Fantasy Baseball Tonight 7/5; Resurgence!?

Ricky Nolasco continued his dominance since returning from the minor leagues and had one of the best starts of his major league career. Nolasco pitched eight shutout innings of three hit ball, walked just two and struck out 12. He hasn't allowed more than two earned runs in any of his starts since his recall, and has dropped his ERA nearly four full points. obviously he will have a few rough starts along the way, but I believe that you will see the pitcher from 2008 the vast majority of the time he takes the mound here on out.

OK, so his batting average might still be in the dumps, but David Ortiz is finally starting to show some signs of the power that turned him from an average hitter into BIG PAPI. Ortiz connected on his ninth of the season, and that was his third in the last ten days. At one point of the year everyone was wondering if he would hit 10 or 15 homers. Now it appears that 20 is well within his range. Still a bitter disappointment from our preseason expectations, but if he could get to a .250 average with 22 homers and perhaps 80 RBI maybe his owners would cancel their orders for the Ortiz voodoo dolls.

Jimmy Rollins is becomoing a regular on this column, as he continues to hit like it was 2007. Now, I am not saying this will last, but in the one league that I benched him in long ago, he finally got back in my starting lineup today. That's seven homers and 11 steals now. Like Ortiz, certainly not what we were hoping for, but much better than it looked like six weeks ago.

Gio Gonzalez has always had great strikeout potential, but he has always struggled in his chances at the major league level. Gonzalez was red hot in the minors this year and deserves this latest opportunity to stick with the big club. In 2007 he led the minor leagues in strikeouts with 185. On the flip side his major league ERA is 7.54. But perhaps today was the start of him turning the corner. Gonzalez pitched six innings, allowed just two runs and struck out eight. Sure it was against the Indians, but keep an eye on him. I wouldn't pick him up off this one good start, but keep an eye on him.

Josh Hamilton played both games of a doubleheader going 2/7 with a double, triple, and stolen base. There is still not a definite plan as of now when he will return to the Texas lineup, but he seems primed to join them within the next day or two. To show my confidence that he is on the brink of return, I am going to start him in the upcoming week in a league where my roster is set for the entire week.

Chad Qualls all of a sudden looks like he will be holding on to his job. After going nearly three weeks without a save (with a blown save and a loss in there), all of a sudden Qualls has recorded a save for the second consecutive day. Best of all is he didn't allow a base runner in either of these opportunities. What once looked like a lost cause has gained some life again. Qualls looks like he will be fine.......for now.

Scott Olsen had his second consecutive quality start since returning from the Disabled List, but I am still quite a ways a way from suggesting picking him up. He was just one out away from a complete game on Sunday, allowing three runs while walking five and striking out five. His ability to keep composure in pressure situations and his control have long been his biggest problems. Olsen was once a highly thought of pitching prospect for the Marlins, but inconsistency have him pretty much out of the minds of fantasy players. He has good strikeout numbers this year (41 in 56 IP), but they aren't good enough to make up for his horrible ERA and WHIP. Not to mention on the Nationals wins are hard to come by. Leave Olsen in free agency unless he is still on this kind of roll at the end of the month.

Justin Smoak was promoted to AAA, further fueling fantasy players hopes that he might be promoted later this year to replace strikeout machine Chris Young. Smoak did well at AA, but not dominating. In 49 games he hit .333 with six home runs and 29 RBI. Before the season started he was ranked as the 23rd best prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America. He should have some real power potential, and has been compared to Mark Teixeira. I still think he is a ways away from being promoted, but this is a positive sign.

This is how Bronson Arroyo messes with fantasy players. Between May 22nd and June 7th Arroyo allowed just one earned run in three of his four starts. Everyone was adding him to their team. Since then? Including today, Arroyo has allowed five or more earned runs in four of his last five starts and has lost three straight decisions. I often tell someone that a player "is who he is", any of you who have emailed me have probably heard that before. Well, same goes for Arroyo. He is an average pitcher who is capable of hitting some nice hot streaks. Problem is they are usually short lived, and followed by cold streaks of equal lengths. The proper way to use him is to pick him up against some of the weaker hitting National League teams, hope he does well, and then cast him aside until he gets another favorable matchup.

Tommy Hanson and Andrew McCutchen are getting all the press for the NL Rookie of the Year right now, but don't sleep on the Cardinals' Colby Rasmus. After a tough month of May where he hit for power but a .211 average, Rasmus hit .333 in June and is 8/17 so far in July. He has struggled against lefties, hitting just .173 against them, but he has shown some improvement in each month. The Cardinals think enough of him that he has been batting second in the lineup for quite a while now and he hit his tenth home run of the season today. I thought he would bring a little more speed to the table, but with the power he is showing and a .282 average he is worthy of being a fourth outfielder on any team.

Rick Porcello had his third straight less than stellar start, and his owners are likely starting to panic. Porcello allowed four earned in just four innings. His record is now 8-6, and his ERA has creeped over four. 20 year old pitchers are always going to go through rough spots, and I am still confident that is what is going on with Porcello right now. He will get back on track, although I would like to see him strikeout more hitters. He was the number one prospect for the Tigers coming into the season, and he will be back. You might not want to start him the next time out, but if he has a weak opponent I would keep him in.

Nick Blackburn continues to fly under the fantasy radar for the Twins, and the only explanation that I can come up with is because he doesn't get a ton of strikeouts. Blackburn went the distance on Sunday, allowed just one run and struck out six. He hasn't allowed more than three runs in a start since May 16th, and with today's outing his ERA is now under 3.00. His record is now 7-4 and his WHIP is an average 1.27 so he really isn't hurting you in those categories either. It is his 51 strikeouts in 116 innings that causes him to be left on fantasy waiver wires. If you have a flamethrowing staff to begin with, Blackburn is a nice guy to have at the end to counteract one of those days when your usuals don't come through.

Jake Fox crushed his fourth homer of the season and has been hitting and playing defense well enough to stay in the lineup for the Cubs, but the question remains where will he fit in when Aramis Ramirez comes back? Ramirez should be back at some point this week, and Fox has mostly been holding down his position at third base. With Milton Bradley, Fukudome, and Soriano in the outfield, where does Fox get his playing time? I still think he should be in the Cubs outfield but only time will tell if he will be in the lineup when they are fully healthy. Of course with guys like Ramirez, Bradley, and Soriano another injury could pop up at any second. Until you see the full lineup and Fox still getting at bats, you have to remain worried about how much time he will get.

Randy Johnson left his start with some sort of shoulder strain. He was fooled badly on a pitch by Roy Oswalt, and grabbed his shoulder on the way back to the dugout. The next inning he allowed a couple of home runs and then made a throwing error. The Giants training staff made its way to the mound, and Johnson's day was over. He is pitching well better than expectations, so hopefully this is nothing that will cause him to miss a start. When you a pitcher over 40, they tend to be more cautious with you.

OK, back to the ESPN Arcade. Now today I have been sucked in by Extreme Trucks and Extreme Blast Billiards. The billiards game even slaps you in the face and calls you a wuss if you try to choose the "easy" difficulty setting. After playing it a couple dozen times, I wish there was an easy setting. I'm telling you, try the Concentration: Staches and you will be hooked. Haven't you ever wanted to play a memory game that has cards with Dave Winfield from the 70's and Johnny Damon in the midst of his Jesus look? There's games for everyone, I urge you to go there and see how fast it takes you to find a game that has you addicted.

Last thing of the night, there will be another Fantasy Roundtable with Steve Gardner and myself at the usatoday.com. I have talked about his Fantasy Windup blog for a couple months now and hopefully you all have checked it out. The latest Fantasy Roundtable will be this Tuesday at 12pm EST just like last week and likely last between 60 to 90 minutes. For those of you unfamiliar, this is different from a regular chat. Instead of throwing your questions into a hopper and hope the host answers them, this is a chat room type discussion where questions are asked and answered in real time. Join me and Steve and get your questions answered. I know Jennifer and Martha were both there last week, so if you can leave a comment if you found it valuable that would be appreciated. Here is a link to last week's chat.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome at fightingchancefantasy@gmail.com. I guarantee a response within 18 hours. Also, don't miss the "Fantasy Baseball Tonight" podcast four nights a week from Monday-Thursday. The Big Show on Wednesday is co-hosted by Todd Farino of fantasybaseballsearch.com, RC Rizza of junkyardjake.com and myself, Ryan Hallam at fightingchancefantasy.com. To hear the show go to www.blogtalkradio.com/the_true_guru. You can also hear me weekly on the Tuesday Night show. Join me with Jeff Mans every Tuesday night at 10pm EST for all the the info and craziness we can pack into one hour. A can't miss if you plan on winning your league.