Christopher Morais

Welcome to The Fantasy Fix’s nightly fantasy baseball recap, where you’ll find updates on bullpen usage, lineup construction, injuries, and transactions. Whether you play season-long or daily fantasy, expect to see the best coverage from every team, all season long.

First off, happy 4th of July to everyone celebrating this holiday and to the men and women who serve everyday to make the United States the country it is today. Your sacrifice can never be repaid.

The holiday also means a ton of afternoon baseball! All 30 teams were in action today and for the most part the weather was pretty good. We are officially past the midway point of the season, so teams are starting to judge whether they are contenders for a championship, or pretenders hoping for more next season. Lots of action went down today, so let’s take a look at which games/players stood out.

IF YOU ONLY READ ONE THING…

The Boston Red Sox are the best hitting team in baseball, and they put on a show for the fans at home. After putting up ten runs against the Angels yesterday, the Sox crushed the Texas Rangers today 12-5, thanks to Dustin Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts and Travis Shaw, who all finished with three hits. The Red Sox gave up four runs in the top of the first, but scored the next nine runs and chased starter Nick Martinez after 4.1 innings. Martinez gave up six runs on 11 hits and struck out one hitter. The Rangers will look for a better result tomorrow with A.J Griffin taking the mound against lefty David Price.

JUST AS WE EXPECTED…

The Cincinnati Reds are a terrible team, and there’s no denying it. The Chicago Cubs scored ten runs today on their way to an easy 10-4 victory. Shortstop Addison Russell finished the game 2-for-5 with three RBIs, while pitcher Kyle Hendricks picked up his 7^th win of the season. Reds pitcher Cody Reed was plagued by some terrible defense, leading to four unearned runs. With the loss, Reed is now 0-3 on the season and sports an ugly 9.00 ERA and a 1.85 WHIP.

BUT WE DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING…

It’s no secret that 22-year-old Lance McCullers has a cannon for an arm, and today, the kid put on a clinic at home against the Seattle Mariners. The righty struck out ten hitters and helped the Astros pick up their 44^th victory of the season by the score of 2-1. George Springer provided the go ahead run in the fifth inning thanks to his 19^th homerun of the season. McCullers improves his record to 4-2 and lowers his ERA to 3.57 on the season. His next start will come Saturday against the Oakland Athletics.

THE REST OF THE DETAILS

SAVE CHANCES

• Jeremy Jeffress (22)
• Ryan Garton (1)
• Ryan Madson (16)
• Will Harris (8)
• Neftali Feliz (1)
• Santiago Casilla (20)
• Jeurys Familia (29)

LINEUP MOVES

• Twins Reinstate Trevor May for 15-Day DL
• Orioles place Pedro Alvarez on Bereavement List
• Indians designate Joba chamberlain for assignment
• Diamondbacks reinstate shortstop Nick Ahmed from Paternity List, option Peter O’Brien to Triple-A Reno

INJURIES

• Jefry Marte—day-to-day—(knee)
• Fernando Rodriguez—15-Day DL—(shoulder)
• Marco Estrada—day-to-day—(back)
• Tommy Phan—day-to-day—(shoulder)
• Kris Bryant—day-to-day—(leg)
• Chris Stewart—15-Day DL—(knee)
• Jameson Taillon—15-Day DL—(shoulder)
• Desmond Jennings—15-Day DL—(hamstring)
• Jordan Zimmermann—15-Day DL—(neck)
• Trevor Plouffe—15-Day DL—(rib)