Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) -
To the chagrin of many fantasy baseball stars, May is gone.
Sure, there are some who likely tore the month off of their calendars a few days early in hopes that June would bring better fortunes, but there are those who produced right up until the clock struck midnight.
One of these players is Colorado's Carlos Gonzalez, who put up prolific May splits of .351/.417/.728 with 10 homers, 26 RBIs, 26 runs and four steals. CarGo sent May packing with a bang, hitting six homers and batting .590 (13- for-22) with 10 RBIs in the last five games of the month.
Overall, May belonged to outfielders, as the top 10 players for the month in Yahoo leagues were all of that ilk.
Miami's Giancarlo Stanton ranked No. 1, right ahead of Gonzalez, with an insane 12 homers, 30 RBIs, 10 doubles, three steals and a .343/.432/.769 split.
Texas' Josh Hamilton, who wowed the sports world with four blasts and eight RBIs on May 8, ranked third with a line of 12 homers, 32 RBIs, a .344 batting average and a 1.186 OPS.
San Francisco's Melky Cabrera, Baltimore's Adam Jones, St. Louis' Carlos Beltran, Milwaukee's Ryan Braun, Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen, Los Angeles' Mike Trout and Chicago's Dayan Viciedo rounded out the top 10.
Cabrera hit .429, Jones and Beltran had 10 homers apiece, and Braun (.323, 7 HR, 7 SB), McCutchen (.360, 8 HR, 5 SB) and Trout (.324, 5 HR, 8 SB) contributed in multiple categories. And Viciedo, as I covered yesterday, blasted eight homers in the last 16 games of May.
On the pitching side, lefty starters ruled, as Washington's Gio Gonzalez, Philadelphia's Cole Hamels and Los Angeles' Chris Capuano ranked first, second and third, respectively.
Gonzalez and Hamels each went 5-0 with identical 2.25 ERAs in May. Gonzalez struck out 45 batters in 32 innings while holding hitters to a .156 BAA. Capuano, meanwhile, built off an undefeated April by going 4-1 with a 1.62 ERA and 0.81 WHIP in May.
The best reliever in May was Cincinnati's Aroldis Chapman, another lefty. The Cuban Missile didn't allow a run for the second straight month while striking out 23 batters in 13 2/3 innings and picking up two wins and three saves.
But these aren't the only top fantasy performers in May. Plenty of other players contributed elite numbers in one or more categories.
Here are the rest of the leaders for the month in the most common fantasy categories.
Hits
Melky Cabrera, 51
Mark Trumbo, 40
Martin Prado, 40
Angel Pagan, 39
Runs
Matt Holliday, 25
Carlos Gonzalez, 25
Melky Cabrera, 24
Hunter Pence, 24
Michael Bourn, 24
Home runs
Josh Hamilton, 12
Giancarlo Stanton, 12
Adam Dunn, 11
Carlos Beltran, Adam Jones and Josh Reddick, 10
RBI
Josh Hamilton, 32
Carlos Beltran, 31
Giancarlo Stanton, 30
Stolen bases
Jose Reyes, 11
Emilio Bonifacio, 11
B.J. Upton, 10
Batting average (min. 75 at-bats)
Melky Cabrera .429
Carlos Ruiz .418
Jonathan Lucroy .388
Martin Prado .381
Paul Konerko .379
Angel Pagan .375
OPS (min. 75 at-bats)
Giancarlo Stanton, 1.201
Josh Hamilton, 1.187
Carlos Ruiz, 1.180
Joey Votto, 1.160
Carlos Gonzalez, 1.145
Andrew McCutchen, 1.134
Wins
Gio Gonzalez, 5
Cole Hamels, 5
Chris Capuano, Matt Cain, Max Scherzer, R.A. Dickey, Bruce Chen, Bud Norris, Joe Smith, Brandon Morrow, Felix Doubront, Mark Buehrle and Lance Lynn, 4
Saves
Chris Perez, 10
Santiago Casilla, 10
Frank Francisco, Jim Johnson, Fernando Rodney and Joel Hanrahan, 9
Strikeouts
Max Scherzer, 51
Justin Verlander, 47
James Shields, 46
Gio Gonzalez, 45
Brandon Morrow, 41
Jeff Samardzija, 40
ERA (min. 25 innings)
Ryan Vogelsong, 1.51
James McDonald, 1.54
Chris Capuano, 1.62
Chris Sale, 1.71
R.A. Dickey, 1.83
Felipe Paulino, 2.03
WHIP (min. 25 innings)
Chris Capuano, 0.81
James McDonald, 0.89
Jered Weaver, 0.90
Justin Verlander, 0.91
Brandon Beachy, 0.92
Hector Noesi, 0.93
Gio Gonzalez, 0.94
Chris Sale, 0.95
R.A. Dickey, 0.96
May's biggest loser is Houston starter Bud Norris. The young right-hander was 4-0 with a 1.17 ERA in five May starts prior to last night's start against Colorado.
Norris had one last chance to savor and add to his May success, but instead he ran into the Carlos Gonzalez-led buzzsaw. Norris allowed a whopping nine runs on seven hits in 1 2/3 innings, erasing him from the ERA leaderboard completely and raising his ERA on the year by more than a run.
Norris' folly after a month of dominance is akin to steadily building a bankroll playing Atlantic City craps for a few hours, and right before you're ready to call it a night, you decide to bet everything on one roll.
Just as you lay your plethora of brightly colored chips on the table, the dice comes up seven and all those chips are raked away by the dealer.
In this case, Colorado was the dealer. Better luck next month, shooter.
