Yesterday I selected LA's Kole Calhoun, a player on a team waiting for MLB's second season to begin. Today's pick is Colorado's Corey Dickerson, a player on a team waiting for this season to end. While the Angels were picked by many to be a playoff team (including myself ) the expectations for Colorado were just the opposite. With that being said, I didn't foresee Colorado being this bad. The Rox are the second worst team in baseball and have been ready for next year for months. With that being said, there have been some sparkles in the turd of a season Colorado is having. One of those is Corey Dickerson. When Troy Tulowitzki went down (again) and Carlos Gonzalez battled his own injury bug bites, Dickerson and surprise All-Star Charlie Blackmon made the most of their opportunities in the batting order. While Blackmon's bat has slowed down over the grind, Dickerson has kept his numbers consistent. He leads the team in home runs (22) and is tied for second (with Blackmon) at 68 runs batted in. Tonight he takes on the Mets' Rafael Montero as him and his teammates look to avoid a sweep. The 23 year old rookie has pitched better than his 5.23 ERA and 1.53 WHIP suggest. Those numbers do say that getting hits against Montero, even on his best day, isn't too hard. I'm not predicting the Rockies to avoid the brooms tonight, but I fully expect to see Corey Dickerson get a tick in the hit column at least once.
Italy kept the Norwegian letters out of my name and in doing so kept my streak intact yesterday. Today I have another international team help keep my meager W3 alive. OK, that is a little bit of a stretch as my streak passport is only getting a stamp in Canada with the Toronto Blue Jays. I dodged a bullet this morning by staying away from Ivory Coast getting themselves stampeded by Cameroon. I also felt that Spain may put it on autopilot in the second half of their FIBA World Cup match against France and not cover the 15 points. In the end I settled on the Blue Jays at home against the Cubs. Now this is not a slight on Chicago starter Kyle Hendricks. It is more of trying to get on the magic carpet ride of power that Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista are currently on. When those two are swinging the bats well, they are pretty damn hard to beat. The Jays have won 8 of their last 10 and I think that one of the two will hit a bomb off Hendricks early and the flood gates will open on the poor Cubbie youngster. I was thinking about doubling up with the Dodgers at 10:10 but I don't think my heart can behave in public and watch a Dan Haren start on my phone at the same time. One and done today. HAPPY STREAKING EVERYBODY!!
Image Credits: Corey Dickerson (mlb.com), Streak pick (espn.com)