The Banana Stand - Week 8

The Banana Stand is a weekly look back at the fantasy week that was.

The big news this week revolves around two of MLB's future stars (aces?). Clayton Kershaw finally made his big league debut. He faced the Cardinals and allowed two runs in six innings. He struck out 7, walked 1 and gave up 5 hits. The line looks good, but digging a little deeper shows that the outing was not completely smooth. He threw over 30 pitches in the first inning. Unless he can throw more strikes, especially early in games, he will be prone to short outings. All things considered though, this was a nice debut. Yahoo! owners, place your bids.

The Yankees have begun stretching out eighth inning giant Joba Chamberlain into a starter. He has made two appearances thus far, throwing 40 in his last start. It will be interesting to see what he does when he is given the ball to start a game, but we won't see that for another three weeks or so. Joba is probably not available in many leagues right now, but you should double-check. In any 10 team mixed league or deeper he should be rostered.

In the GOTOS expert league we are still mired in the middle of the pack. There is hope though. Our bats are starting to pick things up. Young phenom Evan Longoria had a big weekend, hitting two HRs on Saturday and a game-winning RBI double on Sunday. Kouz also went yard twice in one game, doing so in the 18 inning tilt against the Reds.