New York Yankees' ace, Chien-Ming Wang, took his efforts towards his third consecutive 19-win season one step closer by throwing a 94-pitch, complete game gem against the Boston Red Sox. At 3-0, he has to be considered the front-runner for this year's AL Cy Young. He is helped tremendously by the slow/horrible starts of Justin Verlander, CC Sabathia, and Erik Bedard.
The Dodgers face a tough right-hander, and Joe Torre does what is obvious to everyone. he sits RF Matt Kemp and starts Juan Pierre in his place. Unfortunately for Torre's naysayers, Pierre went 3-4 and is now hitting .273.
St. Louis Cardinals ace, Kyle Lohse, moved to 2-0 on the season with a two-ER effort against the San Francisco Giants. He did allow his first two earned runs of the season, so it wasn't all puppies and sunshine. Man, I just wanted to call Kyle Lohse an "ace".
In their effort to run away with the NL West, the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Colorado Rockies to move to 8-2. Ace Brandon Webb moved his record to 3-0, and second-year RF Justin upton hit his 4th HR of the season. Upton is hitting 6th, but how long until he moves further up the line-up? When/if he does, he will have the opportunity to break into the upper echelon of fantasy outfielders.
The Seattle Mariners finally got a save from their JJ-Putz-less bullpen. Mark Lowe closed out Felix Hernandez's 1st win of the 2008 season. Given the low bar set by himself and his fellow relievers, this successful save conversion should be all Lowe needs to "earn" a stranglehold on the closer's role. BTW, anyone else noitce how poorly half the M's line-up is hitting (Jose Vidor .128, Brad Wilkerson .148 and Kenji Johjima at .100)?
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Here are some interesting websites I have come across over the past couple of weeks. The first is fantasy injury site, which one cannot help think was inspired by the ground-breaking fantasy injury work of Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll. It is the
Disabled List Informer.
The next is a general fantasy site, Sports Tsar, and the final one is a non-fantasy site. It is called Saberscouting and has excellent coverage of baseball from a scouting perspective. I particularly enjoyed the piece on Yankees SP Phil Hughes and his alledged decreased velocity.