The Fantasy Baseball Hitting Planner is the essential guide to setting your lineup for the upcoming week. Every Saturday, we provide you with favorable and unfavorable matchups, along with news and notes on lineups. The Pitching Planner, complete with upcoming two-start pitchers, will be posted on Sunday.
Don't forget to check out our Weekly Planner page, under the stats tab on your league pages. It has the weekly matchups for each team broken down by day, the number of games ahead for each team and finally, the hitting and pitching stats for each team (broken down by home and away).
Weather planner: Taking into account all games with at least a 50 percent chance of precipitation according to Weather.com, the following games are in danger of being rained out: Houston at Pittsburgh (50 percent chance) on Monday; Cincinnati at Philadelphia (50), Houston at Pittsburgh (50), Tampa Bay at Boston (50), Toronto at N.Y. Yankees (50) and St. Louis at Washington (50) on Wednesday.
This week's news and notes for each team: Arizona Diamondbacks: Orlando Hudson is coming off a nice week, hitting safely in his past six contests, with a couple homers, four RBI and five runs scored ... Since Eric Byrnes (hamstrings) is sidelined on the 15-day disabled list for a few weeks, the D-Backs might end up using Chad Tracy in left, along with Jeff Salazar. Tracy said his surgically repaired right knee shouldn't be an issue if he runs in the outfield. He played 52 games in the outfield in his career, although he played first and third base Friday.
Atlanta Braves: Mark Kotsay's trip to the DL (with back issues again) means Gregor Blanco and Josh Anderson could share time in center field, with Greg Norton continuing to play in left. All three are better left for NL-only play and Kotsay's owners should be happy they got the at-bats that they did from the former Athletic ... After losing some time to Omar Infante earlier in the month, 2B Kelly Johnson is batting over .350 with nine RBI in the past two weeks.
Baltimore Orioles: OF Luke Scott is battling an Achilles' problem that has affected his knee and hamstring on his other leg. And the other former-Astro-turned-Oriole, Aubrey Huff, is batting just over .200 in the past couple weeks, but he does have three homers in that span ... The Orioles are on the road for six games this week.
Boston Red Sox: Jacoby Ellsbury snagged three bases against the Orioles Friday. C Ramon Hernandez is a base-stealer's dream this year. The rookie center fielder is just one stolen base behind major league leaders Michael Bourn and Ichiro Suzuki, who have 24 each. And Ellsbury has a higher OBP and slugging percentage than both of them ... J.D. Drew experienced vertigo and he was unable to play Friday, which allowed both Ellsbury and Coco Crisp to play at the same time.
Chicago Cubs: Mark DeRosa's fifth homer of the season capped a big comeback against the Rockies on Friday. He's only starting in 63 percent of leagues, which is surprising because he has position flexibility in the outfield, second and third base. He's fifth on the team in home runs (five), fifth in RBI (29), fifth in runs scored (33) and fifth in hits. Going out on a limb here -- he's the fifth-best hitter on the Cubs' offensive powerhouse, behind Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto, Aramis Ramirez and Aramis Ramirez. Get him active somewhere.
Chicago White Sox: Juan Uribe (strained right hamstring) is expected to reinstated from the 15-day disabled list and play at Tampa Bay Saturday, which means Alexei Ramirez, who homered Friday, will return to the bench.
Cincinnati Reds: Jay Bruce. Heard of him? Kinda good. In four games, he already has eight hits in just 14 at-bats, with two stolen bases and five runs scored. If you own him, you love to say, "BRUUUUUCE!" And if you don't, stick with "BOOOOO!" He even hit third in the Reds' order on the day Ken Griffey Jr. rested.
Cleveland Indians: Grady Sizemore had his third career two-homer game -- and his second this season -- Friday against the Royals. Sizemore's average has dropped from .282 to .260 in the past three weeks, but he's now on pace for a career-high 31 homers ... The Indians are on the road for seven games this week, but four of them are at homer-happy Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. And the other three are at Detroit, where the Tigers have a majors-worst 5.03 ERA at home ... The Tribe had to place Travis Hafner on the DL Friday because of a sore right shoulder. A cortisone shot on Tuesday didn't improve his pain enough. The team is rotating several players into the DH spot in their order, allowing them a day of rest in the field. Michael Aubrey and Andy Marte are getting extra at-bats lately too.
Colorado Rockies: Fantasy owners are ready for Ian Stewart to start regularly at second base because of his offensive potential. But he's still trying to learn the position defensively, so Jon Herrera has been getting starts there sometimes too. Stewart is still worth owning in NL-only play and keeper leagues at least. He had 12 homers and 43 RBI in 46 games at Triple-A Colorado Springs.
Detroit Tigers: Miguel Cabrera dropped down to sixth in the lineup Friday for the first time this year. He came through with three hits though, and an RBI single ... The Tigers hitters are in for a rough week, starting with three games at Oakland, where the A's rank second in home ERA (2.96). And Cleveland ranks fifth in the majors with a 3.75 ERA on the road, and they come into town for three games ... Carlos Guillen's hemorrhoids issue should be ... behind him now. He was able to play Friday.
Florida Marlins: Jacque Jones' arrival in South Florida has not instantly meant he was the starting center fielder. Alfredo Amezaga (better speed) and David Ross (better power) are still seeing starts too. Jones (better defender) has just two hits in his past 16 Marlins at-bats.
Houston Astros: The Astros are scoring 5.25 RPG at home this season, but they're still scoring above-average on the road, with 4.34 RPG.
- Michael Bourn, CF -- The second-year CF is tied for the league-lead in steals, but his average is just above the Mendoza line.
- Kazuo Matsui, 2B -- After hitting safely in 15 of 18 games in May, Matsui has gone 0-fer in five of his past eight, batting .143 since May 22.
- Miguel Tejada, SS -- His 13-game hitting streak ended on Friday. While his power has dipped this season -- he is on pace for just 17 homers this season -- his 107-RBI pace would end up as his highest total since the 150 RBI he posted in 2004. His status as a top-five Fantasy shortstop remains.
- Lance Berkman, 1B -- Not only is he playing as well as he did in April -- he has actually improved his play in May. In 27 games in each month, he has one more homer, three fewer RBI, two more steals, five more runs scored in May, and his batting average (.473) is 172 points higher than in April (.305).
- Carlos Lee, LF -- While his batting average is below his norm, Lee's run production is on a career-high pace of 133 RBI. He should buy something pretty for Tejada and Berkman.
- Hunter Pence, RF -- After struggling out of the gate, Pence is showing some punch again, with a .356 batting average, six homers, 21 RBI, 17 runs scored and four steals.
- Ty Wigginton, 3B -- His Fantasy status has officially dropped to NL-only play at this point. He's on pace for 23 RBI.
- J.R. Towles, C -- The rookie backstop is in a 5-for-53 (.094) slump right now with no signs of pulling out of it.
Kansas City Royals: Seeing most of the starts in KC, Miguel Olivo is becoming a nice No. 2 catcher in mixed Fantasy leagues. His 12 RBI in May put him behind just five other catchers (Brian McCann, Geovany Soto, Joe Mauer, Bengie Molina and Russell Martin), but he has done it in about 20 fewer at-bats ... Mark Grudzielanek is dealing with a sore back and he has missed four games in a row through Friday.
L.A. Angels: The Angels chose to officially place Chone Figgins on the DL with a strained right hamstring. He's eligible to return around June 6, but the Halos might decide to take their time with him and err on the side of caution ... But the Angels were able to get Howie Kendrick back Friday after he missed 42 games with a bad left hamstring. Have you already forgotten all about him? He is batting .462 in 39 at-bats, which tells you a little about his potential as a hitter. He is available in 41 percent of CBSSports.com leagues.
L.A. Dodgers: Their star shortstop, Rafael Furcal (sore back), suffered a setback last week and after getting checked out by a specialist, they have determined that he's not close to returning yet. Hopefully you didn't make a trade for him while he was hot -- just before the inju
