NL Quick Pitch: A pitching-heavy focus in today's NL notes. Ian Kennedy posted another quality start. Take out that one bad outing against the Cardinals and you're looking at ace-like numbers. Wandy Rodriguez has flip-flopped his way through the season and yesterday we were on the good side. Jonathan Sanchez issued 5 walks, but kept the K/9 in the double digits heading into May. Garza posted his second double-digit K performance on Saturday, but can he really sustain 2x the K's from last year with a move to the NL? Speaking of moving to the NL, Zack Greinke will finally get a start this week as he recovers from a basketball injury. Homer Bailey is on his way back this week as well, pitching well in rehab yesterday and showing some promise for NL-only owners. Tim Stauffer posted his third straight QS, but I'm keeping him in NL-only leagues for now. Edinson Volquez continues to pitch great... after the 1st inning. 11 of his 16 earned runs have come in the 1st inning. Is he not warming-up properly or is it all mental? I'll have to give Dusty the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter. Summing up some injury concerns, Omar Infante pulled a hammy yesterday and is doubtful for today and Ryan Zimmerman will undergo ab surgery that will keep him out 6-8 weeks.
1. Ian Kennedy (SP - Diamondbacks) - Kennedy posted his 4th quality start of the season last night, but didn't factor into the decision. He went 7.2 IP and gave up 3 ER, 6 hits, and 1 walk to the Cubs while striking out 6. Kennedy hasn't gotten the fantasy credit he deserves and its because of one bad outing against the Cardinals. Throw out that one start, and Kennedy has a 2.00 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, K/9 of 7.8, and a 3-0 record. Instead, that one blow-up causes his ERA to sky rocket to 3.92, WHIP to 1.05, and adds a loss to his record. Still not bad consider he gave up 9 ER in 3 IP that day. Kennedy deserves to be snatched up in all leagues at this point.
2. Jonathan Sanchez (SP - Giants) - The walks really hurt Sanchez on Saturday. He allowed 6 of them in 5 innings of work, but stranded them all as he didn't allow a single run and just 2 hits before being removed after 103 pitches. He may have been a bit wild yesterday, but Sanchez has yet to give up more than 3 ER in a start this season and has an ERA of just 2.33 to go along with his higher WHIP of 1.33. While Sanchez was drafted mostly for his K-rate, he is doing just fine in that department. Coming off a 200 strikeout season, Sanchez's K/9 has actually improved from 9.54 last year to his current rate of 10.91. Probably an unsustainable rate, but good to see he is where he needs to be from a K perspective. With BB, yesterday's game hurt with such a small sample size, but his BB/9 is higher this year at 5.45 vs. last year's 4.47. Even his career rate of 4.64 is extremely high and if he could ever get it down to under that mark, we'd be looking at the next phase in his development. In the meantime, I'll take the K's.
3. Matt Garza (SP - Cubs) - Garza finally earned his first season as a Cubbie on Saturday, going 8.0 IP and allowing 3 ER for his third straight quality start before giving it up to Carlos Marmol for the save. He struck out 10 for his second double digit K total this year. That brings his K/9 to an incredible 11.9 on the year, which is WAY above his career rates. His career average is 7.3 and the highest single season rate was 8.4 in 2009. But even then we saw a decline in 2010 to 6.6. A few causes of the high rate could include the move to the NL and 4 of his 6 starts have been against teams who rank in the Top-10 for strikeouts. Of course, they partly rank in the top-10 because of Garza's K's against them, but they're still striking out a lot.
I wasn't a huge fan of Garza heading into 2011, but I'm starting to come around. Looking forward to seeing how the K-rates will change over the next month.
4. Edinson Volquez (SP - Reds) - Volquez only allowed 1 ER in 5.0 IP of work yesterday, but by official quality start rules, he is now only 1-for-6 on the season. The 5 walks that he allowed got him into pitch count trouble early as he really just allowed 2 hits while striking out 4. Once again, Volquez's struggles in the first inning set the tone for the game. Of the 16 ER he has allowed this year, 11 of them have coming the 1st inning. That is incredible. Volquez is hyped because he has electric stuff and the potential to post big K numbers. Until he can figure out how to start the game sharp and be less wild with the walks, my leash with him gets shorter by the day.
5. Tim Stauffer (SP - Padres) - One of the bright spots out in San Diego has been the pitching performance of Tim Stauffer over the past few weeks. He has posted 3 straight QS and is 4-for-6 on the year. Yesterday, he allowed 2 ER in 6.2 IP and recorded 7 K's. He didn't factor into the decision and remains at 1-0 despite a 3.13 ERA and 1.24 WHIP. He also has just 8 walks to 25 K's in his 34.2 IP this year. Stauffer had a nice month of April and has the fortune of working in a pitcher-friendly park. I haven't fully bought-in to Stauffer in mixed leagues just yet, but I'm certainly coming around. His FIP of 2.68 and xFIP of 3.13 is in-line with his ERA of 3.13, and he is inducing more groundballs than in previous years with a GB/FB of 2.5 compared to previous years sub-2.0.
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