#2xSP: 5.23-5.29

Hey we’re getting this going a bit later than expected this week. Covering the Twins complicates the rest of my days when they’re in town, but I hope you can still use this information even now on Saturday.

Here’s how we’ve done so far:

14-9
3.62 ERA
8.0 K/9
2.9 K/BB
1.30 WHIP
20 quality starts

I’d call those results to be proud of, but feel free to tell me in the comments if you feel differently. Anyway, here’s who I like this week (with team wRC+ in parentheses):

RHP Jimmy Nelson – 31.5% ESPN – @ATL (67), v. CIN (79)

Jackpot. Maybe Nelson’s ownership is a bit too high — we still use 50 percent as the barometer but I’m open to changing that — but he’s got a couple of mint matchups this week. For the most part Nelson has been able to keep away the blowups; seven of his nine starts have resulted in two or fewer earned runs. He’s held opponents to a .221 batting average thanks to a surprising swing-and-miss fastball (.114 BAA, 11.5% whiff rate) and the slider has been good too (.330 OPS against, 13.6% whiff). I really, really like his week ahead here.

RHP Mike Clevinger – 1.9% ESPN – @CWS (95), v. BAL (114)

And as much as I love Nelson’s week, I’m scared to death of this one. I love Clevinger — thank you Paul Sporer — and for five innings he made me look like a genius for grabbing him in the latest Scoresheet supplemental. He ran into a bit of trouble in the sixth, but to that point the only damage he’d sustained was a solo bomb to Jay Bruce. He had five strikeouts and one walk in 5.2 innings — good marks for an MLB debut — but just ran into a little trouble at the end. I mostly want to get a better look at him, as he fanned a batter per inning in the minors and appears to have good raw stuff. He averaged 93 mph on his fastball in his first start — peaking at 95 — with a dastardly changeup that got four swinging strikes on just 13 instances. Overall, he got 12 swinging strikes on 91 pitches. I can work with that.

RHP Nick Tropeano – 5.2% ESPN – @TEX (90), v. HOU (99)

I’ve been on the Tropeano bandwagon all season and for the most part it’s panned out. He’s struggled to keep baserunners in check — 1.58 WHIP thanks to 22 walks — but thus far he’s been able to evade any serious damage (3.30 ERA). I really, really love his slider (24% whiff rate) and changeup (16.8%), so even though he doesn’t light up the radar gun (90.9 mph average on his two-seamer), I think there’s real potential for him to be a solid pop-up guy. That’s an organization that can really use one right now, too.