Trevor Bauer was effectively wild throughout the entire game. This is evidenced by the five strikeouts, one hit, one earned run and six walks in five innings. He couldn’t command his fastball the entire game, missing up in the zone (image below) on almost every occasion. However, he was able to control his secondary pitches (cutter, curveball and slider) and throw them for strikes. The quality of stuff is undeniable, but will he ever harness all nine of his pitches to reach his ceiling? Maybe, but he has a long way to go in terms of repeating his delivery and mechanics. In dynasty leagues he’s a must own and is dropable in one year leagues.

Lance Lynn won his tenth consecutive decision by only allowing one run, two walks, five hits, five strikeouts in seven innings. For the year Lynn has a 2.75 ERA, 1.11 WHIP with 26.4 percent strikeout rate and 10.1 percent walk rate. Hot starts are nothing new to Lynn as he had 2.54 ERA 1.07 WHIP through the first two months of the 2012 season. If you owned him, like I did last year, he fell apart in June and July. Conditioning could have played a role in his decline, which is why he showed a lot of #want and lost nearly 40 pounds in the offseason. Enough superficial analysis. He’s throwing the same percentage of strikes this season as he did for the first two months of 2012, but he’s getting more swing and misses and less balls are in play this year (table below). If you own him, keep him. Do not sell high unless you’re getting a top 15 pitcher because I don’t think he’s going to wear down.

I was all-in on Eric Hosmer in the preseason, drafting him in all my fantasy leagues, but I’m extremely scared. In his rookie season 45.7 percent of his hits were ground balls; last year 51.5 percent; this year he’s hitting 55.2 percent ground balls. It’s still a small sample, but I’m standing pat because he’s batting fourth in the lineup and could rebound with a hot streak in about 30 at-bats.