Due to the request of a Twitter follower, we’ve fast-tracked 2xSP to Thursdays for the time being. We’ll see how it goes; adding a day into the mix can make things a bit more iffy when trying to accurately predict and project which guys actually make those first starts on Mondays and Tuesdays, but we aim to please, and thus here we are.
After going 3-for-3 in quality starts to get last week underway, the overall numbers have started to look pretty good. The strikeouts from the week before — thank you Matt Shoemaker and Danny Duffy — were also a nice boost.
Overall stats halfway through week 10:
22-17 record
3.76 ERA
8.3 K/9
2.9 K/BB
1.31 WHIP
35 quality starts
And now, onto this week’s recs with team wRC+ in parentheses:
RHP Archie Bradley – 12.5% ESPN – @PHI (72), @COL (96)
I don’t honestly love any of these picks this week, but when you get into this pattern of three per week, you kinda gotta stick to it. Bradley’s been giving up home runs left and right (five in his last two starts spanning 11.1 innings), but I’m hoping he can be the predator rather than the prey in this two matchups. He’s rolled up the strikeouts so far which is encouraging (39 in 35 innings), but I’ll admit that I’m a bit terrified of how he’ll pitch in Coors Field, as the Rockies have an .892 OPS at home (but just a 104 wRC+). Hopefully his 1.8 HR/9 is just a blip on the radar screen — the 21.2% HR/FB rate seems to suggest so — and the can rely on his groundball and strikeout tendencies to grab a couple nice starts here. At the very least, I’m hopeful of a quality start against the Phillies. Read the rest of this entry »
