Beyond the Boxscore–Fantasy MLB News and Notes 7/10/08
Ryan Howard can’t be stopped. He hit two more homers on Thursday and is now leading the league with 27. Since June 28th, Howard has eight homers and 19 RBI. After having just five through the month of April, Howard has just been depositing balls in chairs for the past two months. His batting average is still not where anyone would want it to be, but it has been increasing over the past couple of months.
Brewers pitcher Dave Bush had himself a heck of a ballgame on Thursday. Bush lasted eight innings, allowed no earned runs and struck out 13. This was the fourth time in five starts that Bush has allowed one run or less. If you have been bitten by the injury bug or have a lot of disappointment on your pitching staff, Bush might be worth adding, but I don’t think I would want to count on him for the rest of the year. Play the hot hand if you need to.
The sad, sorry season of the Seattle Mariners continues. On the day they put Erik Bedard on the DL, they also have released Richie Sexson. Perhaps he wasn’t the best way to spend $50 million as he rarely hit over .225 in his tenure with the Mariners. For any of you who have been silly enough to have him on your roster, feel free to drop him immediately.
Unexpected Pitching Performers
The only good news for the Mariners lately has been the pitching of R.A. Dickey. On Thursday Dickey went seven shutout innings and struck out four. He has been pitching pretty well of late, and it has been against some good teams. He gave up just two runs to Atlanta, allowed none to the Mets, and two to Detroit. All that being said your free agent pool would have to be picked over pretty cleanly for me to recommend picking up Dickey. I expect this nice streak to come to a crashing halt any start now.
Going into the season, the biggest highlight of the career of Pittsburgh’s Paul Maholm was that he struck out Billy Crystal in Spring Training. But lately, Maholm is looking to make some new highlights in his career. He pitched eight great innings against the Yanks on Thursday, allowing just two runs and striking out four. His record is now 6-5 after a nice string of starts. In his last seven starts, Maholm has allowed more than three earned runs only once. Even on the Pirates, if you pitch like that you have a chance to be successful. I would grab him before Dickey, but I’m not excited about either one.
Injury News
For the second time this season, Vernon Wells is going to spend an extended period on the DL. This time Wells will be missing time due to a strained hamstring. He has been doing too good to drop him, you just have to stash him for the next four to six weeks until he returns. In 64 games this season, Wells is hitting .287 with nine homers and 42 RBI.
Blue Jays SP Dustin McGowan is going to miss at least a month with a torn rotator cuff, which he apparently has been pitching with for a little while. He had been struggling this season anyway, but this is disappointing as many fantasy owners were expecting a breakout season for McGowan.
This shouldn’t be big news, but Moises Alou is going to miss the rest of the season with a laundry list of injuries. I can’t believe anyone had him, but who is going to play LF for the Mets? Will it be Fernando Tatis? Tatis has been earning playing time with his production recently. He connected on his fourth homer on Thursday, and it was his third in five games. Don’t make a move on Tatis, this playing time is going to be short lived, and he has a lot of holes in his swing. He wouldn’t have been out of the league for years if ANYONE thought he could do this consistently.
As always, your questions (adds, drops, trades) and comments are welcome at fightingchancefantasy@gmail.com. I guarantee a response within 18 hours. Don’t forget to check me out at mlbfrontoffice.com on Tuesdays under In The News. Also go to fantasybaseballsearch.com to find me in the Gurus Blog, and listen to The True Gurus Show every Wednesday night at 9 pm. I am a frequent guest on that show. To hear the best analysis on who to add/drop and more, don’t miss the Fantasy Baseball Scouting Report, every Tuesday night at 10.
