Weekly Pitching Guide – May 4 – May 10

  • By Anthony Kates

    Last Updated on May 3, 2026 5:48 am by Anthony Kates | Published: May 3, 2026

    Every Sunday this season, I will share my pitching guide for that week. It will include a table of the projected 2-start starting pitchers and their opponents, with my recommendations on starts and sits, plus my pitching streams for the week.

    WordPress Data Table Plugin

    For my recommended pitching streams, I will only suggest pitchers who are rostered in fewer than 50% of Yahoo leagues. All starts are projected, but are subject to change due to injury, a team deciding to have a bullpen day, expand to a six-man rotation, etc. Stats are through Sunday morning.

    Monday, May 4

    Nick Martinez – TBR – vs TOR – 33% rostered

    Martinez has been pretty phenomenal this season, his first with the Rays. Through six starts, he has yet to allow more than two earned runs in any, has allowed just seven earned runs in total, three home runs and nine walks, striking out 24. He has four quality starts and two wins and has pitched into the sixth inning in all but one start. His strikeout rate has dropped each of the past three years, but he minimizes walks, has some of the best statcast data in the league (86.3 MPH average exit velo, 7% barrel rate, 29.8% hard hit rate – in five seasons since returning from the KBO, his hard hit rate has never been above 37%) and has allowed just four more fly balls than ground balls. He won’t strike out a ton of batters, but he limits base runners, minimizes damage with men on base and works proficiently, averaging just 14 pitches per inning and 86 per start.

    The Blue Jays have put together a slightly below average offense when facing right-handed pitching on the road over the past three weeks, with a 97 wRC+, tied for 15th worst with the Rockies, a .716 OPS, the 16th lowest, and a 5.2% walk rate, the second lowest in the league. They have hit slightly more ground balls than fly balls, have the seventh lowest line drive rate, 17.1%, tied with the Marlins, with a middle of the pack hard hit rate and the second lowest soft hit rate (tied with the Dodgers at 11.9%). They have the most plate appearances against righties on the road over the past three weeks, yet they are tied for 11th in home runs (8; tied with seven other teams), the fourth most runs (three of the other top five run scoring teams have 74 or more fewer plate appearances than the Blue Jays) and just two stolen bases (only four teams have fewer and the Mets also have two).

    Tuesday, May 5

    None

    It is too early in the week to risk blowing up your ratios – a bad start or two early in the week can ruin your ERA and WHIP, essentially throwing away two categories before you’ve even reach mid-week. If you absolutely must stream someone daily (there are some folks who take a strictly volume approach to pitching), the stream I like best is Logan Henderson at the Cardinals, though the Cardinals have been one of the best offenses in baseball (top 5 the past three weeks) when facing a right-handed pitcher. Henderson is very talented and absolutely dominated the big leagues over a handful of starts last year, so he could come right out of the gate throwing fireballs, but I’d rather scoop him up, keep him on my bench and see how the start goes, instead of tossing him out against what has been one of the most surprising offenses in all of baseball.


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    May 3, 2026, 5:48 am