I know, I know. I promised everyone Dallas Keuchel, but he’s pitching tonight! His last start was so long ago that Jose Abreu still seemed like a good guy to trade for if someone wasn’t selling too high (ack!). So long ago that Jay Z seemed to still love his little sister-in-law!
But do not fret, I promise unless there’s a Noah-type monsoon that floods out four games, that Keuchel will be next week on his weekend start.
So in my despair when I saw Keuchel was tonight and not yesterday, I went to Twitter for some ideas and got a great one for Ryan Vogelsong. I gotta admit – I love Vogelsong. Helped carry me to titles in both 2011 and 2012 where he stayed undervalued for an entire 2-year stretch. Pretty hard to do. But 2013 was a disaster with hitters bashing him at a .299 clip, suffered a 5.73 ERA, and I guess the more appropriate adjective use of “suffer” would be for his broken hand on a comebacker. It was in a 5-inning scoreless game too! Talk about the worst timing, right whence he was turning it around.
In 2012, everyone ignored Vogelsong because he started the year on the DL and I think he missed all of one start. Noobs! To ignore him (like I obviously did) based on a terrible 2013 for a 36-year-old pitcher I think is more logical. But he’s got his velocity back up to 2012 levels, dropped the line drive rate, and has four gems in his last five starts. Indeed, it felt only logical to break down his start yesterday against the Marlins, and if he can indeed make another under-the-radar lasting impact on fantasy teams in 2014:
Please, blog, may I have some more?