We are officially a week into July and the temperatures are at the peak, coinciding with an outburst of offense around the league. Across the 93 games played last week, 234 home runs were hit, around two and a half per game. 881 runs were scored, almost nine and a half per game, on average. So our pitchers are getting lit up, bullpens are getting wiped out and we need some help.

Today, I am only focusing on pitching. I have three starters that can help you in the short term and, hopefully, in the long term. They are of various skill levels and roster percentages and all three come from the central divisions in baseball.

Colin Rea – SP – MIL – 33%, Yahoo

Rea is an average pitcher. He doesn’t strike out a ton of batters, he doesn’t have an elite fireball of a fastball or even one dominant pitch. But, he limits walks, induces a fair amount of ground balls and four pitches that generate a positive run value – with his best pitch being his sweeper, which has been one of the best amongst all starting pitchers. In his last 12 appearances (10 starts and two follows; all appearances at least four innings) he has allowed three earned runs or less in nine of them, including two earned runs or less in seven of his last eight. He has performed well in tough environments (seven innings of shutout ball in Colorado last week, held the Cubs to three earned runs over 10.2 innings over his last two starts in Chicago, blanked Philadelphia for four innings in a follower role) and limits the damage against him by limiting home runs (1.24 HR/9; seven of his thirteen home runs allowed came in only three starts) and maintaining those decent walk and ground ball rates (2.67 BB/9 and 42.1% ground ball). He is a real solid like 5th or 6th starting pitching option in deep leagues, where you don’t have to start him, but can use him to play matchups or help swing a week over the weekend. In shallower leagues, he is a streamer based on opponent and what you are in need of from your stream.

League Size Recommendation: 14 team or deeper

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