Romero is 6-3 with a 2.85 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP in 11 starts (72.2 innings) this season.  He has shown good strikeout ability (7.6 K/9) and exhibited solid control (3.0 BB/9) as well.  Romero spent some time on the DL himself earlier in the season due to an oblique strain, but has shown no lingering effects of the injury.

Over his last three starts, Romero has gone 3-0 with a 0.82 ERA along with a 20/8 K/BB ratio over 22 innings and over his last six starts he is 4-1 with a 1.91 ERA with a 40/14 K/BB ratio over 42.1 innings.  In his most recent outing on Wednesday, he went eight innings while allowing only four hits as he struck out seven and walked four and got the win against the Tampa Bay Rays.

In nine of Romero's 11 starts, including his last six outings, he has delivered a quality start by going at least six innings and allowing three runs or less.

Romero is definitely worth adding in all leagues if you need the help and he is available, which is becoming increasingly unlikely.  The Blue Jays' offense seems capable of providing adequate run support even if he doesn't continue his recent streak of 15 scoreless innings.

Cody Ross hit his 14th bomb of the season of newly acquired Sean Burnett.  Ross is slugging .633 vs. left handed pitching this season. 

Josh Johnson left the game after only 3.1 innings.  No injury, just a rain delay and 4 walks to go with a rising pitch count.

Ricky Romero continues to impress.  He's stranding over 85% of runners and his FIP is a run higher than his ERA before his start yesterday.  Walks and the AL East are my concerns, but he's definitely a guy worth rostering right now.  He's only owned in 33% of Yahoo! leagues.

Brad Bergesen impressed against the Red Sox.  He's not going to strikeout a ton of guys, but he's keeping the ball on the ground and keeping the walks to a minimum.  His next start comes against the Mariners.  If you need a spot start, he's worth another go.

Yovani Gallardo struck out a career high 12 in 7 IP against the Mets.  If Gallardo can reduce his walk rate, he's basically Lincecum light.

Gil Meche, coming off a "dead arm" period, threw 121 pitches in only 6 innings.  His arm looked fine with a fastball sitting in the mid 90's, but minor injuries have been an issue this season.  If I'm A Meche owner (or a Royals fan) I'm not happy about the pitch count at all. 

Billy Butler, 4-4, continues to outperform James Loney, but it seems no one is paying attention. 

Jason Hammel has been pitching well for the Rockies lately.  He's not quite the ground ball pitcher Aaron Cooks is, but he is getting enough groundballs and limiting walks to be an NL-only add.

Troy Tulowitzki got cold just as fast as he got hot two weeks ago.  I think he'll finish with an AVG around .270.

Jimmy Rollins took another o'fer, but so did most of the Phillies against Jair Jurjjens who only allowed 1 hit. 

Justin Verlander was touched up last night.  That makes two less than spectacular starts in a row.  I'm not reading much into it.

Jose Contreras has struck out 8 batters in 3 of his last 4 starts.

Randy Wells pitched well again and got his third straight win.  I'd start him again at home vs the Braves in his next start. 

Johnny Cueto brought back the strikeout last night against the D-Backs.  Of course the D-Backs are second only to the Marlins in team strikeouts. 

Kevin Millwood and Jered Weaver squared off in a battle of the "sell highs".  Neither faired particularly well and neither are likely to repeat their first half numbers in the second half.

Nelson Cruz left with a back injury.  It didn't sound serious, but I never like to hear about back problems.  Keep an eye on the situation.

Albert Pujols did not hit a homerun, but he did go 2-2 with a stolen base.  Can he go 60/20!!?  Not likely, but this is just amazing to watch.

Matt Cain continues to strand runners like crazy.  8 Cardinals left on base and only 3 strikeouts. 

Adam Wainwright struck out a career high 12 in 9 innings.  He's throwing a curveball or slider on nearly 40% of his pitches.  That combined with only 132 innings pitched last season raises a bit of a red flag for potential time missed later this season. 

The Rays were the hottest team in the majors in the month of June and a lot of it is due to their starting pitching coming around. In the first two games of the series against the Blue Jays, Tampa Bay received sterling performances from Jeff Niemann and Matt Garza, while getting timely hitting from while the long ball powered the offense.

Tampa Bay saw home runs from BJ Upton, Pat Burrell, Willy Aybar, and two from Carl Crawford in a pair of 4-1 decisions, beating Blue Jays Ace Roy Halladay in game one and young right hander Scott Richmond in the second match up. Neimann became the team leader in victories with his seventh of the season, while Matt Garza got himself back over the .500 mark (6-5).

Problems continued for James Shields, though. In the third game of the series, Shields was touched for three home runs while young lefty Ricky Romero continued Tampa Bay's struggles against left handed pitching, befuddling the Rays hitters, scattering four hits and no runs while striking out seven. Rod Barajas, Alan Lind, and Scott Rolen would make a close 2-0 ball game heading into the seventh into a 5-0 whitewash.

Despite the setback, the Rays put distance between themselves and the Blue Jays while moving past their next opponent, the Texas Rangers, into second place in the American League Wildcard race. They're currently two games behind the New York Yankees (but tied in the win column) but are still five back of the AL East leading Boston Red Sox.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Tampa Bay	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0		4	9	0
Toronto	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		1	8	0

• Despite only four runs, the Rays were really on the offense with 9 hits and 7 walks, with every starter getting on base safely at least once. Doesn't excuse them from lackluster situational hitting leaving 9 on base and going 0-6 with RISP.
• The Blue Jays also got a decent amount of base runners but nothing to show for but one run. Matt Garza gave up seven hits and three walks but still got out of jams and pitched deep into his pitch count, throwing 111 pitches.
• The fielding came up exceptionally making ranging plays and good throws. The entire infield made a nice play with Gabe Gross gunning down Adam Lind at second base. Also Upton was rangy too, the best centerfilder in baseball.
• The solo homer is the norm in Toronto with three today after one on Monday. Upton led the game off hitting a first pitch fastball into left-center. Crawford hit his 8th in the 3rd and Aybar hit his 7th in the 6th inning. Aybar would finish 3-5 with two runs scored.
• An extra nugget, it seemed like the Rays struggled with the slider tonight, mainly from Scott Richmond and Brandon League. Zobrist laid off soem to walk twice, single, and get a sac fly in a unnoticed night for him.
  

As you can see from Mark's post yesterday that I mentioned in this morning's Morning Drive there is bound to be someone in your league who has had enough of mixing and matching failed shortstop options.  Scutaro would be a great guy to dangle in a trade to these owners. 

What's wrong with Scutaro then?  Nothing really.  Was he playing a bit over his head this first half?  You could argue that maybe he was a little, but not all that much.  He has two things working against him going forward. 

1.Baseball is a long, long season.  Last season was Scutaro's first in which he accumulated over 500 at bats.  Batting leadoff everyday for the Jays, he is almost sure to blow past that this season perhaps by 100 to 200 at bats.  How he will react to the fatigue of playing that much longer of a season is going to be key.  Already we are seeing a slight fall off in OBP from Scutaro.  At points this season he has been a .300 hitter, but let's face it; he's not a .300 hitter.  In reality, he's been getting by with a 15.7% line drive rate, which is J.J. Hardy territory. 

2. Replacement level players.  What's the best we can hope for from Scutaro over the next half of the season?  .285/.375/.385 with 5 HR 5 SB?  That seems realistic, if not optimistic in the HR/SB categories.  Right now players like Clint Barmes, Brendan Harris, Christian Guzman and Gordon Beckham are less than 50% owned in standard formats.  If you can give up Scutaro and fill a hole elsewhere you may be able to afford the difference between Scutaro and his replacement level player without much of a hit to your overall numbers. 

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Tampa Bay	0	0	2	0	0	0	2	0	0		4	8	0
Toronto	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0		1	5	1

• I knew this would be a low scoring game if Jeff Niemann pitched good, and he did out dueling the former Cy Yong Award winner. Halladay allowed more base runners but caught a bad break allowing a two run homer to Crawford in the 3rd inning. Niemann only struckout one batter but his defense was with him as he went 7.1 innings getting touched with a run after he left. That is beating the Doc's seven strikeouts and getting his second loss of the season.
• Two big home runs for three runs, the game winning runs from Crawford's two run shot and an added run by a solo shot by Pat Burrell to lead off the seventh.
• Aggressiveness on the base paths for the Rays getting three stolen bases but getting caught twice. Gross was caught once and got out at second after trying to turn a single into a double. He missed the tag but second base umpire didn't see it and called him out.
• Only two strikeouts for Rays pitchers means that the defense was working tonight. There was 17 flyouts which were turned easily especially by B.J. Upton, who should win a Gold Glove this season. He makes playing center too easy.