Jose Fernandez - Bad news came Saturday for baseball fans as Jose Fernandez left the team to fly back to Miami to get his right shoulder examined. He said he felt the tightness after his start Friday against Atlanta, and being just 14 months removed from Tommy John surgery the Marlins are obviously going to get him checked out fully before his next turn in the rotation. Dan Jennings says he isn't sure whether Jo-Fer will miss his next start, but my guess is that he won't make that start as Miami isn't in the middle of the pennant race and missing a start wouldn't be the worst thing on his arm.
Kris Bryant - Kris Bryant homered Saturday and maybe had his best game post all star break as he's really struggled lately with a .162 average and just three homers. He's actually hitting the ball significantly harder in the second half, but has gotten very pull happy (50%) compared to the first half where he drove the ball to the opposite field 27.1% of the time. Even with his poor second half, he's still the 7th best third baseman in ESPN rankings and his six game hit streak that he's on will hopefully propel him back to his first half pace.
Francisco Liriano - Francisco Liriano lasted just three innings against the Dodgers allowing seven hits and four earned runs, and has been allowing hits in bunches lately (17 in his last 8.2 innings). His last start came against the Twins and he allowed 10 hits, but managed to avoid danger allowing just two earned runs and earned the win. Even with how good he's been with the Pirates over the last few season, he's having his best year as a Buc with a 3.06 FIP and he's striking out ten batters per nine. These two starts are more of the anomalies rather than the norm, so I'm not worried about him down the stretch.
Stephen Strasburg - Is Stephen Strasburg healthy again? It appears so for now as he struck out 12 Rockies over seven innings while allowing just three hits and one run. Before you go all in on the Strasburg hype train, we saw this when he came off the DL the first time and then his next start saw him go right back to the DL. There's no denying that he's one of the best in baseball when healthy, but he has no track record of being able to stay healthy. I'd look to deal him while his value is probably the highest it may be.
Matt Latos - After striking out just one batter in his debut with the Dodgers Monday, Matt Latos struggled against the Pirates allowing seven hits and six runs over just four innings. He didn't strike out a single batter, so one K over his first 10 innings in LA is pretty concerning. His two homers allowed in this start is also one fifth of his season total, so that number doesn't concern me much as he has just a 0.92 HR/9 rate this year. His next start comes against Cincinnati so he has a good shot to turn around his Dodger campaign Thursday.
Follow me on Twitter @jsperry1991
This is just a small sample our our daily analysis, join our member area for more premium content: http://www.fantistics.com/join/join.php3
