This is a Lowe

First Roger McDowell, now this. After a good west coast trip seemed to have the Braves back on the right track, the team is saddled with these two notable distractions.

What was Derek Lowe thinking?

I can't imagine any 37-year old man drag racing, but the staff ace for a World Series contender? A man making $15 million? While under the influence of alcohol?

McDowell's actions were stupid, unprofessional and offensive. Lowe's were dangerous. He could have killed someone driving at those speeds in that condition. Ask Leonard Little or Dante Stallworth.

He has now put his team in a terrible spot. Does he go to rehab? Does he get suspended? Does he miss his spot in the rotation?

The last question is whether any of this reflects on Fredi Gonzalez. Would this stuff have happened with Bobby Cox in the dugout? I think it probably would - John Rocker happened. But two embarrassments in one week for a proud franchise - the Braves need to clean things up ASAP.

Fire Roger McDowell

The Braves have been built on pitching for the last twenty years, starting with Leo Mazzone's stellar staffs and continuing with Roger McDowell's terrific work with guys like Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson.

But the Braves need to fire him if the reports out of San Francisco are true (and they seem to be based on McDowell's apology).

My first reaction to the story (from ESPN here) was to ask if he was drunk, but this was pregame. So he was heckled? I can't imagine it was the first time (Newman?). This is a coach who was wearing a Braves uniform at a Braves game shouting slurs and making lewd gestures with a bat. I don't even care about the kid seeing it; it wasn't appropriate or tolerable for the Braves organization in any circumstance.

I don't see how the Braves can keep him employed. One of the organization's blackest eyes was the John Rocker episode, but this was worse. Rocker got tricked (because he was an idiot) into thinking he was cool with the SI reporter and they were just shooting the you-know-what. McDowell was on the field. In uniform. Doing his job while doing this.

I think Leo Mazzone is available.

Thoughts & Prayers for Storm Victims Across the South

Not to get too heavy on the SCSB, but the South was hammered by a series of storms and tornadoes last night. Here is a video from Tuscaloosa where a massive tornado approached but missed Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Chronicling a Fantasy Baseball Season, Part III: Week 4 Preview

Here are the standings heading into week 4:

1. Wuertz Case Scenario 26-9-1

2. Honey Badgers 24-10-2

3. Big Dick Gangsta 20-13-3

4. big time timmy jim 19-14-3

5. Let Timmy Smoke 18-14-4

6. haveyouseenmywiener 18-16-2

7. Tacoby Bellsbury 16-18-2

8. explosive renteria 17-19-0

9. Carry on Heyward Son 13-21-2

10. Purple Tigers 13-23-0

11. ruppert mundys11-23-2 .

12. The Lobster 8-23-5

pos	Explosive Renteria	Purple Tigers
C	Wieters	Posada
1b	Fielder	Butler
2b	Pedroia	Cano
3b	Herrera	Chipper
SS	Drew	Reyes
OF	Cargo	Bruce
OF	Pence	Huff
OF	Bautista	Bay
UTIL	Lowrie	Y. Escobar
UTIL	Freeman	Soriano
SP	Johnson	Kershaw
SP	Marcum	Jimenez
SP	Scherzer	Nolasco
RP	Marmol	Putz
RP	Hanrahan	Feliz
P	Pineda	Zambrano
P	Sanchez	Lowe
P	Chacin	Jurrjens

I’m not changing a thing about my pitching. It is the backbone of my 8^th place team. I’m giving Adam Lind and Bobby Abreu a break though. Those guys aren’t doing shit for me right now. Lowrie is hot and so is Freddy Freeman. I’m going to give them a shot.

Here’s the thing about playing the hot hand, though. Baseball is a game of averages. Thisngs even out over the course of a season. Right now Jed Lowrie is hitting .431. He won’t hit .431 for the year. He just won’t. He might hit .300, he might hit .330, but he won’t hit .431. If he is going to hit .300 this year, that means that from here on out, he’ll be a .288 hitter. I think that is better than Abreu will do in that spot from here on out. Abreu is getting old and he has run since week 1. He may be a .280 hitter at best right now. Lind is hitting .232 on the year. He is making his 2009 season look like the outlier. We’ll see.

The Purple Tiger staff is loaded. Their top 3 arms are really good. Jimenez is not throwing the ball like he’s capable, but that will probably change this week, since guys get hot when they play Explosive Renteria. Feliz just got put on the DL, though, so maybe I have a chance in Saves this week. Probably not, but maybe.

I like my team better at most positions, so I’m going to predict Explosive Renteria again this week.

pos	Tacoby Bellsbury	Wuertz Case Scenario
C	Napoli	--
1b	G. Jones	Morneau
2b	Kinsler	Espinosa
3b	Inge	Valencia
SS	Castro	Tulo
OF	Ellsbury	Kemp
OF	Vitorino	Coghlan
OF	Holliday	Beltran
UTIL	Ortiz	Murphy
UTIL	Hafner	Smith
SP	Weaver	Hamels
SP	T. Hudson	D. Hudson
SP	Zimmerman	CJ Wilson
RP	Papelbon	Bell
RP	Bard	Stauffer
P	Danks	Burnette
P	Masterson	Santana
P	Harrison	Latos

Tulo and Kemp. V Mart is shelved for two weeks, so Emerson is playing a man down this week. I like the Tacoby Bellsbury staff better, but I’m puzzled as to why Jacob pulled Farnsworth for Bard. Farnsworth gets saves. Bard doesn’t.

The Wuertz Case Scenarios just have great team chemistry. You can tell that they all pick each other up. Unlike the Explosive Renterias, who seemed to all take the flu when Cargo got it, Emerson’s squad rallied around a sickly Justin Morneau to jump out of the gate to a really quick start. The naysayers will try to convince you all that players on a fantasy baseball team can’t have chemistry as a team, since they are not a team in reality, but in fantasy. I say bullshit. See Wuertz Case Scenario.

My Pick: Wuertz Case Scenario.

pos	Big Time Timmy Jim	Carry On Heyward Son
C	Soto	Santana
1b	Gonzalez	Davis
2b	Phillips	Johnson
3b	Young	Wright
SS	A. Ramirez	Cabrera
OF	Upton	McCutcheon
OF	Upton	Granderson
OF	Vlad	Crisp
UTIL	Polanco	Gordon
UTIL	Arencibia	Sizemore
SP	Halladay	Lester
SP	Billingsley	Liriano
SP	Garza	Gallardo
RP	Perez	K Rod
RP	Cordero	Broxton
P	Shields	Anderson
P	Jackson	Myers
P	Storen	De La Rosa

Ike Davis is not as good as he played last week. Eff that guy. Yes, I am bitter. Very, very bitter. It’s the type of person I am. Bitter or not, Ike Davis is not all that good. He’s not bad. He’s just not the type of guy who can carry your fantasy baseball team for weeks at a time (obviously he can in spans of one week).

Heyward Son’s pitching is formidable. But, Halladay is not Ike Davis. He is capable of carrying a staff on his back. Plus, James Shields is throwing the ball really well right now. I think this one will be close, but I like Big Time.

My Prediction: Big Time Timmy Jim.

pos	The Lobster	Gangsta
C	McCann	Avila
1b	Cabrera	Konerko
2b	Uggla	Isturis
3b	A Rod	Prado
SS	Andrus	Ramirez
OF	Ethier	Cruz
OF	Byrd	Choo
OF	Fuld	Ichiro
UTIL	Ruiz	Tabata
UTIL	Infante	C. Young
SP	Bucholtz	Verlander
SP	Garcia	Hanson
SP	Arroyo	Gonzalez
RP	Fuentes	Kimbrel
RP	Nunez	Capps
P	Cain	Walden
P	Narveson	Beckett
P	Franklin	Harang

Let’s get this out there right now. Aaron Harang is ownable in all formats. He is good enough to be on anyone’s staff and he is pitching in San Diego. Dr. Dunk made a good move by picking this guy up.

I like the Lobster’s infield. He has plenty of power in the infield. The rest of his squad is suspect. Plus he’s starting a middle reliever (Ryan Franklin) in one of his P spots, so his counting numbers will suffer. I think Gangsta has very good balance. I like Gangsta to win pretty easily this week.

My prediction: Gangsta.

pos	Ruppert Mundys	Let Timmy Smoke
C	Posey	Buck
1b	Pujols	Howard
2b	Kendrick	Sanchez
3b	Ramirez	Sandoval
SS	Rollins	Sanchez
OF	Rasmus	Braun
OF	Hunter	Werth
OF	Gomes	Berkman
UTIL	Teixeira	Maybin
UTIL	Francoeur	Gardner
SP	Felix	Lincecum
SP	Price	Haren
SP	Drabek	Lilly
RP	Sanchez	Street
RP	Chen	Wilson
P	Wood	Cahill
P	Ramirez	Romero
P	Dempster	Chapman

Let Timmy Smoke starts a middle reliever in his P spot as well. Unlike Ryan Franklin, though, this middle reliever throws 106 mph and strikes people out. He also puts up good ratio numbers. I’m not picking on Lobster, I’m picking on Franklin.

Top to bottom, I think BobbyJ has a better lineup. I think Thriller has better pitching by a longshot. I still haven’t bothered to look up a couple of BobbyJ’s pitchers. But, with Teixeira hitting as well as he is, I can see the Ruppert Mundys putting up some numbers this week. Jayson Werth has got to start hitting the ball. Brent Gardner is dogshit right now. BobbyJ has King Felix making 2 starts this week and for that reason, I am going to go with the Ruppert Mundys to win, though I would not be shocked if it ended in a 6-6 tie.

My prediction: Ruppert Mundys.

pos	Haveyouseenmywiener	Honey Badgers
C	Motero	Martin
1b	LaRoche	Votto
2b	Weeks	Walker
3b	Headley	Beltre
SS	Desmond	Bloomquist
OF	Crawford	Stubbs
OF	Quentin	Heyward
OF	Pierre	Stanton
UTIL	Youkilis	Roberts
UTIL	Rios	Aybar
SP	Lee	Carpenter
SP	Sabbathia	Lewis
SP	Wolf	Loshe
RP	Venters	Soria
RP	McClellan	Valverde
P	Rivera	Kuroda
P	Oswalt	Volquez
P	Lyon	Floyd

Walter will win Steals, despite his inexplicably benching Michael Bourn (4/0/2/2/.391/.875) last week in favor of Juan Pierre (3/0/0/1/.240/.561) or Alex Rios (0/0/0/0/.000/.13 – Holy Shit, that’s bad). This will be a battle of two teams with a couple of potential superstars starting to get hot. Heyward and Stubbs are starting to swing the sticks better for the Honey Badgers (Honey Badger don’t care…) and Carl Crawford and Kevin Youkilis are waking up for Haveyouseenmywiener. Ultimately, I like Flynner’s lineup better.

But Walter’s pitching is better than Flynner’s. This is going to be close. I’m seriously considering going with Haveyouseenmywiener just to piss Flynner off. And I will. Russell Martin won’t hit a home run this week and the Honey Badgers, whether he gives a shit or not, messed up a good thing they had going when they changed their name.

My prediction: Haveyouseenmywiener.