The Royals’ Mike Aviles continued his hot hitting as he posted 3 hits (incl. a double and a triple) in last nights victory over the Indians. Aviles, who’s now hitting .390, will live and die by his BABIP. Fifty-Nine at-bats into 2010 and Aviles still hasn’t drawn a walk which isn’t the best indicator going forward. His BABIP sits at .412 but at least he’s making contact 93% of the time and keeping his LD-Rate above 20%. We’re basically looking at a jacked-up version of Luis Castillo, who was himself, valuable every once and a while.
The Indians imploded, with Kerry Wood giving up five runs and a couple walks in 0.1 Innings of work. It’s only been 3 IP and Wood’s walked 5 batters but the velocity is better than it’s been in a couple years: 95.6 mph on the FB. The movement on his pitches according to pFX is also very similar to previous years. Either way, batters have made contact with exactly 91% of pitches that they’ve swung at. Worse still, Wood’s Z-Contact sits at …100%. With Kerry Wood, I wouldn’t worry unless he proves the BBs are here to stay.
Asdrubal Cabrera had surgery and will be out 8-10 weeks. Grady Sizemore bruised his left knee and hit the DL too. Trevor Crowe, replacing Sizemore, hit leadoff and stole a base. The stolen base potential is there for Crowe, having topped 20 SB in most of the previous years.
Alcides Escobar had 3 hits to raise his BA to .248. Escobar’s BABIP is .274 after routinely posting .3-something during his career. So long as Escobar sits atop that line-up and hits line-drives 20% of the time, he’ll have value going forward.
With his 9th steal of the season, Ryan Braun‘s on track to steal about 35 on the year — Jesus. He should top last year’s 20 but hoping for anything past 25 is pushing your luck.
Octavio Dotel recorded his 9th save of the year; his ERA now sits at 6.23 after that scoreless outing.
I thought about benching Wade Davis against the Yankees — they pegged him for 4 ER in 6IP to open the season — but decided against it and was rewarded with better than expected results: A W, 5.2IP, 2ER, 7K. Davis is still getting pretty lucky with BABIP (.258) and LOB% (85%;) so expect a bit more regression in the future. Davis has to bring his BB-Rate of 4.73-per-9 if he’s going to succeed.
A.J. Burnett exploded again: 4BB, 9H = 6 ER in 6.2 IP. That’s 16 ER in the last 3 starts and his ERA is still only at 3.86. Well, at least it’s Tampa, Boston and Minny.
Robbie Cano had yet another 4 hits last night. Cano’s sitting at .340 on the year and leads the AL.
The Gorgonzola pitched another good game for the Cubs ( 6.2IP, 0ER, 3H, 2BB, 5K)
Other than Starlin Castro, the Cubbies offense was pretty bland against Jamie Moyer (7IP, 4H, 2ER, 7K, 1BB). Castro’s impressed me thus far: He’s walking more than he’s striking out, hitting a decent amount of LDs, and making solid contact. It’s only 49 plate appearances, but I thought the Cubs were destined to ruin this heralded prospect.
Angel Pagan hit an inside the park home-run and still has arguably the best use of poetic juxtaposition in a name ever.
Drew Storen came in with a man on second and got Livan Hernandez out of a jam. In 55.2 IP, Livan Hernandez has stranded 97.5% of base runners and *held* opponents to a BABIP of .193. Is there anything you can do aside from chuckle?
Daniel Bard got his first save of the year after finishing up a gem by Clay Buchholz. It seems like the fantasy community was one, maybe even two, full years ahead when it came to predicting Buchholz and Hughes dominance. Clay Buchholz may still have a 1.43 WHIP but a .305 BABIP and 69% strand-rate show that there’s room for improvement. Walks are still a problem but Buchholz only walked a single Twin while striking out 7 in last night’s 8-inning gem. The line would’ve been better if Bard hadn’t allowed Denard Span to score on a Joe Mauer ground-out.
David Ortiz homered again: that’s 2 in the last 3 games and 4 HR in the last 6 games. More importantly, that’s 3 straight games without a strike-out for David Ortiz.
Jason Heyward got his OBP back over .400 after it temporarily dropped to — gasp! — .399 on Tuesday. Two doubles and a triple mean that more homers are on the horizon.
Scott Rolen’s always an injury risk but boy has he been on a tear over the last 5 games. Rolen’s raised his average 30pts, slugging percentage 70pts, and OPS a whole 85pts.
Houston scored 7 RUNS! Carlos Lee has homers in the last two games and three homers in the last 4 games. That’s 3/5ths of his homer total in the last 4 games.
After a sub-par 2009, Jeremy Guthrie is back to being Jeremy Guthrie after hurling 6 Innings of 7-hit ball while allowing only a single earned run. Guthrie struck out three Rangers before the bullpen blew it. I won’t begin to even try and understand how Guthrie posted 3.70 and 3.63 ERAs in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Guthrie’s back on pace to do it again in 2010, though. A major decline in GB:FB ratio caused Guthrie problems last year and he’s went about fixing it in 2010. Guthrie’s a guy who should float around a 4.40 ERA but he’s outpitched his indicators twice before, so I’m buying. The O-Swing percentage is back to 2007-2008 levels and the rest of the plate discipline stats sit somewhere between 2007 and 2009.
As for the Rangers, not much has changed. Josh Hamilton hit a homer and joined Kinsler, Guerrero and Cruz with an RBI each. Justin Smoak is hitting .174 and killing me in my keeper league.
Joe Saunders and John Danks pitched a pretty decent game. Danks struck out 8 but Saunders got the W. John Danks almost has his K:BB up to 3 and has pitched just as well as his 2.26 ERA would indicate (3.09 FIP, 2.56 tERA). Based on Plate Discipline Statistics, we’re looking at 2008 John Danks (3.32 ERA -3.44 FIP) rather than 2009 Danks (3.77 ERA – 4.59 FIP)
Dan Uggla went deep again (11HR) and is posting the highest OBP (.380) of his career. Uggla, of course, struck out again which has him pretty much on last year’s pace (26%) with a 24% K-Rate. There are some underlying issues with Uggla though: a drastic decrease in LD-Rate (10.5% in 2010) and an unsustainable 22.5 HR/FB ratio. Uggla’s currently hitting a career high 46.5% (up 10% from last year) of his fair-contacts for grounders, too.
Jaime Garcia threw five innings of five hit ball without allowing an earned run. Garcia continues to strike out batters (6 last night) but the walks are still a bit of an issue (4 last night). Obviously Garcia isn’t a 1.28 ERA / 1.14 WHIP pitcher, but he should prove himself to be rosterable for the majority of the year. Just how many innings Garcia can hold it together for isn’t quite clear yet — Assuming anything more than 130IP seems like a stretch at this point.
Anibal Sanchez outpitched Garcia last night — 7IP, 4H, 8K, 2BB. On the season, Sanchez has a 3.28 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP. Sanchez has seemingly been around forever and his Major League BB-Rate is finally coming close to his minors numbers. When Sanchez isn’t walking 5 batters per nine, he can be pretty effective.
The Diamondbacks stomped the Giants, 13-1. Justin Upton, Kelly Johnson, and Stephen Drew each had a DINGER: Adam LaRoche had two!
Ian Kennedy kept up his hot start, pitching 8 innings and striking out 9. Kennedy’s getting lucky with a .252 BABIP and 82.4% LOB but his K:BB of 3.06 is very promising. Kennedy’s pounding the zone early with a 65% First Strike Rate. The 3.24 ERA isn’t sustainable but solid K-numbers from a high-threes, low-fours, ERA guy isn’t all that bad.
Austin Jackson had 2 more hits and his BABIP is .458 almost three weeks into May.
Justin Verlander pitched a 1-run complete game and he’s still amongst the top in the AL. The strike-outs are down and the walks are up but there’s still plenty of time for correction: Just take note and remember his BABIP should be around .300, not .264.
Doug Fister got himself into and then out of trouble against the Blue Jays. It just looked like he lost control for a handful of ABs.
Kevin Gregg got his 12th save of the year. A BB-Rate in the twos helps take the sting out of the fact that Kevin GREGG!!! is our fucking closer. Hitters are pounding the ball into the ground at a 50%-clip against Gregg. Kevin Gregg the man, the myth, the legend, seriously is striking out 4.40 batters per walk.
One thing that’s stuck out is Kevin Gregg’s fastball. Gregg’s still throwing hard on the four-seamer but the pFX and velocity charts lead me to believe that he’s either amped up his slider or has started throwing the damn cutter that the Blue Jays love so much. Check out the Slider Graph and the Game Charts and you tell me.
Headley and Gonzalez went yard but the biggest surprise for me was Ramon Ortiz. Yah, I didn’t know Little Pedro was still pitching.
