FB365's Morning Drive 6/25/09

Geovany Soto is officially back. He hit his 6th long ball of the season and 4th in the month of June. Big Papi cranks his 7th of the season. See above. Zack Duke improves to 8-5 with 6 IP, 1 ER effort last night. Duke now has lowered his ERA to 3.09 for the season. Like other pitchers getting by on groundballs and very few strikeouts (Nick Blackburn, Mark Buehrle, Kevin Slowey) there is always the distinct possibility for a complete falloff. However, given that all these guys should have cost you very little on draft day, who really cares. Sell high if you can, just enjoy the unexpected value you've received if you can't. Sizemore goes deep for the first time since coming off the DL. That didn't take long. More on him later today. Joey Votto is a bit rusty. Don't give up on him just yet. He was in the midst of a breakout season before taking some time away for some real serious reasons. He has the power and plate discipline to be a fantasy force in the second half. I don't think he'll hit anywhere near .350, but .290-.300 with 15 or so homers is realistic. Scott Richmond continues to make the best of his opportunities. I'm still nervous about endorsing Richmond because of his GB/FB rate, which favors flyballs. His 21% line drive rate is a bit high too. I'd sit him upcoming against the Phillies. Pat Burrell connected for his second homerun of the season. Burrell is only owned in 54% of ESPN leagues and there is no doubt that when healthy he can provide plus power. Much way I liked the pickup of Marcus Thames, I would say the same for Burrell, especially in OBP leagues. Holy Joe Blanton! 10 K's in 7 IP. Blanton has been pitching much better since his rough month of May. His peripherals are actually much improved from last season. As of yesterday his K/BB rate stood at 2.79, which but him alongside Jered Weaver and just below Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee and Jake Peavy. Keep him on your watch list for good matchups. Toronto is not one of those good matchups. Correction: Blanton's next start would be against the Braves. That is a go for a spot pickup. David Wright goes 4-4 in an 11-0 rout of the Cardinals. He also added his 19th stolen base of the season. Power outage!? With a .356 AVG and 19 steals, who cares!! It might be safe to say that Rickey Nolasco is officially back. 7 IP, 7 K, 1 BB in a win against the Orioles. Nolasco hasn't given up more than 2 ER runs in July and has only walked 5 batters in 4 games. He walked 3 on June 7th, his first game back from the minors. With the news that Marlins closer Matt Lindstrom was headed to the DL, the guessing game began for, "who will be the next Marlins closer?" Leo Nunez seemed to be the first in line, but perhaps his ankle injury was not 100%. I had a hunch on Reynel Pinto, but he was brought on to pitch the 8th. The save went to Dan Meyer, who has been exceptional for the fish this season. Reports were that Fredi Gonzalez would use a mix and match to close out games so stay tuned. Jason Kubel hit his 13th homer of the season. Now Kubel's line stands at .311,.373/.512, 13 HR, 40 RBI. ESPN's "Player Rater" scores Kubel at 6.43, which is higher than the scores of Andre Ethier, Alex Rios, Bobby Abreu, Jermaine Dye, Carlos Lee, Matt Holiday and Nick Markakis. All of those players listed are owned in at least 90% of ESPN leagues. Kubel is owned in less than 64% of ESPN leagues. If he is available and you have the roster space, go get him. Nick Blackburn gets hit pretty hard, but still manages to keep the damage to only 3 ER on 11 hits. Uncharacteristically, Balckburn surrendered 13 fly balls to only 9 ground balls. More of this type of outing to come. Both closers struggled in the Kansas City/Houston game. Joakim Soria and Jose Valverde blew their respective save chances allowing 2 hits and one run each. They each are well enough along from their DL returns to think this was just one of those days and nothing more like an injury. You may have noticed that Joe Torre doesn't think Matt Kemp is a valuable enough hitter to bat in the middle of the order. Well, last night he batted Kemp 9th. He also batted Mark Loretta 6th. I love you Joe, but you are driving me freaking insane. Too much wheatgrass I guess. All Kemp did was blast his 9th homerun of the season. Forget BABIP, Dan Haren is the unluckiest pitcher in baseball! How does a guy with a 2.25 ERA, 0.81 WHIP and 104 strikeouts have a 6-5 record? Frank Francisco, fresh off the DL did not come in for the save in a 2-1 game. Francisco entered in the 8th and pitched a scoreless inning. C.J. Wilson, who had been filling in for Francisco, was the one to come in and nail down the save. Here's the quote from the game recap: C.J. Wilson then retired the side in order in the ninth for his seventh save. Washington is still undecided when Francisco might return to his closer's role. This was just his second outing since coming off the disabled list on Saturday. But one thing that Washington does like: seven strong innings from his starter, and then Wilson and Francisco finishing up -- no matter in what order. "That's solid," Washington said. No Ron! We don't need solid! We need to know who is going to close games for the Rangers! Stop with all this real life, what's best for the team crap! My fantasy team needs saves!! I own Frank Francisco in two leagues. There has been a Garrett Atkins sighting! The Rockies said they were going to use interleague play to showcase Atkins and shocase they did. 3-4 with a homerun will do the trick. That raised his AVG to .216. Ian Stewart took an 0-3 and lowered his AVG to .218. 3.1 IP, 9 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 4 K. There's the Jason marquis I know and love! Chone Figgins is now hitting .330, but has only 3 steals in the month of June. He has been caught stealing 4 times this month and had only been caught stealing 3 times in April and May. That smells a bit fishy to me. Eric Aybar has as many steals in June as Chone Figgins. He stole his 4th of the season last night. I still think Aybar has 20+ steal ability and it looks like he is sarting to run a bit more. Vlad shaved his dreads. Then he hit a homerun, only his 2nd of the year. If (and ONLY IF), Vlad continues to DH basically full time, he is a great buy low candidate. Russell Branyan has a chance to enter the all-star break with a .300 AVG and 20+ homeruns. This guys needs to be at the all-star game. Not only for his performance in 2009, but also for how long he has purservered in a mostly dissapointing career. I mean Chris Davis has more friggin votes (ranks 5th for AL firstbasemen) and he might be at AAA by the break. You can put Brandon Morrow on the backburner now. Control is still a huge issue and he has made no adjustment to get his fastball down. Later today, the debut of "Trade Targets"