Hot Pitcher: Jacob Rasner. Fresh off of his appearance as last week’s cold pitcher, Rasner threw eight shutout innings against Lynchburg, striking out seven and walking none. This was his only start of the week but there weren’t a lot of good performances to pick from so Rasner’s 0.00 ERA and 0.375 WHIP will have to do. Rasner is the cousin of former Yankee Darrell Rasner and he works off of a low 90’s sinking fastball, a change and slider.

Hot Hitter: Eduardo Escobar. The defensive wizard Eduardo Escobar has finally started to come around with the bat this month. In his six games last week Escobar went 12-22 (.545 AVG), with 3 walks (.682 OBP), 1 double, 1 triple and 1 home run (.818 SLG), totalling a 1.500 OPS. Escobar’s offense had been nonexistent in the first 4 months of the season, but in August he has suddenly realised how to walk and make consistent contact, and the results of this have been great (1.014 OPS).

Cold Pitcher: Johnnie Lowe. As with the hot pitcher of the week it was difficult to find a cold pitcher, so I had to settle for a 24 year old starter who gave up 7 earned runs in 0.2 innings pitched, resulting in a 94.5 ERA and 12.12 WHIP. Lowe has been downright awful since joining Birmingham at the beginning of the month; in 4 starts he has a 10.70 ERA and 1.93 WHIP.

Cold Hitter: Tyler Kuhn. In this last week Kuhn has been ice cold, he’s 5 for his last 30 (.167 AVG), with 2 walks (.219 OBP) and 1 double (.200 SLG), totalling a .419 OPS. Kuhn showed great potential last season after being drafted in the 15th round of the 2008 draft, he posted a .995 OPS in 62 games with the Voyagers. He flashed very good power potential that year with a .195 IsoP, but this year his power has vanished and he’s become more of a hit and run type player. I preferred last year’s Tyler Kuhn, but the law of sample sizes tells us that this year’s version of Kuhn is probably the real one.