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5 Good Nights, 5 Bad Nights
It’s a fact of life that every baseball player goes through hot and cold streaks. It’s important not to let those streaks influence a player’s fantasy baseball value too much, but it is important to be aware of how a player is doing within a short period of time (a seven-day sorter is always a good tool to use). A player’s short-term numbers can be the difference between winning and losing in daily games, and it can also make a huge difference in year-long leagues. For instance, if you can keep finding the second basemen on hot streaks and dropping them for another streaking second basemen once they get cold, you can piece together a very useful middle infielder-by-committee for your roto team. So before we get to today’s games, let’s take a spin through last night’s box scores to identify who had a good night and who had a bad night on Wednesday, May 8th.
5 Good Nights
- Paul Goldschmidt: 2-4, 2 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI
- Dan Uggla: 2-4, 3 R, 2 HR, 2 RBI
- Vernon Wells: 3-4, 2 R, HR, 2 RBI, 1 steal
- Jason Marquis: 8.0 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, BB, 3 Ks, W
- Felix Hernandez: 8.0 IP, 6 H, ER, BB, 5 K’s, W
Honorable Mention: Alejandro De Aza, Hunter Pence, Joe Mauer, Alex Rios, Ryan Doumit, Kelly Johnson, Ben Zobrist, Jonny Gomes, Juan Francisco, Justin Morneau, Edwin Encarnacion, Evan Longoria, Trevor Plouffe, Pedro Florimon, Carlos Gomez, Bud Norris, Wade Miley, Barry Zito, A.J. Burnett, Clayton Kershaw, Ricky Nolasco, Derek Holland, Justin Masterson, Jordan Zimmerman, Jake Peavy, Mike Minor, Anibal Sanchez, David Phelps
5 Bad Nights
- Allen Webster: 1.2 IP, 6 H, 8 ER, 3 BB, 2 Ks
- Ricky Romero: 0.1 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 K
- Kyle Lohse: 6.1 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 6 Ks
- David Ortiz: 0-5
- Nelson Cruz: 0-5
Dishonorable Mention: Brett Lawrie, Sergio Romo, Pedro Hernandez, Felix Doubront, Edgar Gonzalez, Rafael Betancourt, Addison Reed, Junichi Tazawa, Kenley Jansen, Mike Leake, Jeremy Hefner, Jake Westbrook
Daily Grab Bag
Check back here for daily updates on injuries, closer battles, player news, and anything else that might affect your fantasy baseball team.
- J.J. Putz will reportedly avoid surgery and hope rest helps clear up the issues he’s having with his elbow (sprained ligament, irritated nerve). Heath Bell (who picked up the save for the Diamondbacks last night) will fill in as closer in Putz’ absence.
- A.J. Pierzynski has been placed on the 15-day DL with a strained oblique. These injuries can linger, but for now, it sounds like he won’t miss more than two weeks.
- James McDonald has been placed on the 15-day DL with discomfort in his right shoulder and will be replaced by Jeanmar Gomez in the rotation.
- Mark Reynolds has now played five games at third and is five games from qualifying for third base eligibility in ESPN leagues.
3 Up, 3 Down, and Throwing Darts
Starting and sitting the right pitchers on a day-to-day basis is often the lynchpin of winning any fantasy baseball league – roto, head-to-head, daily, and otherwise. In order to give you some help picking your pitchers for today, I’ve gone through all of the stats that I could (pitchers’ career numbers vs. certain hitters and lineups, home/road splits, lefty/righty splits, etc) and have made nine recommendations.
Here are today’s recommendations with, 3 Up (three pitchers you shouldn’t think of sitting), 3 Down (three pitchers with some warning flags for today), and Throwing Darts (three pitchers that I’ll be taking a flier on):
3 Up
Doug Fister at Washington Nationals
Cole Hamels at Arizona Diamondbacks
David Price vs. Toronto Blue Jays
3 Down
Ryan Vogelsong vs. Atlanta Braves
R.A. Dickey at Tampa Bay Rays
Bartolo Colon at Cleveland Indians
Throwing Darts
Jeremy Guthrie at Baltimore Orioles
Jason Vargas at Houston Astros
Dillon Gee vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Swings and Misses
A hitter’s career numbers against a pitcher don’t always tell the whole story, but it can be informative if used correctly. I’m of the opinion that some information is better than none, and while there are other pieces to the puzzle of setting your daily lineup (splits, weather, etc.), I think a hitter’s career numbers against a pitcher can be very indicative of future success or failure. Some guys just own certain pitchers, and vice versa. As such, I’ve gone through today’s matchups and picked the best (and worst) matchups I could find. Anything less than 10-12 career at-bats is a relatively small sample-size (so take those with a grain of salt), but sometimes that’s all that is available.
Swings
- Jose Bautista is 11-for-31 (.355) with four home runs in his career against today’s starter, David Price.
- Cody Ross is 11-for-37 (.297) with five home runs in his career against today’s starter, Cole Hamels.
- Nick Swisher is 5-for-10 (.500) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Bartolo Colon.
- Joe Mauer is 10-for-23 (.435) with two home runs in his career against today’s starter, John Lackey.
- J.P. Arencibia is 1-for-13 (.077) in his career against today’s starter, David Price.
- Chris Davis is hitless in 10 career at-bats against today’s starter, Jeremy Guthrie.
- Miguel Cabrera is 3-for-16 (.188) in his career against today’s starter, Dan Haren.
- Michael Cuddyer is 11-for-55 (.200) in his career against today’s starter, C.C. Sabathia.