Ken Harvey has returned from the Minors. So, on Monday, I shall reactivate him, throwing Travis Lee back into the pool. Travis hasn’t been playing up to his full potential, so I will be glad to give Ken a chance. The Player Notes indicate he should be playing every day.

Speaking of Potential, I was just looking over my outfield, which I was very proud to draft.

Torii Hunter is not a .237 hitter (Career .267)
Aaron Rowand is not a .253 hitter (Career .290)
Shannon Stewart is not a .264 hitter (Career .303)
Manny Ramirez is not a .273 hitter (Career .316)
Gary Sheffield is not a .349 hitter, (Career .298) so he is living past expectations (but no reason to slack off).

I wouldn’t mind if Sheffield came back to Earth if the others would come back to their career numbers. But, maybe, Gary is going for his breakout season after 20 years in the majors.

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Box Score

Not sure what to make of this. Lohse was taken out at the end of the 4th inning. Nope, If I read the Play-by-play carefully, he was relieved after hiiting the first batter in the fifth and then letting a wild pitch advance him to second. Then he was relieved. Since there was no out it just shows him pitching 4 innings. And he gave up the three runs in the third. At least the reliever kept that hit batter from scoring.

Either way, Lohse appears to be a lohse cannon. Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone better to replace him with.

I checked in on Speier, he still hasn’t settled down. They pulled him before he did too much damage.

I still have Millwood and Meche starting tonight. I wonder what the ERA will end up at?

Only half of the 10 runs Colon gave up in 3 2/3 innings tonight were earned. Surprisingly, he didn’t get a win.

Looks like my Hermanson move went through. Let’s see what happens.

A rather surprising week. My hittters averaged .3333 for the week, driving the team average into first place. My 8 starts resulted in 3 wins, one of which was a victory in relief, so it is fair to say my 8 starts resulted in 2 wins. Looks like I have 8 starts projected for this week., with Colon getting 2 starts. I hope this short time off has helped Lohse’s control.

I am submitting a Free Agent Move on Hermanson, planning to drop Speier. I don’t expect it will go, but I will give it a shot in case the other owners missed the opportunity.

The numbers:

HR 10; LA 8.0; Pts 4.5:

R 55; LA 39.5l; Pts 10:

RBI 58; LA37.4; Pts 10:

AVG .333; LAA .278; Pts 10:

SB 9; LA 5.3; Pts 10:

W 3; LA 3.6; Pts 8.5:

S 1; LA 2; Pts 2.5:

K 44; LA39.2; Pts 10:

ERA 4.32; LAA 3.76; Pts 5:

WHIP 1.22; LAA 1.28; Pts 7:

With a total of 77.5 points I am well into first place. But, it is still only April and 1st place don’t count for nothing until October. Actually, 1st place is a detriment since, when selecting Free Agents and Replacement players, preference goes in reverse order of the standings.

6.0 Innings, 9 hits, 8 runs, 7 earned runs, 5 walks, 3 strike outs, 32 batters faced, 10.50 ERA, 2.33 WHIP
Wins:None

My Starting pitcher gave up 5 runs in his first inning. Speier came in in relief and gave up 2 earned runs before being removed without even an out. 0.0 innings, that gives him an infinite ERA. He is not helping his cause to remain on my team. At least Marte came in for the last inning without damage, but he didn’t get a save because the White Sox had a pretty big lead.

3 starts, 2 losses and 1 no-decision. They pitched 17.333 innings, gave up 9 earned runs on 21 hits and 7 walks. That results in an ERA of 4.68 and a WHIP of 1.62. The no-decision guy left the game with a two run lead, but the bullpen didn’t keep the lead and the Indians ended up losing in 10 innings. I’m no longer in the lead in Wins, getting passed by two other owners last night.

I see that Shingo Takatsu is no longer the ace closer for the White Sox. With a 12.16 ERA I can see why. Amazing that he got three saves already.

Looks like the White Sox are going to close by committee and Damaso Marte is on that committee. So I may end up with more saves than originally planned. Another member of that committee, Dustin Hermanson, is a Free Agent. No other UBL team has him. Is it worth my while to make a move for him? Since I never planned to make a run at saves, Dustin is a bit of excess luggage. It’s not like that, even between Marte and Hermanson, I will get enough saves by the end of the season to get more than 5 points in the category. There are other members of the committee. DH does have some good ERA and WHIP numbers though. And picking up some saves makes him a top prospect.

Question is: who do I exchange him for? Speier is my other setup reliever, and the natural candidate, but I have high hopes that he will end up as the ace Toronto closer in a few months. I like my approach of having 7 starters on my staff. This gives me the best opportunity to keep W and K numbers up. On the other hand, dumping someone like Lohse will help my ERA and WHIP numbers.

I don’t have to decide until Monday, so I will keep an eye on it. As the first place owner, I get last choice to select a FA, if any one else is considering this move, so it might be worth a non-commital gamble. (Is it really worth the $5 a Free Agent Move costs?)

Tonight I have three pitchers starting, should be interesting to see.

As I commented on previously, just because a pitcher is projected to start doesn’t mean he will. Looks like Lohse’s start will be cancelled this weekend to bring back a pitcher from DL without disrupting the rotation of the other starters. Don’t know what this means yet. Silva, the pitcher coming back, was the initial #4 pitcher of the Twins staff, Lohse the #3 starter.

Lohse hasn’t been too hot so far, with a 6.62 ERA and a 1.358 WHIP. (He’s actually the worst pitcher on the Twin’s roster, at present.) The major difference between Silva and Lohse is that Lohse will get more stikeouts. But Lohse is way above his expected ERA and WHIP. Silva went on DL with a hurt knee, so it will be interestnig to see how he does when he comes back this weekend.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lohse sent down for a few months in order to get his act back in gear. He did make the Opening Day roster as a starter, so he has potential. He just doesn’t seem to have found it yet this year.

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Box Score

I got a save! Looks like the White Sox’s ace closer didn’t quite work out and they brought in my guy for the last 2 outs to get the save. Remarkable!

On a sadder note, it looks like I have to start shopping one of the best pitchers in the majors for the past ten-fifteen years, Randy Johnson. What made Johnson such a worthwhile pitcher is that, in addition to the strikeouts, he also provided Wins, ERA and Ratio. The Wins and ERA have flown out the window. He gave up 6 runs (5 earned) in 7 1/3 innnings yesterday (6.14 ERA) against Tampa Bay! He was very economical about it, doing it all on 6 hits. His ERA for the year is 5.13. He won Opening Day and that was it. Alas, alas.

Randy’s ERA for the previous 18 seasons is 3.06. This is a good number. (I think anything under 4.00 is a very good ERA number.) Along with 4076 strikeouts. But, maybe, he has held on too long and it is time to let him go.