Madison Bumgarner allowed two walks and four hits Thursday as he struck out 11 batters over 7.2 innings to lower his ERA to 1.91. Bumgarner also has a 10.58 K/9 mark which would be a career best. All you out there who doubted him, and me for suggesting you make him your SP1 this season, can suck it. Did I just write that? Guess I did. Felt good to write it too.

Speaking of the Giants…

Santiago Casilla has 12 saves and a 2.08 ERA, a 0.97 WHIP for the Giants, solid work. Alas he’s already blown four save chances though he still seems to have the confidence of the coaching staff. Overall it looks good, but keep an eye on those blown chances.

Miguel Gonzalez was a reserve round selection by yours truly this season in AL-LABR. Given the non-existent celebration of his talents his performance to date has been solid. Remove his first outing this season and these are the numbers for his last give trips to the bump: 3.25 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 7.16 K/9. Alas, even with the success his WHIP has been elevated as he’s walked 13 batters leading to a 4.23 BB/9 rate. He doesn’t deserve to be starting in a mixed league even with his recent upswing.

James Paxton was blasted for eight runs, though only three were earned (Paxton made an error that led to six runs in the first inning), in just 3.2 innings Wednesday night. When Felix Hernandez is ready to return from his ankle issue you have to think that Paxton will be demoted. Heck, he might be demoted before then after his awful effort Wednesday.

Alex Reyes, the elite pitching prospect of the Cardinals, struck out 11 batters in a win at Triple-A Wednesday. "I had pretty good command of my breaking ball today and I feel like that was the reason for the jump in the strikeouts," he said. "My fastball and changeup were pretty much solid throughout the whole game. [Catcher] Mike [McKenry] did a great job mixing up those pitches and calling a great game." The top-20 prospect threw a season-high 97 pitches in the game, 63 for strikes. Reyes has a plus fastball and one hell of a curveball. It’s a dynamic 1-2 punch that has him targeted as a future 1 or 2 starting pitcher at the big league level. Through 15 innings at Triple-A he’s struck out 26 batters, an insane number, but he’s also walked seven batters. Control is the only concern with this talent. At some point this season he will be up in the rotation, but note that he threw only 109.1 innings in 2014 and 101.1 last year so there’s not much in the way of frames on the 21 year olds arm (one positive for his arm, though a concern overall, is the 50-game suspension he served for violating the league’s substance abuse policy).

Matt Shoemaker is rolling for the Angels. Michael Fulmer is looking like the best rookie pitcher in the MLB. Jacob deGrom is starting to strikeout batters again. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO.

 

MAY NUMBERS

  • Everything that follows occurred in the just completed month of May.

Tyler Chatwood led baseball with a 66.7 percent ground ball rate which is why he had a 2.65 ERA even though his strikeout rate was just 5.03 per nine. Aaron Nola (61.1) and Martin Perez (61.1) were the other 60 percent men. Nola posted a 2.31 ERA and Perez 2.23 for the month as well. The only one who is going to post an ERA within a run of those levels in June is… Nola.

Cole Hamels allowed a 29.6 percent HR/FB rate despite a mere 26 percent fly ball rate. Crazy.

Hisashi Iwakuma led baseball with a 10.33 run support mark per nine innings. Two others are receiving a run per inning: Stephen Strasburg (9.32) and Wade Miley (9.00). That’s right folks, two of the top three in runs support don’t pitch for the Red Sox, they pitch for the Mariners. The most challenged guys on the bump in terms of run support: Drew Pomeranz (1.5), Ubaldo Jimenez (1.53), Joe Ross (2.13), Jerad Eickhoff (2.15), Jose Quintana (2.18) and Noah Syndergaard (2.19).

Clayton Kershaw led baseball with 452 strikes thrown. I’ll give you 17 guesses to tell me who is number two. Still thinking? Ready to give up? I’m trying to put some space between the question and the answer so you don’t see it immediately so you have a true chance to check the databanks for the answer. Times up. Clayton Kershaw threw 452 strikes, just 11 more than Jeff Samardzija. The two men who threw the most pitches in the month were Madison Bumgarner (662) and Johnny Cueto (657) with Samardzija being 4th with 653 pitches. The only other arm in the top-4 was Justin Verlander with 656 pitches.

Tom Koehler walked an unconscionable 6.35 batters per nine innings. Two others were over five per nine with Ubaldo Jimenez (5.83) and Francisco Liriano (5.04). The only player worth anything in mixed leagues is of course Liriano. Flipside, two men walked less than a batter per nine: Clayton Kershaw (0.36) and Mike Tomlin (0.96). Tomlin’s ERA of 4.06 was four times higher than Kershaw’s 0.91 mark.

Wily Peralta (.417) and James Shields (.400) were obliterated in the batting average category. There were six men who posted marks below .200: Marco Estrada (.139), Jake Odorizzi (.141), Drew Pomeranz (.186), Chase Anderson (.188), Jeff Locke (.194) and John Lackey (.196).

It’s amazing to think that Hector Santiago and Taijuan Walker both threw 29.1 innings and allowed nine homers on the month. Amazingly, Max Scherzer allowed even more with 10. Back to the duo… Santiago and Walker had a league worst 2.76 HR/9 mark. So bad. Scherzer’s mark was 2.13 by the way.

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).