June Awards/Goggles' Streak

As we've done all season long, with our second column of the month, we'll take a look at who some of the best and worst performers have been in the past month. In June, a lot of pitchers started to turn it around and get themselves over the hump. Twelve pitchers, including such household names as Matt Morris, Johan Santana, Mark Mulder, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling, Jason Schmidt, and Javier Vazquez had four wins or more as the weather started to heat up. That said, none of them compared statistically to June's starter of the month.

Starter of the Month: Carl Pavano
Credentials: 5-0, 1.37 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, 31 K in 39.1 IP

Many, including myself, wondered whether or not Pavano would build upon last year's breakthrough twelve-win season with the Figthin' Fish in Miami, but anyone who took a chance on him has to be loving his performance so far this season. The former Red Sox farmhand and Expo seems to have finally turned the corner in Florida. Through Thursday, he's outplaying both of the big name players he's been traded for in his career (Pedro Martinez and Cliff Floyd) and is owning the league with a 9-4 record and a 2.85 ERA this season. Figured to be the number five starter in what appeared to be an incredibly deep rotation for the World Champs, Pavano has been as strong as any other starter on the Marlins, with Brad Penny providing the only real competition.

June was perhaps the most important month in showing that Pavano could be for real the rest of the way. Why? Last season, June was his worst month. In June of 2003, Pavano struggled to a 2-4 record with a 7.16 ERA and a 1.29 WHIP, only to rebound with a strong second half. This season, he allowed less runs in June than he did homers last season in seven more innings. To top it all off, Pavano faced an incredibly difficult schedule last month, facing the White Sox and Indians (each of whom have held the major league lead in runs scored in the past month), as well as putting down the red hot Devil Rays in his final start of the month. The back to back starts against the Tribe and White Sox were certainly the pinnacle of his month, as Pavano allowed one run in 8.2 against the Indians before tossing a three hit shutout against the high-powered Sox. Though he's lost his first two starts in July, Pavano has clearly established himself as a terrific big league starter with his performance over the past fifteen months.

Honorable Mention: Jason Schmidt, Doug Davis, Javier Vazquez, Johan Santana, Adam Eaton

Reliever of the Month: Mariano Rivera
Credentials: 0-0, 11 SV, 0.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 11 K in 11.2 IP

This was a much tighter race than you would think, as Danny Kolb was absolutely phenomenal last month, converting ten saves with a 0.00 ERA. Ultimately, the extra save, Rivera's consistent dominance over the past decade, and the fact that Mo adds strikeouts to the mix was what separated them.

Anyone who thinks Rivera isn't still among the top two or three closers in the game need only look at his 0.83 ERA so far in the first half to realize their error. Rivera continues to be the best closer this side of Eric Gagne, and despite his arm troubles in each of the past two seasons, sees as much use as any other closer in the game. He apparently had the old rubber arm back to start the month, closing out games on four consecutive days to start June. Mo hasn't looked back since, as he allowed a run against the Orioles on June 1, but hasn't allowed a run in the past 38 days. Rivera's 30 saves currently place him second (behind Danny Graves) in the big leagues, and you can bank on yet another big second half from the world's most effortless closer.

Honorable Mention: Danny Kolb, Jason Isringhausen, Francisco Cordero, Joe Nathan, Francisco Rodriguez

Value Play (Starter): Doug Davis
Credentials: 5-1, 3.22 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 26 K in 36.1 IP

Davis beats out teammate Victor Santos, who was also among the value play top five. Some people, including our own Gordon Lee, touted him as a solid sleeper to start the season based on a strong showing after the Brew Crew acquired him off waivers from Toronto last season, but nobody could have imagined him performing the way he has in the first half of the season. Davis, who has reached double digits in victories just once in his seven year career (11 with Texas in 2001), already has nine victories as of Thursday night. More importantly, his ERA is over a full point lower than his career ERA of 4.52, while the 1.33 WHIP he's sporting right now is much stronger than his 1.55 career WHIP. To top it all off, Davis has proven to be a factor in strikeout leagues, with 83 in 117 innings so far this season. At this point in the season, he's a legitimate middle of the rotation fantasy starter, and things may get better. Davis' career ERA after the break is 4.28, as compared to 4.68 before the break.

Honorable Mention: Victor Santos, Ted Lilly, Mark Hendrickson, Nate Robertson, Adam Eaton

Value Play (Reliever): Danny Kolb
Credentials: 10 SV, 0.00 ERA, 0.58 WHIP, 3 K in 10.1 IP

While Kolb was taken in virtually every fantasy league that was deep enough to require the drafting of all thirty closers, he generally wasn't one of the top twenty closers taken in many leagues, meaning he's more than eligible for this award with the month he had. Kolb, known for getting into (and out of) trouble a lot last season as the Brewers closer, continues to get the job done. More importantly, he's not making any fantasy owners (or managers) pull their hair out when he comes into the ballgame. If he could only learn to finish hitters (in the strikeout sense, at least), Kolb would arguably be considered one of the top 3-5 fantasy closers in the game today, but his 11 strikeouts in 33 innings are his one downfall.

That said, while we were praising Mariano Rivera's 0.83 ERA earlier in the column, Kolb has been better, with a 0.82 ERA and a 0.82 WHIP, and an amazing .195 average against. Through Thursday, he is 26 for 27 in save opportunities, and has allowed a run in just two of his thirty-five appearances. Kolb will top his week off with a well-deserved trip to Houston for the All-Star Game. While he'll start to allow a run every now and then, his place is set as a top ten closer the rest of the way.

Honorable Mention: Francisco Rodriguez, Brad Lidge, Juan Rincon, Shingo Takatsu, Tom Gordon

Fantasy Dud of the Month: Bartolo Colon
Credentials (or lack thereof): 1-4, 7.99 ERA, 1.84 WHIP, 24 K in 32.2 IP

Colon has easily been the fantasy disappointment of the first-half, and it's surprising that this will be his first month as the actual dud of the month (he appeared in the honorable mention section for May). Colon, whose name was called in the first five to seven rounds in most fantasy drafts, currently ranks dead last in the majors among qualified starters in ERA and 87th in WHIP. At the midway point, his five wins place him at just over a third of his lowest win total in the past six seasons (14). Perhaps most importantly, though, his strikeout totals aren't even making up for it. Colon has just 72 strikeouts through Thursday's action, placing him in a three way tie for 49th in the majors. In fact, Colon, known for being a fairly strong strikeout pitcher, has just three more than his teammate Francisco Rodriguez, a reliever who has thrown in less than half the innings that Colon has. Whether or not big (and I do mean that literally) Bartolo can suddenly find his way out of his funk or not remains to be seen. He could return to form and be one of the top pitchers in the league in the second half. If the first half is any indication, though, I'd leave him alone.

(Dis)Honorable Mention: Billy Wagner, Hideo Nomo, Billy Koch, Josh Beckett (when you hit the DL three times, injuries can count!), Sidney Ponson

Line of the Week

The pitching line of the week will always be one of three things: a great line (green), an awful line (red), or a bizarre line (yellow).

27.0 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 13 H, 2 BB, 24 K

The Royals just aren't the same without Carlos Beltran leading the charge, and the Minnesota Twins took full advantage earlier this week. Brad Radke, Johan Santana, and Kyle Lohse combined to throw three straight complete game shutouts against the Royals as the Twinkies swept their way back to the top of the division, outscoring the Royals 25-0 in the process.

A "Closer" Look

Closers with at least three saves in the past seven days: Jose Mesa, Trevor Hoffman (4); Jason Isringhausen, Shawn Chacon (3)

Good news for the Indians bullpen? Bob Wickman was recalled from his rehab assignment at AAA Buffalo on Tuesday and pitched a scoreless inning without any pain. While Wickman will pitch in a setup role for the time being, don't be too surprised to see him unseat current closer David Riske if Riske returns to the form that lost him his closer's job towards the end of April. Wickman entered the preseason as the Tribe's closer. Wickman, who has 156 career saves, has been successful in the role for the Brewers and Indians since 1998, but hadn't pitched in the big leagues since 2002 because of elbow surgery.... Who is benefiting the most from the Mets' resurgence? Perhaps it's Braden Looper. Looper, expected to struggle a bit with the heat of the New York press, has been brilliant all season long, with an ERA under 2.00 for most of the season, but he still had just fourteen saves entering July because the Mets hadn't been getting many late leads to him. A third of the way through July, Looper already has half as many saves as he's had in any other month (6, June) and just one less than he had in April and May. If the Mets continue to play well and get some ballgames to him, Looper has proven that he'll get the job done in the ninth.... After a subpar June return from injury, Billy Wagner seems ready to return to dominance. The best lefthanded closer in the game has allowed just a hit and a walk in six innings so far this July, notching two saves and a win in the process... Fantasy owners have to be hoping for Eddie Guardado to make better use of the few save opportunities the Mariners are giving him than he did on Thursday night. Guardado, who hadn't seen a save opportunity since June 29, blew a two run lead in the ninth, allowing a one-out solo blast to Dave Berg and a three-run game-winner to Carlos Delgado with two out in the ninth. Guardado is just 1 for 3 in save opportunities since June 20.... New Oakland closer Octavio Dotel isn't begging for work, but he hasn't seen a save opportunity since June 30. Regardless, he's pitched five innings in the past eight days, allowing one run with seven strikeouts.

Gagne's Streak Comes to an End

No starters will have two starts in the next fantasy week, with the All-Star Break cutting the schedule in half. In lieu of "Let's Play Two", we're going to take a brief look at where Eric Gagne's streak may fit into history.

When Olmedo Saenz' lunge tipped the ball wide of Alex Cora's glove on Monday night, one of the most dominant records in the history of the game came to an end, with Eric Gagne blowing his first save in 85 chances. Sheer numbers can't do justice to how dominant Gagne was, but we'll give you a link to some of the absolutely bizarre numbers that Goggles put up during his streak at the end of the column anyway.

The simple fact of the matter is that anytime opponents hear "Welcome to the Jungle" playing to start the ninth inning, their hearts sink. They know that they have virtually no chance against the overpowering French Canadian force that's coming in to face them. While Gagne's streak of 84 consecutive successful save opportunities pales in comparison to Joe Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak, in which he had to be successful day in and day out, he was every bit as good as an everyday competitor as Joltin' Joe every time he stepped onto the field. In truth, Dimaggio and Cal Ripken's streaks are the only two streaks (or records) that I can really think of to compare Gagne's streak to, as errorless streaks just don't necessarily do justice to it and the home run records (both single season and career) appears to be dropping like flies, with three different players breaking a single-season record that stood for over thirty years in the past five seasons and several hitters poised to smash Hank Aaron's all-time record.

What was simply so amazing about Gagne's streak is that it lasted nearly 150% as long as the previous record, held by Tom Gordon (57). This was truly a figure of "Dimaggio-esque" (there we go... I've made my word up for the day!) proportions. What I always think of when I think of Dimaggio's streak is how Pete Rose gave the biggest challenge to it that we'll probably ever see, when he hit in 44 consecutive games in 1978. With the streak, Rose tied Willie Keeler, whose streak Dimaggio had broken, for the second longest hitting streak of all-time. When all was said and done, though, that's still two more weeks that Rose would have had to have at least one hit per game to have caught Joltin' Joe.

If you think that's amazing, though, consider that Dimaggio's streak was still only 127% as long as Rose and Keeler's streak compared to Gagne's 147% of Gordon's save streak. Most likely, what we've all seen here is a record that will never be broken. Gagne's streak took nearly two years to complete, and more importantly, he wasn't just consistently good in his non-save-opportunities, but consistently great. While it'd be impossible to argue that Gagne's streak is truly more impressive than Dimaggio's or Ripken's (particularly in this day and age where so many players complain over a bruised eyelid), it's every bit as likely that it will stand the test of time just as well.

Congratulations Eric Gagne... now go out and try and break your own record!

For more numbers on Eric Gagne's streak, check out Jayson Stark's "Useless Eric Gagne Information" at ESPN.com.

---