Ryan Dempster (SP--Cubs) Usually one of the more consistent pitchers, Ryan Dempster has been struggling through his first eight starts with a 1-4 record and a 7.20 ERA going into Friday's game against the Giants. But Dempster seems to have turned the page in May because he came away with his second victory pitching six innings, allowing just two earned runs on six hits, a walk and striking out a season high eleven. For May he now has an ERA of 2.25 and has struck out twenty batters in twenty innings. Dempster's main issue is that he has been a punching bag for the long ball having allowed ten over the short season. But he has limited the homers to just one over the past three outings. All encouraging signs. After Friday's dominating performance, fantasy owners should feel secure to get Dempster back into their rotation on a regular basis now.
Cameron Maybin (OF--Padres) Playing some of the best baseball over the past couple of days that we have ever seen from him, Cameron Maybin put together his second four-hit game in a row on Friday night. To make it even more impressive, Maybin belted his fourth and fifth home runs of the year in a losing effort. The past two games, Maybin's average has made the jump from .233 to .273. Maybin still has a long way to go before being considered a full-time option on a fantasy team, but the performance of late is encouraging. However, in the past Maybin has never been able to sustain much consistency so it would be tough to put much faith in this current hot streak. His high strikeout percentage (26.7%) coupled with a consistently low contact rate 72.1% will prevent Maybin from contributing on a regularly basis. The hot streak is nice, but I remain skeptical for now as to what Maybin will do over the full season.
Matt Holliday (OF--Cardinals) There are a few hitters that have been consistently hot since the start of the season. Certainly, the Dodgers Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp come to mind. Lance Berkman has been impressive and so has his teammate Matt Holliday who with three hits on Friday and is now batting .398 on the season. Yup that over 120 AB's into the season and Holliday is hitting almost .400. Pretty good. Now that's will be, of course, an almost impossible pace to keep up throughout the season, especially nowadays, but Holliday has proven to be a solid fantasy star. Not only is he leading the N.L. in batting but he has an OBP over .480 that leads the leagues as well. Out of the 32 games he has played in, half of them he has two or more hits in and he's only gone hitless in four of them. Holliday is a must-start who is putting together a stellar season and he has the supporting players around him for him to have an impact year.
Madison Bumgarner (SP--Giants) Fortune has not been smiling on Madison Bumgarner. Still looking for his first win of the year, Bumgarner went into Friday's game against the Cubs having had three quality starts in a row and lowering his ERA from 7.79 to a far more reasonable 4.21. Well guess what? Despite notching his fourth quality start in a row, Bumgarner also took his sixth loss of the season with the Giants providing little run support. So for a moments forget about the win/loss record because Bumgarner deserves better. Bumgarner has pitched 25 innings his last four starts and has struck out 25 batters over that span while only walking six and holding hitters to a .202 batting average. But more importantly is that over that span he hasn't given up a home run. The wins will come, but after starting off the season looking rather sluggish, Bumgarner is finally hitting a groove and looks to be a solid start.
Jason Bay (OF--Mets) Coming out of spring you had to figure that Jason Bay was due for a bounce back season. After all, he batted .333 in spring training, being a career .277 hitter and prior to 2010 averaged 26 home runs a year you had to count on a bounce back season. But with just six home runs last year which was his lowest since his rookie year in 2003, you would think that some market correction would be in the stars for Bay. But after starting the season on the DL, Bay has been unable to get off the floor. He's already come up to the plate 65 times and has delivered just one home run. His .215 batting average is poor enough but he is hitting just .132 over the past ten games with a slugging of .158. He's been a mess with the strike zone, swinging at pitches off the plate at a rate of 28.4% which is more than 8% above his career norm. Plus a shoddy line drive rate (13%) underscores his ineffectiveness. Well, on Friday, he finally found a little of that lost muscle and parked a baseball into the seats for his second home run of the year. Hopefully an encouraging sign of things to come but Bay's lack of consistent has to have fantasy owners concerned as Bay should be providing more consistency. Maybe a lot of teams were in on something in the 2009 off-season when Bay was a free agent and the Mets were the only team that seemed to be willing to offer him a contract.
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