Week 10 Hitting Planner

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Week 10 Hitting Planner

June 3, 2006 By David Gonos Senior Fantasy Writer Tell David your opinion!

The Fantasy Baseball Hitting Planner is the essential guide to setting your lineup for the upcoming week. Every Saturday, we provide you with favorable hitting matchups for teams, as well as which hitters are hot or not. The Pitching Planner, complete with upcoming two-start pitchers, will be posted on Sunday. Projections are for June 5-11 games. All stats are through Friday's games. This week's matchups AL early NL early AL late NL late BOS@NYY WAS@ATL SEA@LAA ATL@HOU TOR@BAL CHC@HOU BAL@MIN CHC@CIN LAA@TB SD@MIL TB@KC SD@MIL MIN@SEA CIN@STL CLE@CHW FLA@SD OAK@CLE PIT@COL OAK@NYY LAD@COL DET@CHW PHI@ARI DET@TOR PHI@WAS TEX@KC NYM@LAD TEX@BOS NYM@ARI FLA@SF PIT@SF The Royals and Mariners finish their four-game weekend series on Monday, June 5. The following teams play seven games this week: Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Houston, Kansas City, Milwaukee, N.Y. Yankees, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, N.Y. Mets, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Texas, Toronto and Washington. Texas and Boston are playing a doubleheader on Saturday, June 10, as the result of adding a makeup game for a May 13 rainout. That means Boston will have eight games on the schedule this week. Bold denotes four-game series. Taking into account all games with at least a 50 percent chance of precipitation according to the Weather.com, the following might be threatened by poor weather: Oakland at N.Y. Yankees (60 percent chance), Philadelphia at Washington (60), L.A. Dodgers at Colorado (60) and Texas at Boston (60); and Texas at Boston (60) on Sunday. B E S T H I T T I N G S C H E D U L E BOSTON RED SOX MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SAT SUN @NYY Mussina @NYY Wang @NYY Wright @NYY Johnson TEX Rheinecker TEX Koronka TEX Millwood TEX Loe ' 06 Stadium stats: Yankee Stadium, 10.8 RPG (4th); Fenway Park, 9.8 RPG (16th). NYY pitching: 4.15 ERA overall (8th), 4.18 Home ERA (11th). TEX pitching: 4.65 ERA overall (19th), 4.20 Road ERA (8th). The Yankees are always a formidable foe for the Red Sox, but their ERA in May (4.43) was a dropoff from what they did in April (3.65). Also, four home games (thanks to the makeup game) against the Rangers (4.65 May ERA) sets the Red Sox up with an eight-game week. Five other favorable hitter schedules Kansas City Royals -- vs. TEX (3), vs. TB (3) It's not often we can recommend this group, but with six home games against two staffs that rank in the bottom twelve, now is as good a time as ever to start them. San Diego Padres -- at MIL (4), vs. FLA (3) Milwaukee's staff now ranks as the worst in the NL with a 5.34 ERA and the Marlins' rotation averages only 25 years of age. Seattle Mariners -- vs. KC (1), vs. MIN (3), at LAA (3) Seven games altogether and four home contests against two staffs that combine for an ERA over 5.60. St. Louis Cardinals -- vs. CIN (3), at MIL (3) Cincinnati's staff is average at best and the Cardinals will enjoy taking a shot at the Brewers' struggling pitchers. San Francisco Giants -- vs. FLA (3), vs. PIT (4) Pittsburgh's staff has been much better recently (seventh in the majors with a 3.89 ERA in May), but seven home games for the G-men is too much too ignore. H O T H I T T E R S We aren't suggesting you start these players no matter what, but you might consider starting them over struggling stars. The following eight hitters have extremely favorable matchups and/or are in the midst of hot streaks: Ronny Paulino, C, Pittsburgh: Paulino has nailed down the starting job behind the plate in Pittsburgh, and he has hit safely in 18 of his past 21 games. In that span, he has a .325 BA with nine RBI and 11 runs scored. He also helped the Pirates' pitching staff rank seventh in team ERA for the month of May (3.89). Jose Castillo, 2B, Pittsburgh: The Pirates are red hot and their slugging second baseman is one of the reasons why. Since May 9, he is hitting .415 with seven homers and a position-leading 24 RBI despite hitting seventh in the Pirates' lineup. Only Alfonso Soriano has more basic Head-to-Head points in that span than Castillo. Ryan Howard, 1B, Philadelphia: Howard has seven homers and 18 RBI since May 20, leading all first basemen and third among all batters in that span. Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington: From May 1 to May 24, Zimmerman had only five RBI. But since May 25, he leads all third basemen with 11 RBI and he's hitting .313. Jermaine Dye, OF, Chicago White Sox: Dye has 10 homers and, more importantly, 21 RBI since the beginning of May. Aramis Ramirez, 3B, Chicago Cubs: Ramirez has some matchups ahead that he has seen much success against in the past: Bronson Arroyo (.375, 1 HR), Brandon Claussen (.444, 1 HR) and Eric Milton (.375, 3 HR). Todd Walker, 1B/2B, Chicago Cubs: Walker, Ramirez's teammate, has seen similar success against the Reds' starters -- Arroyo (.364), Elizardo Ramirez (.667), Claussen (.500, 2 HR) and Milton (.400, 1 HR) -- as well as Houston's Wandy Rodriguez (.400, 1 HR). Kevin Youkilis, 1B, Boston: He's not going to hit a ton of homers or knock in a lot of runs, but he will get on base, allowing his teammates to bring him in. After leading off while Coco Crisp healed, Youkilis dropped in the order, but he still has a nine-game hitting streak. And he has hit safely in 16 of his past 18 games. W O R S T H I T T I N G S C H E D U L E MILWAUKEE BREWERS MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN SD Hensley SD Peavy SD Park SD Thompson STL Marquis STL Suppan STL Carpenter ' 06 Stadium stats: Miller Park, 10.0 RPG (13th). SD pitching: 3.98 ERA overall (4th), 3.91 Road ERA (4th). STL pitching: 3.72 ERA overall (2nd), 4.79 Road ERA (15th). While seven home games are definitely a positive, the Brew Crew face two of the top four pitching staffs in the majors. The Cardinals' 3.72 ERA is tops in the NL and the Padres' 3.58 May ERA led the majors. Five other below-average hitter schedules Oakland Athletics -- at CLE (3), at NYY (3) The A's are on the road for six straight games and Cleveland's staff posted the second-best ERA in the AL for the month of May. N.Y. Mets -- at L.A. Dodgers (3), at ARI (4) While seven games are nice, the Mets face two staffs that rate among the top six in the majors currently with an average ERA of 4.00. Chicago White Sox -- vs. DET (3), vs. CLE (3) The World Champs might have six home games, but they are against the top two AL staffs for the month of May. L.A. Dodgers -- vs. NYM (3), at COL (3) The Mets have the third-best staff ERA in the majors (3.90 ERA) and Colorado's surprising staff was third in the majors in May with a 3.84 ERA. Cleveland Indians -- vs. OAK (3), at CHW (3) Only the Tigers and Yankees have better staff ERAs than the A's and White Sox in the AL. C O L D H I T T E R S We aren't suggesting you sit anyone, but take a look at your roster to see if you have a better alternative. The following eight hitters have poor matchups and/or are in the midst of cold streaks: Josh Willingham, C/OF, Florida: Along with Victor Martinez, Willingham followed up a great April with a bad May. Since May 21, Willingham has only two RBI and a .135 batting average. He hasn't homered since May 6. Carlos Delgado, 1B, N.Y. Mets: Granted, he's on pace to break the Mets' single-season record of 41 homers held by Todd Hundley, but he's hitting only .136 since May 16. Craig Biggio, 2B, Houston: Biggio's batting average has dropped 20 points since May 22, and he has only three multi-hit games in his past 16 games. Hank Blalock, 3B, Texas: On May 16, Blalock was hitting .345 on the year. But since then, he's hitting only .200 with no homers and five RBI. Omar Vizquel, SS, San Francisco: Is there another veteran having a better renaissance season than Vizquel? Since mid-May, Vizquel is batting .388 with nine RBI and 11 runs scored. Felipe Lopez, SS, Cincinnati: After reaching a career-high in steals with 16 on May 11 (including four on May 10), Lopez is 0-for-3 in SB attempts. He's also hitting only .175 with one RBI since May 21. Jason Lane, OF, Houston: Lane does not have good matchups ahead: Greg Maddux (.167, 1 HR), Carlos Zambrano (.222), John Smoltz (.000) and John Thomson (.167). Juan Pierrre, OF, Chicago Cubs: The Cubs have one of the lowest on-base percentages in the majors from the leadoff spot, and Pierre has had trouble against upcoming pitchers Arroyo (.167 BA), Ramirez (.000), Claussen (.167) and Milton (.214). You can e-mail your Fantasy Baseball questions to DMFantasyBaseball@cbs.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state. Be aware, due to the large volume of submissions received, we cannot guarantee personal responses or answers to all questions.