Monday, April 28, 2008

Stats of the Day: Rays Sweep Sox

The April standings are still playing tricks on us with the Rays atop the AL East, but as May draws nearer their hot start might start giving some legitimacy to a very talented young team who is finally getting help from their pitchers.

Tampa BayIPHRERBBSOHRERA
Shields (W, 3-1)9.02001702.54

James Shields flat out dominated the Red Sox on Sunday in a game I was lucky enough to attend. I've always been a Sox fan, but with me fantasy often comes first and I was rooting on every strikeout Shields racked up as he cruised his way to a 2-hit complete game shutout of an ailing offense.

Shields was a personal favorite target of mine this offseason. Even after his breakout last year in 2007 he was tremendously undervalued in most drafts at the start of the season. His command was phenomenal last year when he finished with 184/36 K/BB ratio and has started off the year with 28 strikeouts to 9 walks. He gave up 28 bombs last year, but has only given up 2 in 39 innings so far in 2008. If he can keep his walks down and continue to lower his home runs allowed he could actually improve on his 3.85 ERA from 2007.

Scott Kazmir is scheduled to come off the DL this weekend, so Shields time as staff ace may be short lived, but he will end up as one of the best #2 starters in the AL as the Rays look to finish over .500 for the first time.

CincinnatiIPHRERBBSOHRERA
Volquez (W, 4-0)7.051131001.23

Throughout spring Edinson Volquez showed some remarkable skills with a stellar K/BB ratio and no home runs allowed. I warned up his flyball tendencies and history of control issues, but none of those have been evident so far this year. In fact, Volquez has been inducing a ton of ground balls. So far this year he has a 57% GB/FB ratio... those are Chien-Ming Wang numbers.

Volquez is still walking a lot of hitters, but if his new found groundball skill is for real then combined with his high strikeout ratios he can survive in any park, even Great American. If the home runs stay away then even the high number of walks aren't going to hurt him other than not letting him go very deep into games. Some owners may be selling high on Edinson after this start, but he might be worth buying into if he keeps this up.

ClevelandIPHRERBBSOHRERA
Sabathia (L, 1-4)8.04111817.88

C.C. Sabathia's re-emergence continues. He takes a tough loss here against the Yankees, but everything points to him getting things back together. The time to buy low is over, but with his early struggles and huge innings totals last year I still wouldn't hesitate to sell on him. Let someone else believe he will be Cy Young from here on out if they will pay for it... there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned about his health.

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