Cincinnati Reds pitcher Anthony DeSclafani can’t hide any longer on the waiver wire.
He’s owned in about 50 percent of leagues on ESPN.com, but by Monday, that number will increase by a major amount, as he’s set up for two starts this week.
The young right-hander has been a machine in eight starts this season, netting a 2.50 ERA, a 1.212 WHIP, 1.6 walks per nine innings, 7.2 strikeouts per nine innings and a 5-0 win/loss record.
The only reason he’s still on the waiver wire is because he got off to a late start this season and wasn’t much of a consistent weapon last year, going 9-13 with a 4.05 ERA.
This season, though, he’s getting more groundouts and limiting walks, with three straight starts yielding no walks. Can this domination continue? Highly doubtful, but it’s worth it for fantasy baseball owners to get two starts from him this week against San Francisco and San Diego.
So far in July, neither the Giants nor the Padres have done much offensively to strike fear into DeSclafani owners. The Padres and Giants are batting .249 and .242 for the month, respectively, and at least in the case of the Giants, the runs aren’t crossing the plate either.
San Francisco only has 58 runs for the month, ranking 26th in Major League Baseball. It’s a stark contrast from when the Giants ranked seventh in runs scored during the month of June.
I can’t imagine DeSclafani is going to keep up his remarkable pace. Either way, though, you’d be insane to gloss over him on the waiver wire this week with an expected two starts.
