Kuo delivers Scherzerian performance
Sure, there was almost a no-hitter in Chicago last night, but Tuesday's most entertaining game might actually have been the Dodgers' 5-4 win over the Mets.
It offered the following highlights:
1) The ancient, hand-peeing Moises Alou stole home. Angel Pagan had just swiped second base, and Chin-lung Hu double-clutched on the throw back to Russell Martin. That allowed the 41-year-old Alou to score.
2) Blake DeWitt hit an inside-the-park homer. Ryan Church arrived at the right field wall at exactly the same moment as the baseball, but Church bounced right and the ball bounced left. Then Church just sat there, watching.
3) Hong-Chih Kuo had eight Ks in 3.2 innings. He relieved a struggling Hiroki Kuroda in the fourth, and immediately struck out both Carlos Delgado and Angel Pagan to extract the Dodgers from a jam. Kuo did not allow a hit, and he walked only one batter. The lefty's first six strikeouts were all on 94-95 mph fastballs; the last two were swinging Ks on breaking pitches that were basically untouchable.
So is there actionable fantasy intelligence here?
Well, the left-handed hitting DeWitt is on a bit of a tear. He's now batting .317/.398/.488. That's significantly better than the 22-year-old hit at Double-A and Single-A last season (.292/.327/.466). He's not a player you need to add in mixed leagues.
Here's what the L.A. Daily News offered yesterday:
Torre acknowledged the possibility that DeWitt could stick around as an oft-used backup, just as he did for eight days until Torre and general manager Ned Colletti decided to go back to a seven-man bullpen and called up Cory Wade on April 24. "When Nomar comes back, I think in order to protect him, we can't think in terms of six or seven days a week," Torre said. "But the decision we have to make, obviously, is how it would work. Do we go back to 11 pitchers again? We'll just have to wait and see."
Kuo is someone to seriously consider adding. He's only 1.6 percent-owned in Yahoo! leagues, yet he's 2-1 with 33 Ks in 24.1 innings and his ERA is 2.59. Those are useful numbers whether he's starting or not. He's currently No. 118 in the overall Yahoo! ranks.
