Kyle Kendrick, Colorado Rockies - Ahhh.... This is the Kendrick we all expected and if you added him and started him in Colorado you probably deserved to have had this happen to you (thought the same thing when someone in a league of mine started the Falcons' defense one week). All the concerns of Kendrick moving to the Rockies came true as he allowed eight runs in five innings. In addition to the runs allowed he walked five batters against just three strikeouts. He routinely allowed over 10% of his flyballs to go over the fence in Philly and now he's in one of the few parks actually worse than there. If you're in a deep league he may be serviceable in his road outings but you likely can find someone much better out on the waiver wire.
Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves - Freddie Freeman is continuing his solid start to 2015 belting his first homer of the year off of Dillon Gee. He now has three extra base hits through the teams' first five games, despite the fact he has no protection around him in the lineup. Now whether you believe in lineup protection or not, Freeman is the best hitter in the lineup by far and it will be interesting to see what happens when the Braves' start to come back down to earth. Hard to read too much into his batted ball rates this early in the season but right now he's only hitting fly balls at just an 18% rate compared to his typical rates in the mid 30's. Freeman will still post good OBP numbers throughout the season, but we'll have to see how his counting stats measure up as the Braves keep going.
Michael Wacha, St. Louis Cardinals - Michael Wacha notched a win in his first outing of 2015 with 6.1 innings with just one earned run allowed. He struck out only two batters on the afternoon, but when you're inducing ground balls at a 60% rate (especially in the Great American Ballpark) you likely will have success coming your way. To see this kind of performance starting off 2015 is promising as he did not pitch well after returning from his shoulder injury last year posting a 5.94 K/9, 3.78 BB/9, and a 4.95 xFIP over 16.2 innings. Granted this is a fairly small sample but it is all we have to look at post-shoulder last year, ad his numbers weren't particularly good. He does do well at keeping the ball in the park with a 6.3% HR/FB rate and allows 0.58 homeruns per nine. He gets a matchup against this same Reds team and Johnny Cueto next week, only this time he'll be pitching in a much better environment at home.
Michael Taylor, Washington Nationals - One day after hitting his first big league homer, Michael Taylor tuned in another solid performance fantasy-wise reaching base twice and stealing his first base of the year. The downside though for those in points leagues or those in leagues where strikeouts hurt, he did fan three times giving him seven now on the season. Taylor's minor league numbers told us he was going to swing and miss a lot, but it's to see him with an average approaching .300 and tallying homers and RBI. Owners will have to take advantage while they can as Jayson Werth has already started his rehab assignment which will only make the Nationals' outfield a little more crowded. With a good enough performance he could keep the centerfield job even when Span returns from the DL but it's likely Span will get his job back so get these numbers from Taylor while he's hitting leadoff every day for the Nats.
DFS Matt Adams, St. Louis Cardinals - $5,100 Adams launched a homerun Saturday and he has been a player I've been watching to breakout for a couple years now. Not only is he getting to hit in the Great American Ballpark for one more day, but he also is facing Raisel Iglesias (more than likely) who will be making his first start in the majors. The career .303 hitter against righties also much higher LD rate against righties to go with a slightly decreased fly ball rate, which really just means he's making more hard contact. One of my favorite options for Sunday's action.
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