Tejada heating up

31, 33, does it matter how old Miguel Tejada is? After another 4 hit night he is batting .370 in this early part of the season, but more importantly he is looking like a key cog in the middle of that Astros lineup that is primed for runs with Berkman hitting behind him. Tejada fell in most of the drafts I was in and in turn I either ended up with him or another person favorite Carlos Guillen. Both look like solid RBI and AVG contributors from the SS position. I'd prefer them over bigger names like Jeter and Tulowitski.

Look for Hunter Pence to eventually heat up. He's batting in the low 200's but hit an HR tonight so maybe that is the start of his season, since he really has not produced much for power #'s or avg for that matter.

A third blown save for Jose Valverde, but he has just as many wins! He may not be as sharp as the Astros expected when they got him but at least he is at least keeping it close enough when he blows it so that he can still win the game.

For the San Diego Fathers, Adrian Gonzalez blew up with a double, triple and home run. He hit a home run the day before also. Surely he was underrated in your draft as there are far sexier names at 1B to draft, and once one of the teams grabs one of them they tend to ignore the rest of them. Gonzalez has proven he can hit for average and underrated power. Petco Park ruins his home run total but as you can see, two games in a hitters park like Minute Maid Park and he hits two home runs. On another team in a more advantageous park, Adrian would hit 30 HR's easily likely. As it is he is a decent spot start or if you have a limping 1B you may wish to play some Adrian depending on who he is playing.

Jake Peavy has a terrible start for his standards, with only 2 strikeouts in 6 innings to go with 4 runs and 9 hits / walks. It is hard to pitch in Minute Maid Park, and as stated above the Astros lineup is meshing nicely with Tejada, Lee and Berkman being monsters in the middle of the lineup.

Another good example of a good pitcher getting screwed by the ballpark is Brett Myers performance in Colorado. Myers is another one of those guys that fell to all of my teams because no one respects his numbers from a few years ago when he was a consistent starter with a good ERA, WHIP, and 200 K's / 200 innings. But he did start off poorly, and then he shut down Houston and the Cubs to the tune of 15 innings, 4 ER's and 13 K's. Great numbers for two solid offenses.

But then tonight he goes into Colorado and gets lit up for 11 hits, 6 runs, 2 walks and just 3 strikeouts in 7 innings. This begs the question, do you bench starters against Colorado or Houston? It is certainly something you have to consider, but a pitcher of Peavy's quality you always start, because you don't want to miss a gem and they can pull those off anywhere. Myers is a little different because he is not quite as trusty but I'd say he's still close enough to the elite / consistent level that you should start him always besides the matchup. Plus he's used to pitching in a hitter's park, and he has the stuff to miss bats which is the key ingredient in more difficult stadiums. So if you are scared of playing SP's at Colorado, etc, you may want to consider that just for the control type pitchers who don't have the best stuff and tend to rely on contact (these are the types that will get lit up more often than not).