Baseball In The Daytime: 6-11-08

I'll keep this one brief. There are a lot of basebally things I'd like to get to later today, including more about the hairy gap-toothed caveman you see down the page and a modest proposal to save the entire fucking sport. Stay tuned.

For now, though, please take in the pair of games on today's agenda as well as an update on the contest America can't get enough of: Bankmeister v. Old No. 7 in head to head fantasy baseball...

Seattle @ Toronto, 10:37 Mountain I'm not going to go on another tirade over Canadia's weird start times and further desecration of America's national game. My feelings are well known. Let's just say that on the carpet of the Rogers Center today you'll see a couple pretty fine starting pitchers. Shaun Marcum goes for the home whites, and is quietly assembling a tremendous year--2.52 ERA and 0.97 WHIP thus far. His opponent in road grays no longer goes by King Felix very often, but Hernandez is still capable of dominating--witness his 3.07 ERA. What's troubling to me is that he's only striking out 7.5 per nine, a dandy number for most pitchers but pedestrian when you see his effortless heat and knee-buckling junk.

Tampa @ Los Anaheim, 1:35 Heading out to the West Coast, the pitching gets even better. Today's matinee in Orange County sees John Lackey host Scott Kazmir in a tussle of staff aces. Both these teams hoard speed, and both subscribe to the Mike Scoscia school of using it--Bay-Rays skipper Joe Maddon was once Scoscia's bench coach. Watch those basepaths turn into a track meet.

The Alex Gordon Experiment Express v. Making Noises For Moises Banky's been asking for a breakdown of this dustup all week, and I'm more than happy to oblige. At press time my Moises squad held an 11-3 edge in this 7x7 format. Sure, it's early in the week, but few knowledgeable observers see much changing here. I send five, count 'em, five starters to the hill today, which could potentially give me the edge in my three weak categories: strikeouts, ERA and on-base-against. My offense is coming around lately, and the recent returns of Vernon Wells and Matt Holliday from injury will only add to Bank's woes.

On the plus side, Bank did trade Roy Oswalt earlier in the season for a bag of peanuts and a few spare Vespa parts, and Roy turned in a nice 10-K, 1 ER gem last night. Good times, and Play Ball!