Fantasy Baseball Spot Starter Pickups For Thursday 6/2/11

Wednesday's Recommended Starter - Rick Porcello - 6.2 Innings Pitched - 4 Strikeouts - Win - 2.70 ERA - 1.35 WHIP

Cumulative Starters' Stats - 460.1 Innings Pitched - 330 Strikeouts - 6.45 K/9 - 28 Wins in 73 Starts - 3.56 ERA - 1.22 WHIP

Cumulative Starter Spreadsheet Viewable Online Here

Porcello picked right back up where he left off before the Red Sox beat him up, delivering 6.2 innings of strong ERA and WHIP and picking up a win.  The strikeout numbers weren't great, but they were solid enough.  Strikeouts in general have been harder to come by than they were at the beginning of the year, as most of the strong strikeout pitchers have been rostered at this stage of the year.  The ERA and WHIP have been solid for a while, so going to look to pick up extra strikeouts going forward.

If you went with alternate recommendation Brian Matusz off the DL on Wednesday, you didn't pick up a win, but you had even better ERA and WHIP.  Matusz should be good to go from here on out and is worth rostering in mixed leagues.  If you went with Chris Capuano in your deep league, you would have had a strong start if they didn't leave him in to start the seventh inning.  When they did, Capuano let up five straight singles, and all of them made it across home plate, ruining an otherwise awesome start.

As always, looking to do better today than I did yesterday.  Recommendations are, as always, available in more than 50% of leagues.  Travel Thursday recommendations coming up...

Fantasy Baseball Spot Starter Pickups For Wednesday 6/1/11

Tuesday's Recommended Starter - Mike Minor - 6.0 Innings Pitched - 4 Strikeouts - Loss - 4.50 ERA - 1.83 WHIP
Cumulative Starters' Stats - 453.2 Innings Pitched - 326 Strikeouts - 6.47 K/9 - 27 Wins in 72 Starts - 3.57 ERA - 1.22 WHIP
Cumulative Starter Spreadsheet Viewable Online Here

With no starter offered on Memorial Day, we started off the week with a disappointment out of Mike Minor.  It wasn't an awful blowup your stats start, but it wasn't good either.  He was left in the start the seventh inning and walked a man on before being pulled from the game. That batter made it home and turned a 3.00 ERA day into a 4.50 ERA and a no decision into a loss.  Luckily, it wasn't embarrassing and we can make up for it easily the rest of the week. Freddy Garcia is still playing as i write this on Tuesday night, but has cruised through four innings so far against the As.  He should deliver for deep league players.

Before I move on, just a programming note for the week.  It's my birthday on Friday and I'm working out the details on a promotion in my actual job, so the other daily pickup column is going to be taking the week off.  I'm going to miss a second day of this column later in the week (likely the Saturday edition), but will at least provide you with my recommendations either here or via twitter.

Wednesday's recommendation coming up right now...