Starting Pitchers for August 14 to Pickup from the Waiver Wire

If your spending time early in the week combing the waiver wire for starting pitching help, don’t worry. There’s some solid options out there scheduled to start on Tuesday that can help your team get the pitching stats you need for the week. Here’s the three that are available in over 50% of ESPN leagues that I like the most:

Pickups for Tuesday, 8/14

Jose Quintana – CHW: (owned in 18.8% of ESPN Leagues) Quintana faces the Blue Jays in Toronto and is matched up against Henderson Alvarez. In his previous start against Toronto he took the loss despite pitching six innings of tw0-run ball on June 6 of this year. He bounced back in his last outing from a couple rocky starts and held the Royals to two runs over seven innings but came away with a loss dropping his record on the year to 4-2. He has an excellent 1.09 WHIP and a solid 2.78 ERA. The White Sox lineup has been scoring runs pretty well even against the A’s in their last series so I expect them to get enough to back Quintana against the Jays suspect rotation. The Toronto lineup has also been hit hard with injuries so Quintana will avoid Brett Lawrie and Jose Bautista.

Lucas Harrell- Hou: (3.9%) Harrell has allowed two earned runs or less in his last six starts while lowering his ERA to 3.97. He’s had at least five strikeouts in each of his last five starts bringing him to 96 in 138.1 innings so far this season. He’ll face the Cubs in Wrigley and be matched up with Chris Volstad and his 0-8 record with a 6.94 ERA. If Harrell can continue his recent trend of solid starts he should get the win here. He has not faced the Cubs to this point in the season.

Clayton Richard – SD: (7.7%) Richard has allowed just one run over 16 innings in his last two starts. With the two wins he’s picked up he’s now 9-11 on the year with a 1.19 WHIP and a 3.79 ERA. He threw a complete game shutout his last time out and has been the most consistent pitcher in the Padres rotation throughout the year. There is reason for caution, however, since both his last two starts were at home against weak-hitting teams (Cubs, Mets) while Tuesday’s start is on the road against the Braves. He’s still a good pickup, but temper your expectations a bit.

Past week’s results

Last week was not a great one for our spot starter picks. Our WHIP was below the MLB average but I like to see our ERA much lower and our W-L at least .500. We’ll try and pick it up for sure this week.