Spring Stats of the Day

A double pitcher edition of Stats of the Day for Sunday. After tonight I'll be switching to regular season stats as we look towards opening day.

Kansas City	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Greinke	6.0	7	1	1	0	5	0	4.50

Zack Greinke's career was nearly derailed in 2006 as he dealt with anxiety issues. Missing an entire year can be a big bump in the road for a young players, but Greinke picked up where he left off last year and will continue his path to growing into a quality major league pitcher.

With over 450 innings of experience pitching in the majors Greinke should be ready to combine his skills with experience and take another step forward this year. Last year Zack posted a career-high strikeout rate and and career-low ERA. He makes an excellent target for 150+ strikeouts, an ERA under 4.00, and possibly 15 wins in front of an improved Royals lineup.

Cleveland	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Westbrook	4.0	2	0	0	1	4	0	0.00

Jake Westbrook has had a perfect spring, giving up no runs in 18 innings and only giving up 7 hits. In those 18 innings he has posted 20 Ks and exhibited excellent control with only 5 BBs.

So what has gotten into Westbrook? There has been talk that at the end of last year that he added a new pitch which boosted his strikeout numbers, shown both this spring and last September when he struck out 31 batters in 37 innings. Westbrook is already a groundball pitcher, so if he can increase his strikeouts and rely less on a defense with plodders like Jhonny Peralta at SS he could be headed for a surprise year.

If this increase in strikeout is for real, expect Westbrook to have his best year since 2004 in front of a very good bullpen and offense. This is a sleeper you definitely want to take a shot on and he is owned in very few leagues.