, the same as his career numbers, and his BABIP mark is also right on his career mark of .320 at .315. So why the struggles? (1) He isn’t hitting the ball hard with a 15.2 LD-rate, and that is a precipitous fall from his career 20 percent mark. (2) His swing has been bereft of power as his current Isolated Power mark of .069 is roughly one third his career .202 mark. For those of you who read Isolated Power and think it’s a foreign language, the measure basically outlines a player’ ability to produce extra base hits. If you want to read more about it, click on the following link to Isolated Power, A Review. The bottom line is that it appears, even when he makes contact, that he is hitting with a wiffle ball bat.

John Smoltz got the thumbs up after his strong minor league start on Wednesday night in which he permitted a single run in four innings of work at Triple-A Pawtucket (without a doubt one of the best names in minor league baseball). As a result of his diligent work coming back from his shoulder surgery, Smoltz will finally be seen on a major league diamond for the first time this season on June 25th against the Nationals. For now the team plans to go with a 6-man rotation, but we’ll see how long that lasts. For more on Smoltz, give One Up, One Down a read.

By Ray Flowers

A Day of Change

Today’s article is marked by the call-up of a potential future star, a couple of oddly injured players currently in Arizona, the return from irrelevance for a backup Mets infielder and a hurler from Cleveland, as well as a look at two key players in the AL Central.

Mat Gamel is headed to Milwaukee, likely to take the roster spot of Brad Nelson who has been awful this season (0-for-21). Gamel, the teams up and coming start at the plate, was tearing it up at Triple-A hitting .336 with eight home runs and 31 RBI in just 33 games proving that he simply doesn’t need any more seasoning in the minors. The question now becomes, how much will he play? There certainly isn’t a good reason to have him waste away on the bench picking up spare at-bats here and there (he could DH for the club in their upcoming inter-league series). Still, dude has eight errors at third so far this year, and to be honest his name has never been associated with Brooks Robinson. Still, if you have been relying on Bill Hall, it may be nearing the time that you’ll want to be concerned.

Cliff Lee has turned around an abysmal start to the year with a 1.43 ERA over his last six starts during which time he is just 2-4 thanks to a lack of run support. He won’t ever match what he did last year again, but he is clearly over whatever issue was troubling him at the start of the season and appears to have righted the ship completely.

The Tigers owe Magglio Ordonez millions over the next couple of seasons, and word out of Chicago is that the team might actually consider outright releasing their star outfielder to avoid paying him the dough. Here is how it breaks down.

2010: A mutual option for $18 million that becomes guaranteed if he has 540 plate appearances or 135 starts this season.

2011: A mutual option for $15 million that becomes guaranteed if he has 1,080 plate appearances or 270 starts in 2009-10.

If the club lets him go now they would have to pay the remainder of his 2009 salary ($18 million), but would only owe him a buyout of $3 million to void the final two years of the deal “saving” them $30 million. Ordonez has been pretty awful this year hitting .241 with just two home runs and 12 RBI, but would the club really cut him loss after he averaged .326-24-115-90-2 the past three years? Fiscal responsibility – teams need to practice it or they will be left with no-win situations like this one.

Alexei Ramirez went 3-for-3 on Wednesday to push his fledgling average up to .223. In his 103 at-bat this season he has only one dinger and just seven runs scored, so if not for his six steals his value would be miniscule, not just awful. In 583 career at-bats Ramirez owns a .278 average with 22 home runs and 90 RBI, not to mention the 19 steals, but he also has walked just 24 times against 75 strikeouts. There is only one Alfonso Soriano, and as much as people want Ramirez to be the second one, it just isn’t likely to happen, especially considering that Ramirez is already 27 years old and that he still cannot control the strike zone very well.

Fernando Tatis is once again paying huge dividends for those who took a chance on him late in NL-only leagues. Tatis had three hits, including his second home run of the year, as he platted four RBIs for the Mets playing at first base in place of Carlos Delgado on Wednesday. Tatis is now batting .358 on the year and dating back to last season Tatis is hitting .307 with 13 home runs and 55 RBI in just 326 ABs. Considering that he had only 56 total at-bats in the 2004-06 seasons, its been a truly remarkable return from the dead for Fernando.

Joey Votto is out of the lineup on Wednesday after leaving the game on Tuesday due to dizziness that the club believes resulted from the flu combined with the warm, dry air of Arizona. Hey Joey, drink some Gatorade. Speaking of Arizona, we are still awaiting clarification on just what ails Conor Jackson as tests continue to be inconclusive in terms of defining just what his illness is.

By Ray Flowers