Picking up Armando Galarraga in a league this evening, I got a little excitement out of the transaction, just because I started thinking about the "Big Cat", Andres Galarraga. The "Little Big Cat" went six and two-thirds innings on Wednesday night, holding the Indians to one hit, a David Dellucci first inning tater. Galarraga struck out six and only needed 81 pitches to pick up the win, retiring 17 straight Cleveland batters at one point in time.Before you get excited though, there's a good news/bad news thing here. First the good: he's a two start pitcher next week, and he's a very legitimate start in AL-Only or deeper mixed leagues. He's also pitching for the suddenly hot Tigers, so in H2H formats, I'm taking the gamble. Now the bad: as Tom Herrera pointed out, he "seems like a AAAA player, but he could surprise". That's a pretty accurate statement; he plowed his way through the Cleveland lineup by pounding the strike zone with low 90's fastballs and a slew of sliders with some nasty bite to them, but he got a lot of quick outs from some free swinging Indians.
In other words, you have to wonder how much good a little patience would have done Cleveland. By the time they did start sitting back and taking some pitches, he was pretty dialed, and racked up some mid inning K's. In fact, he was dialed enough where he probably could have gone the distance but -- and we fantasy owners should applaud this -- Jim Leyland pulled him after he plunked two guys in the seventh and started getting a little wild through only 81 pitches.
I'm not expecting two outings like tonight's next week, but I feel like I can almost guarantee at least one win (which is rare enough already) and decent ratios with middling strikeout totals. That's more than worth the pickup in my mind, especially with the upside he could have in a one week league.
