The Angels John Lackey won his 12th game of the season. With an ERA under 3.00 and the Angels in first place, Lackey is one of the 2007 CY Young favorites. Those two factors place him ahead of Dan Haren of the sub-.500 Oakland A's.
Staying on the West Coast, the Mariners' Miguel Batista won his 9th game. With a 4.38 ERA, no one can say he has been a waste of free agent money. With a 1.55 WHIP, fantasy teams may remain unconvinced.
4A OF Jeff Salazar continues to make the case to remain the Diamondbacks' starting right fielder. He went 1-3 last night after drawing the praise of manager Bob Melvin following his game-saving catch of a Brian Giles home run the previous night. Good bat/good defense is a formula that is very hard to deny.
Chien Ming Wang proved again to be the Yankees' ace with his 10th victory last night against the Devil Rays. More surprisingly, he struck out six batters in his six innings of work. Other than his victory total, all his positive stats are up relative to last season's totals - 54 Ks versus 76 last year in half the innings, 3.43 ERA versus a 3.63 and a 1.20 WHIP versus a 1.31.