Looking to add some power to their offense, the San Diego Padres recalled their top minor slugger Kyle Blanks from Triple-A. The Padres face left-handed starters in five of their next six games and will be playing American League clubs, giving Blanks the possibility of starting at first base, the outfield or at designated hitter. Blanks hit .283 with 12 home runs and 38 RBI in 66 games at Triple-A., while batting .424 over his last 10 games. In other fantasy baseball news around the diamond on Friday…

Hitters:

Derek Lee continues to roll, going 3-for-5 with two home runs and two RBI. Lee sent the game into extra innings with his home run off of Kerry Wood in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Brad Hawpe went 3-for-4 with three RBI, including his 10th home run of the season. Hawpe is currently second in the National League with a .343 batting average and fifth in RBI with 50 on the season.

Victor Martinez smacked his 12th home run of the season and drove in three runs, giving him 53 RBI on the season. Martinez has now driven in 12 runs in his last eight games.

Prince Fielder went 2-for-4 and clubbed his 17th home run of the season. Fielder also drove in three runs, giving him a RBI in five consecutive games., totaling 12 plated runners.

Jason Bay collected his 18th home run on the season and drove in two runs giving him 65 RBI on the season, good for second place behind Fielder’s 67. Bay has driven in 10 runs in his last nine game.

Miguel Olivo went 2-or-4 and blasted his 10th home run of the season. Olivo has certainly taken advantage of John Buck being out of action, by hitting five home runs and driving in 11 runs in his last nine games.

Aaron Rowand went 3-for-3 and hit his seventh home run of the season. After batting fifth for the majority of the season last year, he has found a home lately atop the batting order as the lead-off hitter, where is batting .346.

Marcus Thames went 2-for-4, knocking out two home runs and driving in four runs. Thames now has three home runs in his last two games.

Garret Anderson went 3-for-3 with four RBI in an Atlanta Braves 8-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. Nate McLouth went 2-for-4 with two RBI and added his 12th home run on the season.

Pitchers:

Fernando Nieve picked up his second win of the year, allowing one run in six innings with four strikeouts. Nieve has now allowed three runs in 14 2/3 innings since being recalled on June 6th. His next start will come against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday.

Andy Pettite allowed one run in seven innings with seven strikeouts to up his mark to 7-3 on the season. It was no surprise the win came on the road for Pettite, where he has a 2.59 ERA and is holding opposing hitters to a .226 average compared to his home splits of a 5.77 ERA and a .332 average allowed. Fantasy baseball owners might want to consider benching him for his home starts.

Kevin Slowey allowed one run in six innings with six strikeouts to notch his 10th win of the season. Slowey moved into a tie with Roy Halladay for the win lead in the American League.

Jon Garland tossed seven shutout innings, allowing seven hits with three strikeouts. The no decision snapped his five game losing streak.

Instead of using some complicated formula to review May fantasy baseball statistics, here is a breakdown for the numbers for the month sorted by RBI, for first basemen.

Mark Teixeira led they way at first base, thanks to the return of Alex Rodriguez to the line up. Ryan Howard is starting to pick up the pace in the power department although his batting average still lags in the .250 range.  Interesting to see that first base, usually thought of as a power position had three players in the top 10 with only two home runs for the month of May. Kotchman rebounded from the month of April where he had only four RBI and zero home runs. Despite all of the home runs that Adrian Gonzalez is hitting, the inability of the number one and two hitters in the San Diego Padres line up to get on base consistently limits his RBI chances.

Check out the player ranked at number 20, Mr. Albert Pujols. Despite his insistence that his left wrist is not affecting his performance, I have to believe the sudden drop off in numbers for Jorge Cantu from April to May is indeed affected by his injury. Much like the Boston Red Sox with David Ortiz, the Chicago Cubs face a dilemma with Derek Lee who is under performing this season. With Micah Hoffpauir performing just as well, do the Cubs consider platooning Lee with Hoffpauir, or make a trade for a first basemen?

Year to date:

Lee             .248 17-5-19-0 (141 at bats) – left / right split .278 / .244

Hoffpauir .281 9-4-16-0 (98 at bats) – left / right split .154 / .301