The Rockies won a wild game yesterday, scoring 9 runs in the bottom of the 9th to win 12-9. Seth Smith may have hit the game winning home run, but Carlos Gonzalez probably had the best game. This has become a bit of a standard for Gonzalez, as he went 4 for 6 yesterday with 2 runs scored, a home run, and 3 runs batted in. Is Carlos Gonzalez a Top 10 outfielder for the remainder of the season?
Gonzalez's season totals: .303, 15 HR, 55 RBI, 51 runs and 12 stolen bases. This is clearly what the evaluators saw when he was ranked as a top prospect 2 years ago. He could finish the season with a .300+/30 HR/100 RBI/100 R/30 steal season, which to me would have to put him into the top 10.
Wandy Rodriguez struck out 10 and allowed only 1 earned run in a good start yesterday. I'm starting to believe in Wandy again, but I want to see what he does in his next start, which will be Sunday against the Cardinals. Much better lineup than the Pirates.
Alex Rodriguez hit 2 homeruns including a grand slam yesterday against the Athletics. He now has 14 homeruns, which seems low for him. Interestingly, he now has 67 runs batted in, which is right in line with the rest of the league leaders. I'm wondering if he might actually heat up and start putting up even better numbers.
Carlos Marmol recorded his 16th save of the season yesterday, but the story in the numbers had more to do with the strikeouts. He threw 1 and 2/3 innings, and got all 5 outs by strikeout. On the season, he now has 77 strikeouts in only 40 2/3 innings total, or nearly 17 strikeouts per 9 innings. He may finish the season as a top 5 closer even if he's not one of the top 5 in saves.
Jake Peavy left his start after only finishing 1 2/3 innings, and will be re-evaluated tomorrow for a strained right lat. Peavy has been pitching well of late, so hopefully this won't force him to miss too many starts.
Alfredo Simon blew the save yesterday against the Tigers, but I'm not brutally concerned. The two walks are bad, but it's hard to fault the closer for getting beat by Miguel Cabrera and his 21st homer of the season. I don't think Mike Gonzalez will get the job back when he finally returns from the disabled list without a few more of these kinds of outings from Simon.
Johan Santana threw a complete game shutout yesterday against the Reds, and looked really good. He struck out 5 batters and only had 6 base runners. We discussed last month whether it may be time to cut Johan Santana from your team, and the general consensus seemed to be that it wasn't time yet. It's time to reap those rewards for not doing that.
To the Red Sox, they must have annoyed someone really bad. Kevin Youkilis left the game yesterday in the 4th inning after hurting his foot kicking dirt in the batter's box. It sounds like the injury is not serious, and he should play tomorrow.
Vladimir Guerrero and Josh Hamilton both homered yesterday (19 and 21 respectively), but clearly the big story was the fan who fell from the 2nd deck going after a foul ball. It sounds like he's was responsive to the EMTs on the scene, so that's a good sign. Hopefully he's doing better, and hopefully someone sent that man an autographed baseball.
Madison Bumgarner went 8 shutout innings and struck out 5 against the Brewers. Take it with a grain of salt since he's a rookie, but Bumgarner looks like he could be usable in all leagues if he continues to strike out batters.
Also in the Giants game, Andres Torres stole his 17th base of the season. I knew Torres had a few hot streaks during the season, but I didn't realize that he was stealing bases at that pace. He could still be available in a lot of leagues if you need speed.
Zack Greinke had another nice start yesterday, striking out 9 in 7 innings and allowing only 1 unearned run. He already has as many losses as he did all of last season, but he now has 5 wins as well. I think he's still going to be a top-10 starter from here on out for the season.
Yeah, Matt Kemp is hot after being sat down a couple of weeks ago. He went 2 for 5 with his 16th homerun of the season. In addition, he also stole 2 bases to raise his season total to 12. We're finalizing up our outfielder rankings, and I think he's still going to finish as a top-5 outfielder.