Before I get started this week, I wanted to point out that before the season started, in my first Playing With Fire column, I talked about how dominant Chipper Jones is, especially when healthy. I'm not one to brag, but last I checked Chipper is the only batter in baseball hitting over .400. Take that Brad Stewart.

Kevin Youkilis has been the best hitter in baseball in the past seven days. Posting a .429 average with five home runs, Youk has been hard to stop. The Red Sox first basemen has also put up 13 RBI's and scored nine runs to go with his four doubles. Youk has never had such high stock before, so if there's a BoSox fan in your league, see if they will bite on him.

Lance Berkman has had 24 at-bats this week, 18 of which he has gotten a hit (.750 batting average). To go with the hits are 32 total bases, 11 runs, and three homers. Berkman certainly will not hit .750 all year, but he has really started to rebound from last year.

Quite a few pitchers have been stepping up their game in the past week including Daniel Cabrera, Jon Garland, and Aaron Cook.

Cabrera has started two games this week, one of which he went the distance. Cabrera has allowed only four runs on nine hits in his two starts.

Garland started two games this week as well throwing for a 0.56 ERA in 16 innings. Funny thing about Garland is that he only struck out three batters.

Cook on the other hand, has also been a tremendous asset to the Rockies rebound. Cook has thrown for 14.2 innings, also striking out only three batters, but has also kept a solid ERA (1.84).


Check back on Thursday May 15 for Playing With Fire to be back in it's entirety.