Thursday's Roto Roundup: Dustin Pedroia - Offensive Machine

Dustin Pedroia, along with the rest of the Red Sox and Rockies, apparently left the pitchers back at the hotel for yesterday's game. Pedroia went 5 for 5 with 3 home runs, 5 runs batted in, and 4 runs scored. Pedroia has been really hot of late, raising his batting average from a season low of .248 on June 9th to .292 through yesterday's game. To me, this is probably about where he should be for batting average, but he is also on pace to break 20 homeruns this season for the first time. He seems likely to me to finish as the 3rd best 2B at worst at this point.

Carl Crawford left the Rays' game on Thursday with a sore shoulder, and his manager has pretty much said he'd be shocked if he played on Friday, and is not sure about his availability for the whole weekend. As a Crawford owner, this is not what I wanted to hear out of the Rays. If he ends up on a prolonged DL stint, could this be what the Rays need to call up top prospect Desmond Jennings? The Rays did make a roster move which could be only a short-term solution, sending Dioner Navarro down to AAA and calling up Matt Joyce. Either way, hopefully Crawford will not miss a lot of time with this.

ESPN reported yesterday that Erik Bedard will make his debut this season on July 6th. Kudos to you if you have been holding him in your DL spot this long, as you may finally get some value out of him. There's a part of me that half expects him to go right back on the disabled list after 2 starts, so caveat emptor with regard to Bedard.

Sigh. Wandy Rodriguez seems determined to torture me to no end this season. Coming off another blowup in his previous start, the Astros' starter went 6 innings yesterday, striking out 3, allowed no earned runs (2 unearned), and 5 baserunners while getting his 4th victory of the season. I have already dropped him, but I want to see some more strikeouts before I am going to think about picking him back up again.

Gavin Floyd had a really good start again yesterday, striking out 9 and allowing only 3 baserunners over 7 innings. For Floyd, it's his 4th straight start allowing 1 or fewer earned run. The opportunity to buy low is pretty much closed on Floyd I would imagine.

Yovani Gallardo pitched an excellent game, striking out 12 batters and allowing only 5 hits toward his complete game shutout against the Twins. Gallardo seems like a Jekyll and Hyde type for me, as he will also have games where he walks a bunch and gives up hits in bunches. Today was a great day for him, and hopefully this will be continued.

Felix Hernandez threw 9 innings and only allowed 2 earned runs but wasn't able to get a victory as the game went to extra innings. Another 8 strikeouts for Hernandez, I think he could still end up as a top-5 pitcher for the rest of the season. It remains to be seen what happens, if anything, if Cliff Lee is traded though. I can't imagine that this is something that is likely to affect Hernandez, but stranger things have happened.

Brandon Morrow had another fine start yesterday, going 8 shutout innings and striking out 8 to get the victory for the Cardinals. Morrow is another high upside pitcher who may finally be putting it together. I own him in my keeper league, and also picked him up earlier in the week in a regular league where we also play K/9. He's probably still going to have some outings I would sooner forget, but he's worth the risk in my opinion.