It was a night for the lesser name pitchers as David Huff (Cleveland), Matt Harrison (Texas) and Dana Eveland (Toronto) all threw well with Huff and Eveland picking up wins. If you have all three as free agents in your league and are considering picking one up, I would rank them Harrison, Eveland, Huff. Harrison throws the hardest, has the best chance to pick up strikeouts and has a solid offense behind him. In other fantasy baseball news around the diamond on Thursday…
Hitters:
Shin-Soo Choo seems like he is carrying the offense for the Cleveland Indians, but then I check his RBI count and it is only five. Choo went 2-for-4 with a home run and drove in all three runs for the Indians Thursday.
Ryan Braun went 4-for-5 with three RBI, including his third home run of the season. It could be this season that we see him break the 40 home run barrier.
Chase Utley homered for the third straight game, giving him five home runs on the season and 11 RBI.Teammate Shane Victorino is enjoying his new spot atop the line up with Jimmy Rollins out as he homered for the second straight day.
Robinson Cano hit two home runs and drove in three to lead the New York Yankees to a 6-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels.
Matt Kemp homered for the third time in four games and drove in two runs giving him 13 RBI on the season. Hitting second in the batting order looks like a good fit so far as he is hitting .341 on the season.
Pitchers:
Francisco Liriano tossed seven shutout innings with eight strike outs to pick up the win. His control was much better in his second start, throwing 64 strikes versus 32 balls.
Bud Norris was much better in his second start, although he could only get through five innings because of a high pitch count. Norris earned his first win of the year without allowing an earned run and striking out nine. Still tough to play him every week with his up and down tendencies although it was nice to see this outing against the St. Louis Cardinals instead of someone like the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Mike Pelfrey hurled seven shutout innings with six strikeouts to move to 2-0 on the year. Pelfrey got ahead in counts by throwing first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 25 hitters he faced and cruised through the Colorado Rockies line up with little problem.
Phil Hughes was successful in his first start of the season, allowing two runs in five innings with six strikeouts to get the win. The downside to owning him as a 5th starter is the chance that he will get skipped in the rotation on some weeks.
Josh Johnson claimed his first win of the season, allowing one run in six innings while fanning 10. He is averaging 3.3 more pitches per inning in 2010, thanks to an increase in his walks per nine innings.
Ben Sheets picked up his first win with the Oakland A’s, working six scoreless innings with four strikeouts. The lack of strikeouts is a concern if you own him going forward with eight strikeouts and 10 walks in 17 innings.
Hiroki Kuroda allowed two runs in seven innings with seven strikeouts in a no decision. He had upped his strikeout rate the second half of last season and looks to be carrying it over so far in 2010 through his first two starts.
Closers:
Chad Qualls picked up a blown save on back-to-back nights, allowing two runs in the ninth inning and five base runners. The inability to throw strikes did him in, missing the strike zone on 13 of his 25 pitches. With the way closers have been going down this season, if you own Qualls, you might want to grab Juan Gutierrez as insurance just in case.
