I had a chance to watch Brian Matusz in his start Thursday night and while there were some things I liked, there were a couple of concerns I had. He got himself into way too many three ball counts and ended up walking five batters. Part of the problem was Tampa Bay hitters were able to fight off his fastball most of the night, resulting in a whopping 25 foul ball strikes.
While he has four pitches he can throw for strikes, he still needs to do a better job of putting hitters away. Yes, I say this despite the fact he struck out seven hitters in five inning. He also recorded zero ground ball outs and six fly ball outs. He was able to record two outs via pick-off moves. In other fantasy baseball news around the diamond on Thursday…
Hitters:
Vernon Wells hit his 4th home of the season, giving him seven RBI on the young season.
Chris Davis sat against the lefty starter Ricky Romero in place of Ryan Garko. If you are a Davis owner, you have to hope this is not going to be a permanent platoon situation.
Miguel Cabrera went 4-for-5 with four RBI and drilled his second home of the year.
Chipper Jones will miss the next 2-3 days with a strained oblique with Omar Infante expected to fill in for him.
Pitchers:
Brad Penny was good, 7 innings with one run and four strikeouts (ah, the magic of Dave Duncan) while Bronson Arroyo was just a little better in 8 innings with one run allowed and six strikeouts, though neither factored in the decision.
Similar results in Texas as Ricky Romero (7 innings, one run four k’s) squared off with C.J. Wilson,7 scoreless innings and nine strikeouts. I had a chance to catch part of the game and Wilson looked legit as a starter. He had some natural tail to his fastball as a lefty so it looked like a screwball at times. The announcers mentioned Wilson’s goal is 12 pitchers per inning and he was pretty close to that with 98 through seven innings of work. By the end of the season, it is not unrealistic to think that Wilson may be the most valuable Texas starter from a fantasy standpoint.
Brett Anderson tossed six shutout innings with four strikeouts to notch his first win of the year.
Randy Wells used 13 ground ball outs in six scoreless innings against the Atlanta Braves to earn a win. Wells walked two and struck out one in the game.
Jeff Niemann of the Tampa Bay Rays lasted only four hitters before leaving the game after being hit with a line drive from Miguel Tejada in his pitching shoulder.
Closers:
Frank Francisco blew Wilson’s win, allowing four hits and three runs in the ninth inning.
Leo Nunez rebounded from his poor outing the previous night to work a scoreless ninth inning to pick up his first save.
