Ross Stripling Making a Name For Himself
If you had to guess before the season the Dodgers starting pitcher that would have an ERA of 1.52 on June 6th, you probably would say Clayton Kershaw. If not, maybe Alex Wood.
Well, you would be wrong. While the Dodgers starting rotation had a lot of potential injury risks, it is Ross Stripling that has saved the day.
Stripling had another excellent performance on Tuesday night against the Pirates. He pitched five scoreless innings, allowing four hits, no walks and struck out seven to pick up another win.
Stripling has made 18 appearances, including seven starts. Overall, he is 4-1 with a 1.52 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 30.7 percent strikeout rate and 5.1 percent walk rate.
As a starter, he has pitched 38 innings and allowed 36 hits, walked five and struck out 49. He has a 1.89 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. Stripling has a 48 percent ground ball rate, 22.5 percent hard hit rate, 11.1 percent swinging strike rate and is throwing first-pitch strikes 72.1 percent of the time. Much of his success is due to the curveball.
Stripling started as a rookie in 2016 before moving to the bullpen. He appeared in 49 games last season, including two starts. Stripling’s success looks legit and if he continues to pitch like this, he will stay in the starting rotation even when the other starters get healthy.
He should be owned in all leagues. I always say any player that is having a lot of success should be put on the market. It doesn’t mean you have to trade them, but see if someone who is desperate for pitching will overpay. It might be difficult since Stripling is unknown, but riding the wave is not a bad thing with Stripling.
Bumgarner Makes Season Debut
After missing a little more than two months, Madison Bumgarner made his season debut Tuesday night against the Diamondbacks and took a loss.
It was a solid performance from the Giants left-hander. Bumgarner pitched six innings and allowed eight hits, two earned runs, walked none and struck out three. He averaged slightly over 90 miles per hour with his fastball and while he only had three strikeouts, he did get swings and misses.
Bumgarner only made two rehab appearances, so it wasn’t a surprise to see the velocity slightly down. He pitched 3.2 and 4.2 in his rehab starts. He threw 82 pitches and induced ten swings and misses. It’s going to take a couple of outings for Bumgarner to round into form since this is essentially spring training for him. Bumgarner escaped trouble several times and overall, it was an encouraging performance.
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The next Online Championship is tomorrow night! This league is a Fantasy Football contest comprised of individual leagues of 12. The best teams from each league will compete in weeks 14-16 to be crowned FullTime Fantasy Sports Champion and Grand Prize Winner. It’s Fantasy Football like you’ve always played it, except there’s NO TRADING! No trading, no way! Not at this level of competition. The team you draft and the players you acquire through weekly free agency is the team you go to battle with.
