Crooked Pitch

Today’s pitch count is 15.

1. Closer by committee situations are never good in terms of fantasy baseball. That’s not stopping Tampa Bay from utilizing the strategy while Troy Percival is injured. Last night J.P. Howell got his second save of the year and R.J. Anderson wrote a post yesterday stating that Howell has some pretty exciting numbers. Better numbers in some regards then Papelbon and Rivera, to name a few.
2. You don’t see this very often. Both pitchers in last night’s Cincinnati versus St. Louis game pitched a complete game. Aaron Harang took the loss giving up three earned and striking out four. Chris Carpenter won his fourth game and has an ERA of 0.71 in six starts this season. He’s struck out 31 batters in 38 innings of work and only walked five.
3. David Wright stole his 13th base yesterday and is looking like he’s going wild on the base paths like he did in 2007 when he swiped 34. Unfortunately, he’s only jacked three home runs in the Mets’ new Grand Canyon like ballpark. Wright’s HR/F ratio of 5.8% is miserably low and show rise bringing his home run total up soon. But don’t look for him to approach 30 homers this season. With a hit rate of 44.4% I’m not even sure that his .326 batting average is safe. When his hit rate normalizes back towards his normal 34.7% we might see a huge drop in his average. Consider yourself warned.
4. Andrew McCutchen had a nice major league debut yesterday. He went 2-for-4 scoring three times and stealing a base. He’s owned in 13% of Yahoo! leagues right now but that number is sure to rise shortly. He’s NL-only worthy right now and you may consider taking a mixed-league flier on him too, especially in keeper leagues.

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Today’s pitch count is 4.

1. Not that a hitter with a batting average of .167 and an OPS of .433 through 84 at-bats deserves to be in the big leagues, but it’s big news that Alexi Casilla got sent down to the minors today. Casilla has 30+ stolen base potential but has been unable to put together a full season of any real fantasy value since hitting the scene in 2007.
2. For those of you who dropped Chris Iannetta or are in fantasy leagues where the owner who drafted him let him go, you may consider picking him up off of the waiver wire now. He has nine RBI over the last week and is batting .333.
3. Speaking of hot hitters who could help you out in the stolen base category, take a look at Willie Bloomquist and Manny Burriss. Bloomquist is SS/OF eligible in many leagues has stolen three bases in the last week while hitting .474. Burriss got off to a super slow start but has also stolen three bases in the past week  and is batting .471.
4. Yankees catcher Jorge Posada was sent to the disabled list with a hamstring injury. He will likely be out for two to three weeks.