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Yovani Gallardo was a top-20 pick among starting pitchers in most mixed leagues, but the Milwaukee Brewers' ace has scuffled his past couple of outings after throwing a two-hit shutout in his second start of the season. As I often say, when a player puts together a good or bad three-week stretch in the middle of July, it kind of gets lost in the season stats. But it's magnified when he puts up those same numbers in the first three weeks of the season, and perhaps it's given too much significance.

Gallardo really hasn't had that monster year yet that his raw ability suggests he's capable of. That's not meant to disparage his two 200-strikeout seasons in any way, it's just that we get the feeling there's a little more untapped potential in him. That said, he certainly pitched well enough to post better numbers in the non-strikeout categories last season, but some poor luck and below-average team defense did him no favors. The 25-year-old right-hander was able to lower his walk rate from 4.6 to 3.7 batters per nine innings while still managing to keep his whiff rate above a batter per inning. While we'd still like to see that walk rate a little lower, which also might address his propensity to run up his pitch counts, at least there was some progression.

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