Stream, Stream, Stream: #2xSP (5.25-5.31)

It’s time to play with fire. After this brutal of a start, it’s all we’re left with. I mean I think it’s been an especially difficult year to select two-start guys, especially since I think there have been some slumping aces and it has left the secondary tiers beaten down a bit, but I still can’t excuse this horsesh** performance.

Here are the totals through half of week six:

4-20 record
6.61 ERA
6.3 K/9
2.0 K/BB
1.56 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses. Y! ownership numbers pulled courtesy of twitter pal @PandaPete21, whom you should give a follow:

RHP Jesse Hahn – 9% ESPN/26% Y! – v. DET (.336), v. NYY (.315)

Hahn’s numbers have been a bit troubling this year, but he seems to have rebounded a bit from a two-start rough patch earlier in the month. He’s fanned 11 batters over his last two starts, and is hopefully picking up some steam to get back to where he was earlier this season with a sub-3.00 ERA. The one troubling thing about Hahn’s pitch metrics is that his curveball seems to have fallen off the planet this season. Last year he threw 361 curveballs with a whiff rate of 18.3 percent; this year, he’s thrown 147 but is generating a swing and miss just 10.2 percent of the time. It’s been a better pitch outcomes wise (.456 OPS to .667 OPS), but would seem to be a big part of the reason he’s seen a drop in K/9 from last year (8.6) to this (6.2). His fastball has gotten pasted too (.917 OPS after last year’s .540), and it would seem to stand to reason one affects the other. I still believe in the arm — I have to especially this week — but he’ll need to reverse some trends to me anything more than a here and there option.

RHP Jesse Chavez – 34.7% ESPN/38% Y! – v. DET (.336), v. NYY (.315)

Not only are we going Jesse crazy this week, but we’ll stack A’s in an attempt to get back on track. The A’s have lost five of Chavez’ six starts, but that hardly seems to be the fault of the 31-year-old righty. In those six starts, Chavez has put together a 32-12 K/BB ratio, 3.41 ERA and an opponents’ batting line of .221/.282/.309. That’s all I need to see to give him the recommendation this week, so I look forward to seeing his season totally blow up over the next week since that’s the business we’re in this season.

RHP Ricky Nolasco – 1.9% ESPN/1% Y! – v. BOS (.301), v. TOR (.331)

Has it really come to this? Has it come to recommending Nolasco, which is now a swear word in 60 percent of Twin Cities households with children under the age of 10? Nolasco has inexplicably won his last four starts, and in that span has lowered his ERA from 18.00 to 6.00. He hasn’t completed six innings in any of those starts, but the numbers are shockingly not that terrible. Well, some of the numbers. He’s got a 4.29 ERA and 20-6 K/BB rate in 21 innings, but he’s also allowed an opponents’ line of .326/.368/.442. Look, it’s this or Joe Kelly (Nolasco’s Monday opponent), or Mat Latos. I’m not any happier about this than you are.