Rajai Davis: 2/4 with 3 stolen bases (6 for season) while hitting .297. Davis batted leadoff as Anthony Gose got the day off. The speedster is one of the best modern day stolen base artists and underrated for his career. Davis however is also the same guy who will be cut and signed 10 times a season and end up on half the teams in your league when he is hot.
Alfredo Simon: 6.2 IP 6 H 1 ER 2 BB 3 K with an ERA of 1.65. I guess we can start calling Simon the new Dan Haren of 2009 with a lesser K rate. This is the second season in a row Simon has pitched like an ace in April and that has not changed since moving into the American League. Of course he is a major sell sometime in July as his second half of 2014 was pretty ugly as the innings piled up. Of course most of your league knows which means you probably won't get anything worthy of pulling off a move.
Joakim Soria: scoreless ninth for his sixth save with an ERA of 1.17. Soria has a WHIP of 0.26 and is putting next to no one on base. With Joe Nathan finished for the season, Soria can absolutely be a top ten closer as his talent was never in question.
Lucas Duda: 1/5 with his second HR while hitting .323. The home run came off a lefty in C.C. Sabbathia and Duda is now hitting over .400 against southpaws with April getting set to flip to May. Duda had been comically bad against lefties in his career including his breakout 2014 when he hit .180 against them so this is beyond encouraging. The fact he has consistently hit lefties since the start of spring training is now becoming a large enough sample size to think this is legit. If that is case, this could be a monster season for Duda.
Kevin Plawecki: 2/4 with his first HR while hitting .286. Very good swing here as Plawecki clearly knows how to handle the bat. Power has been slow in developing but that is expected to soon join his .300 average. You should have already picked him up.
Mark Teixeira: 3/4 with his 8th HR while hitting .254. After mocking Teixeira a bit for the lack of hits outside of home runs, he goes right out and picks up two hits to go with yet another bomb. An amazing homestand for Tex and the power output is starting to resemble his old Texas days. The .300 average is gone for good but no one in baseball is hotter right now. Just to show you how far Teixeira's value has fallen, I got him from the wire Wednesday.
C.C. Sabbathia: 7 ER in 5 IP with an ERA of 5.96. The last time Sabbathia started I told you to ignore the allure of his strikeout per inning average as the home run issue was only going to get worse as the season heated up. Sabbathia can't throw the baseball by anyone anymore and he got strafed for 3 home runs against a power-deficient Mets lineup.
Matt Harvey: 8.2 IP 5 H 2 ER 2 BB 7 K with an ERA of 3.04. Terry Collins ought to get his head examined after he allowed Harvey in his fourth start coming back from Tommy John surgery to pitch into the ninth inning. Yes he was at 80-something pitches to start the ninth but what was that proving in a blowout game and when you want to conserve innings as the Mets look to make a deep postseason run. I am worried about a bounce effect in Harvey's next start but let's hope that is the worst of it.
Giancarlo Stanton: 3/3 with his 5th HR while hitting .262. Maybe Stanton can inspire Marcell Ozuna (zero home runs) to send maybe just hit one baseball over the outfield fence.
Stephen Strasburg: 6 IP 8 H 4 ER 2 BB 6 K with an ERA of 4.88. Don't worry. May is almost here.
Ryan Howard: 1/3 with his second HR while hitting .189. What has a better chance of happening: Howard hitting .220 or 25 home runs?
Mike Napoli: 3/4 with his first HR while hitting .183. With the Red Sox playing a bunch of interleague NL-ballpark games early on, Napoli has been stuck on the bench too often to get into any sort of groove. Never been remotely interested in him once the catcher eligibility went by the wayside so I want to move on.
Xander Bogaerts: 1/4 with his first HR while hitting .298. I maintain my stated opinion from early last season that Bogaerts is a grossly inflated empty average.
Koji Uehara: blown save with 2 earned runs in .1 IP with an ERA of 4.15. Should be the first of more than a few of these this season as I think Uehara is going to be one big headache. Keep Edward Mujica close by. Age+diminished stuff= no closer gig in July.
Josh Donaldson: 2/4 with his first two stolen bases while hitting .352. Now he is stealing bases? How much can you possibly love someone in fantasy baseball terms? All's I know is that just looking at Donaldson in a Toronto Blue Jays uniform makes me weak in the knees.
Russell Martin: 1/4 with his third HR while hitting .167. Martin is still hitting home runs but boy has the bottom fallen out with the average which is disturbing in Toronto of all places. Left only for those in two catcher formats and even that is iffy.
Miguel Castro: second blown save with 1 ER in .1 IP with an ERA of 2.79. The WHIP is now up to 1.34 and Castro has been getting hit the last week. Unfortunately do did Roberto Osuna and Brett Cecil in this same game. Its like the Chicago White Sox ninth inning all over again,
Matt Holliday: 1/4 with his first HR while hitting .358. Holliday is still picking up hits all over the yard but his power is really slipping as he barely hit 20 home runs last season.
Adam Wainwright: 4 IP 3 H 0 ER 0 BB 4 K with an ERA of 1.44. Wainwright was headed for another big outing until leaving with an achillies injury. A DL stint is likely. When I said to avoid Wainwright this season, it was due to injury fears of his arm and not his legs.
Mark Melancon: scoreless ninth for his fourth save with an ERA of 5.79. It wasn't smooth as Melancon gave up one hit and a walk but he has now converted two saves in a row without giving up a run. The leash lengthens just a bit but hold Tony Watson a bit longer.
Brandon McCarthy: 6 ER in 5 IP with an ERA of 5.87. What a joke. McCarthy continues to somewhat get his ass handed to him despite glowing K/BB numbers. I tried him out for this one but needless to say there won't be an encore.
Ian Kennedy: 8 ER in 4.1 IP with an ERA of 10.80. That makes it TWICE in the past week where one of my pitchers gave up 8 earned runs in a start. I compare it to trying to gauge my own eyes out with an ice pick.
George Springer: 2/5 with his second HR while hitting .200. The last week is showing signs that Springer woke up from his own personal extended spring training. Springer didn't go from super prospect to garbage overnight so there was never any reason to panic but boy that K rate is unsightly.
Jose Altuve: 2/5 with his second HR while hitting .315. And when Springer has as many home runs as this guy, you realize how stark the Astros outfielder's slump has been.
Austin Jackson: 2/5 with his second HR while hitting .275. Austin Jackson is one of those radioactive names in fantasy baseball where you instantly start gagging as soon as you see his name. No one wants him or trusts him at this point in his very disappointing career and that won't change with a rare home run game.
Nori Aoki: 0/2 with his 5th SB while hitting .303. Cheap speed, cheap speed, cheap speed.
Troy Tulowitzki: 2/5 with his second HR while hitting .303. Remember when I said all throughout the winter and during spring training that Tulowitzki may have his power negatively impacted by the serious hip surgery he underwent? Yup.
Carlos Gonzalez: 1/5 with his second HR while hitting .197. Gonzalez has been beyond disgusting this season as he continues with his career trends of either being hurt or with royally pissing off his owners. There are zero steals so far as I correctly predicted the team would not allow him to run in order to keep him healthy. Of course you can't run when you don't hit and that is the bigger problem right now. Remember that before he went out for the season last year, Gonzalez' hitting stats were down vastly across the board. Trends.
Santiago Casilla: blown save with 1 ER in .2 IP with an ERA of 3.12. I am at least watching this situation as Castilla's WHIP is 1.62 as he is putting a ton of runners on base which of course is a very bad thing to do while throwing in he ninth inning. Sergio Romo has thrown well all season so add him to the watch list.
Andre Ethier: 3/4 with his second HR while hitting .353. Yup it was Ethier and not Alex Guerrero who got the start in place of Yasiel Puig. And Ethier of course homers to give Don Mattingly no reason to make a change. Feel free to pick up Etheir if Puig goes on the DL but I will instead just mourn another Guerrero opportunity lost.
Juan Uribe: 1/5 with his first HR while hitting .244. Of course Uribe homered. Why wouldn't he? If Alex Guerrero could pitch and had a shot at a spot in the rotation, the entire Dodgers fivesome would not allow another earned run the entire rest of the season.
Adrian Gonzalez: 2/5 with his 7th HR while hitting .403. Gonzalez is back in his red-hot run like he was the first week of the season. He is in the running for April MVP and is on pace for 40-plus homers which would be a nice trip down San Diego memory lane.
Howie Kendrick: 1/5 with his third HR while hitting .308. The funny thing is that Kendrick will finish as a firm top ten fantasy baseball second baseman but yet no one wanted him during the draft.
Wil Myers: 1/5 with his third HR while hitting .272. Since when did Petco Park become Coors Field? 7 home runs in one game? Did the poles shift and we not even know it? Maybe it was simply the Little League lineups the Padres put out all those years. Be that as it may, Myers continues to do a decent job out of the leadoff spot for the Padres but the average is slowly leaking as we go along.
Justin Upton: 2/3 with 2 home runs (5 for season) while hitting .303. No matter what park it is, Upton can't be held in it.
Chris Hatcher: 1 earned run in ninth inning with an ERA of 9.95. I laughed when I actually read on another publication that Hatcher and not Yimi Garcia would close in place of Joel Peralta who could hit the DL with a dead arm. What are they watching?