Week 22 Hitting Planner

The Fantasy Baseball Hitting Planner is the essential guide to setting your lineup for the upcoming week. Every Saturday, we provide you with favorable hitting matchups for teams, as well as which hitters are hot or not. The Pitching Planner, complete with upcoming two-start pitchers, will be posted on Sunday.

Taking BP: Chris Duffy's shoulder injury, coupled with the trade of Rajai Davis to San Francisco, has opened up a big opportunity for Nate McLouth. He has hitting safely in 18 of his past 22 games. He has decent speed and a little bit of pop, but he's not going to challenge for any batting titles any time soon … Prince Fielder has his three-game suspension reduced to two games on Friday -- and he began serving that penalty immediately. What that means is he should be set for a full week of activity starting Monday. He's among the league leaders in homers and RBI … Gary Sheffield is resting his sore shoulder and he'll be questionable to start the road trip in Kansas City on Tuesday. He has been dealing with the injury since late July and has just one home run since July 20 … Ray Durham left Friday's game against the Brewers with a minor hamstring injury. He's having an awful August anyway (batting under .100), so reserve him even if he does play this weekend … Instead of coming off the 15-day disabled list this past week, David Dellucci suffered a setback with soreness in his surgically-repaired hamstring, and he is likely out until September … Scott Podsednik (strained rib cage muscle) has only been available to pinch hit recently, so keep him reserved for now … Miguel Tejada is batting .276 with six homers and 22 RBI in 25 games since the All-Star break.

Projections are for Aug. 27-Sept.2 games. All stats are through Friday's games.

Taking into account all games with at least a 50 percent chance of precipitation according to the Weather.com, the following might be threatened by poor weather: N.Y. Mets at Atlanta (60 percent) on Saturday.

Five other favorable hitter schedules

1. Chicago Cubs -- vs. MIL (3), vs. HOU (3)

• The Cubs get six home games -- three of which are against the Brewers and their struggling pitching staff and three against an Astros team that has the worst road ERA in the NL.

• The Halos face the M's, who have an August ERA north of 4.75, and the Rangers, who have one of the worst road ERAs in the majors.

• The Orioles' pitching staff is horrible on the road, and the Yankees' August ERA is in the bottom third in the majors.

• The Cubs and Pirates rank in the bottom third among all pitching staffs for the month of August.

• The Indians have seven home games in Week 22, and only Minnesota's staff is having a good August.

Five other below-average hitter schedules

1. Chicago White Sox -- at TEX (3), at CLE (3)

• The Pale Hose are on the road for six games against two pitching staffs that have stepped it up in August, ranking among the top 10 in the majors.

• Only six games for the Boys in Blue and the Padres lead the NL in August ERA. The Nats aren't too bad either over the past month.

• The M's will have to face their 1977 expansion partners in Toronto. The Jays have the best staff in the majors for the month of August.

• The Padres have the best ERA in the majors at home and the Rockies aren't too bad on the road.

• While the Orioles have the worst staff in the AL for August, the Rays are still on the road for seven games.

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