Ervin Santana (SP – Angels)
Ervin Santana looked great on Friday night as he came within one out of tossing a complete game. In the process he allowed 1 ER, 6 hits, 2 walks, while striking out 7. This was the start that Santana owners needed, since he had allowed 15 ER in his last 6 IP and was sporting a 11/9 K/BB ratio in 18 innings since returning. Santana began the night by throwing his fastball in the 92-93 MPH range, but as the game wore on his velocity dropped to around 90 MPH. Even though the start was highly successful, Santana is clearly still not at full strength, as his fastball averaged 94.4 MPH last season. I expect Santana to get stronger as the season progresses, but owners need to be prepared for a bumpy road in the near-term.
Zack Greinke (SP – Royals)
Zack Greinke posted his first non-quality start in 12 tries this season by allowing 5 ER in 5 IP against the Blue Jays. So it turns out that he is in fact of this world. I feel that this start was necessary in order to re-adjust our expectations of Greinke. Greinke is clearly one of the most dominant pitchers in the league, if not the most dominant, but even the best pitcher in the league can’t maintain an ERA of 1.10 and a WHIP of 0.90 over the course of a season. He allowed his first home run of the season, which is both a remarkable and unsustainable feat. Greinke is going to be phenomenal all season long, but he will start allowing more home runs than he has to this point, which will cause his ERA to rise.
Cesar Izturis (SS – Orioles)
Last night, Cesar Izturis underwent an appendectomy and should be sidelined for the better part of a month. I’m just still amazed that Izturis and his career .629 OPS can still find a starting gig year-in and year-out. I know he’s a great fielder, but come on, .629 is obscene. Even if he had Ozzie Smith’s glove, I would probably still be incredulous about seeing him take the field everyday. While Izturis is recovering, Robert Andino will fill-in at SS. Andino is going to struggle for sure; but if you were starting Izturis in an AL-only league, you won’t lose much by plugging in Andino, as his OPS of .577 is not substantially lower than Izturis’.
Kevin Millwood (SP – Rangers)
Millwood threw another solid game on Friday by allowing just an unearned run through 7 innings. The bad part about the start was that he walked 4 and struck out 5. Don’t be fooled by Millwood’s 2.96 ERA and 1.26 WHIP. Millwood’s K/9 of 4.96 this year is drastically lower than his 3-year average of 6.55. Additionally, his BABIP of .256 and strand rate of 83.9% are both unsustainable. The delta between his FIP (5.06) and his ERA (2.96) is so massive that there should be some very sudden and unpleasant regression occurring very soon. If I owned Millwood, I would dangle his name out to the entire league.
Carl Pavano (SP – Indians)
Drew mentioned earlier this week that Pavano was due for a correction in his ERA and WHIP (in a good way), and we started to see some in a big way on Friday night. Pavano threw a complete game shut-out, while allowing just 5 base-runners and striking out 6. Pavano is currently posting a K/9 of 7.14, which is actually substantially higher than in his best seasons with the Marlins way back in ’03 and ’04. Pavano has always been stingy with the walks, and that is continuing this year with a BB/9 of 1.86. The source of his increased strike outs appears to be the ability to get hitters to chase more bad pitches than in years past (29.6% swings on pitches outside strike zone in ’09 vs. 21.9% for his career). His ERA still does not look all that appetizing, but that is just due to some classic bad luck (BABIP of .341; strand rate of 65.7%). With his current peripherals, Pavano needs to be added in all leagues.
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