So Hot Right Now

With all due respect to Hansel, the New York Yankees ' hitters are some of the hottest around. In fact, almost half their lineup ranks in the top 20 for fantasy production over the last month, which may explain how they've pulled to within 5 games of the Red Sox.

Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano, Bobby Abreu, and Alex Rodriguez are hitting a combined .341 with 32 homeruns, 106 runs scored, 115 RBI, and 9 steals over that time and they rank 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 17th respectively in 5x5 fantasy production.

There are definitely some surprising names on that list like number 5 Jermaine Dye (.327, 12, 23), number 11 Corey Patterson (.352, 13 RBI, 14 steals), and number 31 Pat Burrell (.395, 6, 22). Then there are the usual suspects like Carl Crawford, David Wright, Ryan Howard, Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols.

The three hottest pitchers in the land recently have all been the topics of recent posts of mine: Erik Bedard, Scott Kazmir, and Tim Hudson. Others include less-well-known starters helping their teams make the playoff push like Orlando Hernandez, Fausto Carmona, and Doug Davis.

With the playoff race as tight as it is, it's probably going to come down to the performances of these under-the-radar guys, and others to determine who gets in and who's left out.