Jorge Cantu continues his feel good story this year as he put together a 2-4 performance last night with his 55th RBI. He’s now hitting .285 with 18 HR, 55 RBI and 59 R and is well on his way to repeating his best year in the majors in power and production. Cantu is another Marlin in a strikeout-happy Florida lineup that makes a business of whiffing often, but his BA should stay in the high .280 range and he’s almost a sure thing to get close to 110 RBI.
Ryan Ludwick ridiculous season continued last night as he hit yet another HR, raising his total on the year to 22 with 68 RBI to boot. Ludwick is hitting over .290 and there hasn’t been any doubt for quite a while now that his power is legitimate. I’m also quite happy with his BA considering his BHIP is absolutely awful at .219. Unfortunately, this probably won’t improve as the season goes along, as it’s pretty close to his 3-year average of .214. However, I don’t see him slowing down whatsoever in the power categories even if his BA does drop due to his high K rate and miserable single average.
As one of my best buddies said when he traded for C.C. Sabathia about 3 weeks ago, “I love the guy, despite all of his walks, because he simply eats innings.” There’s no doubt about that as Sabathia pitched his second consecutive complete game with Milwaukee and his 5th of the year. C.C. went the distance and allowed just 1 ER on 4 H while walking none and striking out 10. As a fantasy manager and/or Brewer fan, you almost can’t ask for a better line. Sabathia will continue to eat innings and devour NL hitters as he should cruise to a great second half.
I won’t say Matt Cain was terrible last night against Milwaukee but he wasn’t good as he allowed 3 ER on 7 H in 6 IP and walked 5 batters. Cain has gone from dominant to very hittable and erratic from start to start this year but his ERA is still just 4.08. A guy of Cain’s talent should be in the mid 3.30 range and the main problem is his BB/9 of over 3.80, which is sadly in line with his career average. However, I think we all forget that Cain is still just 24 years old and this is his 4th year in the majors. Considering how dominant he can be when he’s on his game, we should see very good things from him in the future. As for the rest of the season, I think it will be much of the same – inconsistent but worth having.
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