Pedro Martinez:
Looking at Pedro’s line on Sunday, 5 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, doesn’t invoke much optimism for Pedro owners in what seemed to be an extremely favorable matchup in San Diego. But watching the game on Sunday, Pedro actually pitched much better. Of the 10 hits, I counted 7 that were soft line drives, bloops, or “ground balls with eyes”. His control was good, throwing 63% of his pitches for strikes and not walking a batter, and he showed good command of all his pitches resulting in 4 strikeouts. An added bonus is Pedro’s stamina doesn’t seem to be much of an issue as he’s now thrown 209 pitches in his first 2 outings off the DL. The results weren’t great in those two starts, but watching yesterday’s outing in particular gave me enough confidence in Pedro to expect good things going forward. This week he’ll get a tough matchup against the Rangers red-hot offense but he’ll at least get them at home, which means he’ll face a DH-less team and he doesn’t have to pitch in Texas where the Rangers post a robust .869 OPS.
Jorge Campillo:
It appears Jorge Campillo has remembered that he’s… well… Jorge Campillo. The 29 year old rookie ran into some problems this week against the Phillies and Marlins as he allowed 7 ER’s and 17 base-runners in just 9 1/3 innings of work. Campillo’s first 36 innings of 2008 were spectacular and the peripherals backed it up, but they weren’t exactly in line with Campillo’s minor league track record. In Campillo’s 264 minor league innings, he posted a K Rate of just .68 and was pretty hittable allowing over a hit/inning. Campillo did show good control at the minor league level walking just .23 batters/inning and he had some success at limiting the long ball but on the whole his 3.10 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in 264 minor league innings don’t scream breakout candidate. Campillo’s simply a spot start option in mixed leagues and nothing more at this point.
Mike Gonzalez:
A few days after I touched on Soriano as a favorable option as long as health isn’t a concern, news came from the Braves that Soriano felt some elbow discomfort while warming up and would be unavailable for a few days. The elbow issues for Soriano just aren’t going away at this point and I’m beyond a “little” concerned. The Braves have tried rest and that took its fair share of time and setbacks before Soriano could come back and the elbow still hasn’t responded as well as you’d like. I don’t think Soriano’s done picking up saves, but I also don’t think he’s done with his trips to the DL. At some point this year, I believe, Mike Gonzaelz is going to emerge as a closing option. He’s currently down on the farm rehabbing and just made his first appearance in AAA yesterday in which he allowed an ER on 2 Hits, but also struck out 2. In his 6 minor league innings he’s struck out 6 and walked 0. Ultimately I think the saves from here on out will end up being split almost evenly between Soriano and Gonzalez, but the number of saves Soriano’s going to rack up are completely dependent on his health (as he’ll get every chance to close while healthy), and currently I don’t have a lot of faith in that elbow.
Geovany Soto:
Soto’s been in a funk lately as he’s just 2-22 in June and just 19 for his last 96 since his average reached a peak of .352 on May 5th. After Sunday’s 0-4, Soto’s all the way down to .278. During this time period he’s posted an EYE of just .42 which has dropped his total EYE down to .56. This is actually more in line with Soto’s career minor league EYE of .54 so the slight regression in plate discipline should’ve been expected. Despite the regression in EYE and the struggles over the last month or so, Soto has plenty of room for improvement as his .238 BHIP% leaves some upside in BA. Other than that almost all of Soto’s peripherals are pretty much in line, so I’d expect this type of line times 1.5 for the rest of the season.
Doug Davis:
Davis continued his trend of alternating good and bad starts since returning from the DL on Sunday as he allowed 5 ER’s on 7 hits and 4 BB’s in just 3 2/3 innings against the Pirates on Sunday. Davis really hasn’t pitched very well since his return on the whole averaging just 5 ½ innings per start and allowing nearly 2 base-runners per inning (42 in 21 2/3), but luckily for Davis his struggles have coincided with Max Scherzer struggling a bit with his control out of the pen. If Scherzer was pitching better there would be a bit more pressure for the DBacks to make a move, but for now Davis will continue to get opportunities to prove he’s nothing much more than an innings eater. He’ll get the Royals at home next week in what amounts to possibly as favorable a start as you could possibly ask for.
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