By JIMMY D / A high Price and lowdown on KC run defence | Jimmy's archive
There has been much more than a Ray of hope for baseball fans in Tampa Bay this season and plenty rays of sunshine for patient baseball fantasy gurus.
Remember this is a team that finished last in 2007 and which had never won more than 70 games in a season – ever. On Sunday, the player they took with their first-overall pick for finishing last in 2006 saved their season in a dramatic 3-1 win over Boston.
David Price, the hard-throwing lefty, got the call from the Tampa Bullpen Committee and threw the Rays into the World Series. The Vanderbilt star was only called up Sept. 12 and maybe the coaching staff figured a rookie wouldn’t be smart enough or nervous enough facing the defending champs with the season on the line.
Philadelphia runs a lot of powerful left-handed hitters to the plate, so expect that the Price will be right for more innings in the World Series starting tomorrow.
Whatever the case, if you don’t have Price pinned down in your keeper league or if you are able to stash some prospects away for next year, you have been warned.
Think what an ace lefty starter could do next year with all the run support that B.J. Upton, Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford and the rest of that lineup. Scary.
Along came Jones
So you liked the 159 rushing yards Jet tailback Thomas Jones churned through Sunday in a loss to Oakland. Pretty good numbers for a mediocre back.
Well, Mr. Jones could be the pickup of the week since he faces the insanely generous Kansas City Chief defence in Week 8.
KC has my far the worst run-stop in the NFL and gave up 317 yards on the ground to LenDale White and Chris Johnson Sunday. Giving up an average of 207 yards per game, the Chiefs are awful and you should be watching their matchups every week – and grabbing whoever is available.
KC’s pathetic defence was one of the few things that was reliable in Week 7 as more upsets and more bizarre fantasy performances were turned in.
The Rams thrashed the Cowboys. What? Wasn’t it just last week that St. Louis was firing coaches in a season that could play out even uglier than Miami’s 1-15 last year? Wasn’t it just last week that Dallas was trading for Roy Williams and getting fitted early for their Super Bowl rings?
Quick, what do Jeff Garcia, Gus Frerotte, Chad Pennington, Kyle Orton and Matt Schaub have in common? True, they are five QBs you would never normally have on your fantasy roster at all, but last week, they had the five highest passing yardage totals in the league.
Garcia led the way with 310 yards as Tampa Bay smothered Seattle. (Thanks to Julius Jones for those seven rushes and 42 yards, all in garbage time). Jimmy D desperately needs some QB performances like those to rescue his season, after losing five weeks in a row.
This week was spectacular as his fantasy roster was outscored 87-26. And that was to the 11th-placed team in Jimmy’s 12-team league.
Maybe Week 8 will return to normal where the best QB performances are turned in again by Peyton Manning or Drew Brees or Philip Rivers. Maybe the Bears won’t score 48 points.
Malkin starts fast
Jimmy admits when he is wrong (which is quite often) but still doesn’t buy the fast start of Evgeni Malkin. Teams just have to lean on him, smack him around a bit and he turns into just a regular dude (albeit an extremely unattractive one).
Mark Jimmy’s words – he won’t finish in the Top 20 in scoring.
In the meantime, stay busy and stay lucky.
Jimmy D
jpoole@herald.ca |
