MLB

Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers to Stream for Week 12

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Fransisco Liriano, Toronto Blue Jays

Starts: June 20th at Texas Rangers, June 25th at Kansas City Royals
ESPN ownership: 10 percent

Don't look now, but Toronto Blue Jays lefty Francisco Liriano has been settling into a nice groove in his three starts since returning from the disabled list, with a 3.71 ERA over 17 innings certified by a tidy 3.31 FIP. It doesn't hurt that he's chiseled his walk rate down by more than half over that span, upping his first-pitch strikes while still leaning heavily on his go-to slider, one of the more effective sliders in the majors when Liriano can set it up by showing reasonable command of the strike zone.

Harnessing that fastball hasn't been easy for him this year (he has a -1.4 strikeout-minus-walk rate on his two-seamer), but if Liriano can keep his head above water, he should be abot to coax a fair number of whiffs from the Royals and the Rangers, both of whom are top five across the majors in terms of chase rate and both of whom have really struggled to produce off the slider.