Derrek Lee of the Chicago Cubs may be the most confusing fantasy case so far this season. Lee went four for four on Friday against the San Diego Padres but at the same time he had zero runs and zero runs batted in. Lee has apparently come back from his broken wrist as Tony Gywnn. Lee is hitting .342 and he does have 36 runs batted in and he has 24 doubles but he has only six homeruns. Six homeruns in 240 at bats!!! Lee isn't even on pace to hit 15 this year. There is no explanation for this because he is doing everything the way he is expected to, he is just not hitting homeruns. Lee missed his seventh homerun by about 5 inches on Friday, but still this is a guy that was blasting them out of the ballpark in all directions. Lee is doing enough to maintain his status as an elite player but without the homeruns he doesn't appear to be a top five fantasy producer like he was just two years ago.
Jason Hirsh of the Colorado Rockies snapped an eight game winless streak for himself last Sunday by making his best start of the year against the Baltimore Orioles. Hirsh threw a complete game five hitter in which he allowed just one run. Hirsh and the Rockies credited improved control of his fastball for the impressive outing one week ago. Hirsh is only 3-6 with a 4.48 earned run average on the season but he should fare favorably against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays if he can get ahead in the count with his fastball and then make the young D-Rays hitters chase his breaking stuff out of the zone.
Carlos Zambrano will start today against the San Diego Padres. This will be Zambrano's third start since the fight with Michael Barrett and he has been awesome in the first two. Zambrano has started to pitch like a CY Young caliber pitcher since the incident. Big Z is 2-0 with 14.2 innings pitched in his previous two starts and over that stretch he has allowed only eight hits and two earned runs while striking 17 and walking only four. Now that Zambrano has things going we should expect nothing but quality plus starts.
Geoff Jenkins of the Milwaukee Brewers is having an above average year. Jenkins went three for five with a run scored and four runs batted in on Friday against the Minnesota Twins. Jenkins is currently batting above his lifetime mark of .279 at a .281 clip and with 12 homeruns and 34 runs batted in he is in a position where he could challenge his career season highs of 34 and 94 if he stays healthy and stays in the lineup. Playing for a contender for the first time in his career could energize Jenkins and result in some slightly inflated 2007 stats.
Oliver Perez of the New York Mets ended his three game winless streak on Friday by twirling 7.1 innings of five hit shutout baseball against the New York Yankees. Perez also fanned six batters and lowered his earned run average to 2.93. Perez is now just five wins shy of his career season high total of 12. Perez has made eight quality starts out of 13 starts and he is striking out 8.24 batters per nine innings so he has been a pretty consistent performer thus far this year. Coming off of this big win against the Yankees Perez could be having the best season of his career.
