Andre Ethier
Ethier was 1-for-2 Saturday with his ninth homer (a bomb off Arizona's Tony Pena) of the season and two RBI. Ethier continues to share at-bats with Matt Kemp and Luis Gonzalez in left and right field, but at .300/.369/.460, he has the second OPS of the three, behind Kemp and ahead of Gonzalez (we won't get into Juan Pierre, but his OPS is...low). Ethier's homer represented his first extra-base hit since July 21, something that he'll need to focus on in order to firmly establish himself as a favorite for an everyday job in 2008. Also worth noting on Ethier this year - his walk rate is up (9.4% vs. 7.7% in 2006) and his strikeouts are way down (11.8% vs. 19.4%). A very good sign.
Chris Burke
In what could potentially be Burke's last chance at firmly establishing himself as the favorite for the full-time 2B job next year, Burke is scuffling. He was 1-for-6 on Saturday and is now hitting just .230/..313/.369 in 208 at-bats. He's chipped in six steals for fantasy owners, but unless Burke finishes very strong, there's a good chance the Astros will be shopping for Craig Biggio's replacement on the free agent market this offseason. He has a 32:18 K:BB and while his walk rate is an okay 7.9%, Burke has a ways to go before convincing Houston brass.
Justin Upton
Upton is going to be special, but of course there are going to be growing pains along the way. On Saturday I had the opportunity to watch the game and came away impressed. He did make two errors: one was a borderline play in which he ran hard and had the ball barely kick off his glove, but the second was simply a dropped fly ball. What was impressive was that Upton came up the next inning against Jonathan Broxton and hit a double to right-center that came off his bat like it was shot out of a cannon. He finished 2-for- with a single and double. You've seen his minor league numbers and they impressive, especially for a 19 year-old, and now you're getting the opportunity to watch a future perennial All-Star.
Joel Pineiro
St. Louis - where failed starters go to die or thrive? For Kip Wells and others, it's the latter. For Joel Pineiro, he hopes it's the former. Saturday though, it was more of the same for Pineiro who in his Cardinals' starting debut, gave up five runs (four earned) on seven hits over five innings in a loss to the Nationals. Pineiro now has a 5.31 ERA, 1.64 WHIP, and a 22:16 K:BB in 39 innings. Nothing good about any of those peripherals. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who in 2003, won 16 games for the Mariners with a 3.78 ERA and 151 strikeouts. Pineiro hasn't posted better than a 4.67 ERA since, and he's gotten progressively worse. Stay away, far away.
Ryan Zimmerman
I guess you could call this a semi sophomore slump for Zimmerman, who was so impressive last year in driving in 110 runs while hitting .287/.351/.471. He won't come close to the 110 RBI as he has just 60 now, but with two homers on Saturday, Zimmerman is just three shy of last year's 20. He's 15-for-40 in his last 10 games after posting his best OPS month (.828 in July), so there's some hope here for a strong finish. More interesting to note is his extreme L/R OPS splits. Against LHP, Zimmerman has a 1.088 OPS while righties have been far more difficult, .667. Zimmerman is somewhat still a work in progress, as his walk rate has actually regressed this year to 6.8% from last year's 9%. With all the up-and-coming young NL third baseman, he may get overlooked going forward, but I'd still expect above-average numbers, just not superstar ones, particularly in that lineup and in his home park.
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