I’ve seen every start of only one pitcher this year and he’s not on the A’s. His name is Jeremy Hellickson. After I was finishing up my work day twitter blew up. So needless to say I had sticker shock when I saw eight earned runs and ten hits in 5.2 innings. In the preseason I loved Hellickson. I targeted him in every draft and “over drafted” him to ensure he was on my team because I thought he would stabilize my team’s ERA and WHIP. After watching yesterday’s start I’m recommending he dropped in all formats. For the first five innings he pitched like vintage Hellickson; trowing the fastball on both sides of the plate; the changeup looked crisp, inducing a lot of swings and misses. Then the sixth inning happened. All of a sudden he lost command of all of his pitches and became extremely hittable. He did suffer 1-2 instances of bad luck, but this was my last straw with him. He was pitching at home, a great pitcher’s ballpark, against one of the worst offenses in the league and he still got lit up.

After a shaky first three batters Jarrod Parker only allowed five base runners the rest of the game (in eight innings). Despite the really good box score his command of the strike zone was loose as it would come and go inning to inning. However, when he was commanding the changeup, especially to lefties, hitters were taking bad swings against it, which means the pitch is really good. Over his last eight starts he has a 2.85 ERA with a 0.99 WHIP so he’s bound to regress because he’s not that good, but if you own him, keep him. You could sell high if you can get a top 25 pitcher for him, but I don’t think you’ll be able to get that on the trade market.

If you haven’t heard by nowTroy Tulowitzki is out 4-6 weeks with a broken rib. I own him in two NFBC Leagues, one of which I’m in first place, and I’m scrambling to find a replacement. Josh Rutledge is expected to be called up to replace him and I’m probably going to use 70-80 percent of my remaining FAAB budget (about $550) to acquire him. Poor defense aside, he’s a top 10 middle infield option because he provides home runs and stolen bases and plays in Coors. Before he was sent down he a top five second baseman on ESPNs player rater. If you can’t get Rutledge you’re going to have to stream middle infield options until he comes back. Jeff Keppinger, in the last three weeks, is hitting3.313. Mike Aviles is another great option as long as Asdubal Cabrera is on the DL. If you’re looking for speed, Jasyon Nix quietly has eight steals this past month.

Since George Brett became the Royals hitting coach on May 30, Eric Hosmer has a slash line of .309/.356/.418. It’s easy to say it’s either a coincidence or a small sample size, but his swings have been a lot better at the plate and he’s driving the ball up the middle and to right field. Check out his hit chart below. He’s still hitting too many ground balls, but I finally have optimism.