Every now and then, A.J. Burnett reminds us of why we take the chance on keeping him in our rotation from year-to-year, despite his injury and inconsistency history. Most of these times, the fantastic outing comes out of left field (pun intended) and that was certainly the case last night when Burnett struck out a whopping 13 Yankees in 8 IP, allowing just 1 ER on 5 hits. Burnett was incredible, period. He threw 65% of his 120 pitches for strikes and when the Yanks hit a ball they seemed more lucky than good. Despite his relatively high ERA (4.51), the win marked the 16th of the season for Burnett and I find it absolutely ludicrous that he has a chance at hitting 20 wins this year. It won't happen, of course, because the Jays are terrible and Burnett is too inconsistent, but 18 is certainly possible and that would easily be a career high (as 16 is already).
Matt Joyce went deep for the 11th and 12th time last night and the youngster has really impressed me thus far with his ability to hit for power this early in his major league career. The homeruns actually mark his first bombs since late July but 12 HR in 174 AB leads to a HR/AB of 14.5, which is not bad at all for a kid who just came up this season. His patience at the plate certainly needs to get better (.36 BB/K) but that is the norm for young hitters. Definitely keep your eye on Joyce for next season as a quality UTIL player in deep/AL-only formats.
Armando Galarraga put up another solid outing last night and he did it against a very good offense, allowing 3 ER on 6 H and 3 BB while striking out 5 batters. Galarraga continues to improve on a surprisingly good season and his numbers now read 3.17 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 6.27 K/9 and 3.04 BB/9. Despite the solid stats, there is reason to still be cautious with the young Tiger. He has failed to reach the 6-inning mark 8 times in 22 starts this year, his strand rate of .78 seems unsustainable for a guy who's K/9 isn't at least 8.00, and his BHIP is an extremely low .233. He's still a solid option next year as a 5th/6th starter but only if he can prove that he can deliver decent numbers. I don't see another season like this in 2009, but anything to the tune of the type of season a guy like Jeremy Guthrie had last year (3.70 ERA) would definitely be acceptable.
Dan Wheeler collected his 3rd save in as many days last night as he pitched a clean 9th, striking out two Angels and throwing just 10 pitches. With Percival foregoing knee surgery, it's still unlikely he'll make a return by the end of September, so Wheeler seems to be the guy right now. If he's still available, which I doubt, scoop him now because the Rays will need him more than ever down the stretch.
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