Wednesday: Don-Terrible Willis

Mark Buehrle - 6 1/3 IP, 10 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, W (7). He allowed baserunners, but did a good job dodging trouble and ended up with a great start. A very good performance against the tough Cleveland offense as he continues his excellent rebound season.

Jeff Francis - 7 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. A nice rebound for his owners after 3/4 previous appearances yielded 6 ER. Given this was a start against the Pirates, I'd still show a bit of concern, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Ian Snell - 6 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. Very rarely does 6 baserunners in 6 IP yield 5 ER, but 4 of those runs came home on a pair of 2 run HRs. Things are starting to even out a bit for Snell. His current 1.20 WHIP does not support a 3.31 ERA, so I would imagine his ERA might go up a bit more unless he starts limiting baserunners more going forward. He hasn't reached 200 IP yet, throwing 186 IP last year in his first full season. He'll probably wear down some as the year moves along, so he's someone to consider trading if you're right in the thick of things and don't plan on keeping him.

Todd Helton - 1/3, 2 run HR (9). I don't believe I've touched on him yet this season. If it wasn't obvious the past few years, he's done as a fantasy starter at 1B. He's not a bad UTIL guy, but you could probably do better there, too. The .310 AVG and 53 RBI are nice, but the 9 HR from a 1B is not. He's an endgame 1B in drafts these days, and what's left on his monster contract is bad news for the Rockies.

Jason Bergmann - 6 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, W (2). I mentioned he was worth watching when he returned from the DL, but I just wanted to update that he's not longer even worth considering. This was one of his better starts since returning.

Aaron Harang - 7 2/3 IP, 10 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K. He dodged baserunners well, but the bullpen blew the save for him in a 1 run game. He pitched very well outside of the WHIP catagory.

John Smoltz - 7 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 11 K. Bigtime performance from Smoltz, but Harang's outing held down the Atlanta offense and he didn't pick up a win. It was a very encouraging post-DL start for Smoltz who's shoulder seems to have recovered nicely.

Matt Cain - 4 IP, 4 H, 6 ER, 5 BB, 3 K. Ugh. More of the same from Cain. He had an outstanding April, a bad May, a decent June, and he's having a terrible July. The walks continue to be a big problem for him as he's given up 59 of them in 118 2/3 IP. Until he gets those under control, he'll continue to struggle.

Carlos Zambrano - 5 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, W (12). Big Z keeps dominating opponents. His stretch since the fight with Barrett is getting more impressive with each start. Some people might have been worried about 5 IP and 80 pitches, but the Cubs were very smart here. It was a very long bottom of the 5th with them opening up a 9-0 lead, and combining the lag between innings and the huge lead, they decided to give Zambrano a short day. His owners have to love this as he's thrown a lot of pitches this year, so it's nice to see the Cubs playing it safe on this one and giving him some well deserved rest.

Chad Billingsley - 5 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 4 BB, 4 K. Back come the walks, although you shouldn't have been starting him against the explosive Phillies offense anyways. Still, it was a step back for Billingsley coming off a great outing against SF, although he did go from one of the worst offenses to one of the best. If anything, we've learned that you need to be careful when you use him.

Ryan Howard - 2/3, 3 R, 1 RBI, HR (25). He's really killing the ball right now, giving his fantasy owners about what they paid for. There was a ton of hype for him this year and he was often being drafted in the first round, but after his slow start that should keep his numbers down, he'll probably come at a more reasonable draft position next year. It'd be nice to see the Philles find some more protection for him in the lineup.

Kevin Millwood - 6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. One bad inning, including his own error, led to a loss for Millwood. He faced the minimum in the other 5 innings he pitched and is still pitching like a mixed league starter right now. Make sure he's owned, and to use him against all but elite offenses until he proves otherwise.

Kip Wells - 8 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K. You know, if he had stayed healthy in his career, he might be pitching like this more consistently. As is, he mixes in an outing like this among 4-5 disasters. Don't bother, as if his 5.75 ERA wasn't enough reason.

Dontrelle Willis - 3 IP, 11 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 4 K. I think it's time he moves on to a different team. He's completely fallen apart this year and should be nowhere near your active lineup until he puts together 2-3 good starts in a row. Nobody would fault you for dropping him, either.

Manny Ramirez - 2/4, 2 R, 1 RBI, HR (14). He continues to assault the ball post-AS break. As I've mentioned before, let's hope he keeps this up for a long while.

Roger Clemens - 6 IP, 9 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K. Pretty good outing fantasy-wise against Toronto as the Blue Jays were completely incapable of pushing runners home despite numerous opportunities all game long. He got pretty lucky here.

Alex Rios - 4/5, 1 R. An amazing season so far for Rios as he pushed his AVG up to .303 with this effort. He's settled into the 2nd tier of fantasy outfielders with this season.

Scott Kazmir - 7 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. Finally, a sign of progress. I read that he said before this start that he was going to forget all the different mechanical coachings given to him this year, and just go out and throw the ball like he knows how. We'll see if he can build on this.

Jose Valverde - 1 IP, 3 K, SV (28). We can safely say that Valverde is finally capitalizing on his talent this season. He's put it all together and become a great closer after a couple years of disappoitnment.

Andrew Miller - 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, W (5). Control problems led to a short day for Miller, but he pitched around the walks and put in a fairly good outing, picking up the win and beating the usually invincible Santana.

Johan Santana - 8 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 7 K. So he doesn't win all his summer starts? Well forget that, drop this piece of crap. ;)

Michael Cuddyer - 4/4. Nothing like a 4 hit day leading to absolutely nothing else. Annoying.

Magglio Ordonez - 2/4, 1 R, 3 RBI, HR (15). He's hitting a pedestrian .298 with 2 HR and 11 RBI. He was due to slow down some, so hopefully for his owners' sake, he's just having a "down" month. I still think he'll be hitting more like this the rest of the way.

John Maine - 6 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. Back to back 4 ER outings for Maine, but I wouldn't worry too much. He was due to take his ERA above 3.00, and now that's happened. He'll still be a very good fantasy pitcher the rest of the way as long as he doesn't run into more command issues.

Greg Maddux - 5 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. After 3 straight subpar starts, I'm sure owners were happy to see him turn in an effort like this. Unfortunately the usually great SD bullpen let him down and he wasn't able to pick up the win.

Adrian Gonzalez - 2/4, 2 R, 1 RBI, HR (15). Boy has he fell off the map. I apologize for not noticing this before, but he's been a bum over the past two months, hitting .231 with 2 HR last month, and .196 with 1 HR this month. Hopefully he starts to heat up again because he certainly has the talent to do so. He's had 7 hits in the past 4 games, so hopefully that time to heat up is now.

David Wright - 1/4, 3 run HR (17). He's really recovered well after a poor April. Unfortunately due to his name recognition and hype, it was really hard to buy low on him, but congrats to those who were able to pull it off. He's at .328 this month with 3 HR and 3 SB. The 3 run HR last night was huge, tying the game in the 8th inning.

J.J. Putz - 1 IP, SV (28). His ERA dropped to 0.79. He hasn't allowed an ER since June 2nd.