If you read my pitcher rankings for this week you’ll see I saw a glimmer of hope with Jarrod Parker because he was a two start pitcher @Cleveland and @Seattle. Well I just finished watching his start and it was the worst start I’ve seen all year. All four home runs he surrendered were pitches that missed (or were left) up in the zone. Throughout the entire game there were runners on base; he was pitching behind in the count more often than not and bounced a lot of balls in the dirt. I’m not surprised he’s tied in the Majors with five wild pitches. There’s something wrong with Parker and I have no problem if you want to drop him in ten team mixed leagues.

Similar to Parker, Jeremy Hellickson has underperformed to begin the year and today was a continuation of his poor performance. Even though he was staked to a seven run lead he was only able to throw five innings while allowing three earned runs, six hits and four walks. The reason for his struggles was the command of his pitches was loose all game, which lead to him throwing a lot of pitches outside the strike zone. Since his command was off he also used a lot of pitches to try to make the perfect pitch, being overly cautious instead of being aggressive and challenging hitters.

Speaking of overly cautious, Andrew Cashner pitched a solid game against the Double-A lineup known as the Marlins. However, I bet fantasy owners who started him today (or this week) were expecting more than three strikeouts. His problem throughout the game was throwing the ball for strikes, only throwing 57 percent of them. With a fastball that sits in the mid-90s I wish he would have used it more often in order to generate more swings and misses, but according to the Padres TV commentators the Padres coaching staff wanted him to pitch more to contact so he would have quicker innings and therefore go longer in games, which he did; this year was the first time he pitched into the seventh inning.
Joel Hanrahan left the game today with an arm/elbow injury. I don’t how long he may be out, but if you’re looking for the pitcher next in-line I would say its Junichi Tazawa.