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: Ryan Howard (strained quadriceps) is expected to return from the 15-day disabled list to play at Atlanta on Friday. He has been taking batting practice and he's about to go on a rehab stint at Class A Lakewood … Randy Winn has a 17-game hitting streak going through Friday … Only 20 other major leaguers have more stolen bases this season than Russell Martin's seven … Derrek Lee is hoping to be ready to play this weekend, but a strained neck makes him a risky start for Week 8 … Edgar Renteria and J.J. Hardy are the only two shortstops hitting at least .300 with six or more home runs and 20 or more RBI … Jose Vidro leads all designated hitters this season with 46 hits … Reggie Willits leads all AL rookies with a .371 batting average and has a hit in 22 of his last 24 games. The Angels will keep giving him starts as long as he's hitting like this … Shannon Stewart left Friday's game against San Francisco after getting hit in the left wrist by a pitch … Brandon Phillips extended his hit streak to 20 games on Friday … Rickie Weeks is still dealing with a sore right wrist, so check his status Sunday before making a decision on him this week.

Projections are for May 21-27 games. All stats are through Friday's games.

This week's matchups
AL early NL early AL late NL late
BOS@NYY WAS@CIN LAA@NYY PIT@CIN
SEA@TB COL@ARI SEA@KC WAS@STL
MIN@TEX MIL@LAD BOS@TEX MIL@SD
OAK@CHW HOU@SF TOR@MIN HOU@ARI
TOR@BAL PHI@FLA OAK@BAL NYM@FLA
LAA@DET NYM@ATL CLE@DET PHI@ATL
CLE@KC PIT@STL TB@CHW COL@SF
CHC@SD CHC@LAD
Bold denotes a four-game series.
Seattle plays at Cleveland on May 21 as the first makeup game for a four-game series that was rained out from April 6-9.
The following teams play seven games this week: Arizona, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, Seattle and Washington.

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: Tampa Bay at Chicago White Sox (60 percent), Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (60), Oakland at Baltimore (60) on Saturday; Tampa Bay at Chicago White Sox (60), L.A. Angels at N.Y. Yankees (60), N.Y. Mets at Florida (60), Seattle at Kansas City (60), Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (60), Boston at Texas (60) and Cleveland at Detroit (60) on Sunday.

B E S T   H I T T I N G   S C H E D U L E
ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
COL
Cook 		COL
Fogg 		COL
Francis 		HOU
Rodriguez 		HOU
Williams 		HOU
Albers 		HOU
Oswalt
' 06 Stadium stats: Chase Field, 10.3 RPG (7th).
COL pitching: 4.93 ERA overall (28th), 4.66 Road ERA (22nd), 5.64 May ERA (30th).
HOU pitching: 3.85 ERA overall (10th), 4.56 Road ERA (20th), 3.62 May ERA (6th).
The D-Backs get seven home games and they'll face the worst pitching staff in the NL (COL).

Five other favorable hitter schedules

  1. Minnesota Twins -- at TEX (3), vs. TOR (3)
  • The Rangers and the Blue Jays rank among the bottom five pitching staffs in the majors for the month of May.
  • Cincinnati Reds -- vs. WAS (4), vs. PIT (3)
    • They'll stay at home for seven games this week, and their opponents both have ERAs higher than 4.30 on the road.
  • Cleveland Indians -- at KC (3), at DET (3)
    • While the Indians are on the road all week, they happen to face two staffs that have ERAs higher than 4.40 in the month of May.
  • St. Louis Cardinals -- vs. PIT (3), vs. WAS (3)
    • The Cards have the same schedule as the Reds, just inverted, and they get six games at home.
  • Seattle Mariners -- at CLE (1), at TB (3), at KC (3)
    • The M's are on the road for seven games, but two series are against two of the worst staffs in baseball.
    H O T   H I T T E R S
    We aren't suggesting you start these players no matter what, but you might consider starting them over struggling stars. The following eight hitters have extremely favorable matchups and/or are in the midst of hot streaks:
    Ronny Paulino, C, Pittsburgh: Only Victor Martinez and Bengie Molina have more RBI than Paulino's 11 this month.
    Kevin Youkilis, 1B, Boston: Yuke is hitting .393 with two homers and 12 RBI this month.
    Brendan Harris, 2B/SS, Tampa Bay: He's hitting around .400 in May and the Devil Rays have been hitting him in the second and sixth spots of their batting order.
    Damion Easley, 2B/SS/3B, N.Y. Mets: He's hitting .267 with four homers and 11 RBI this month.
    Brandon Inge, 3B, Detroit: He's batting .346 in May with three homers and eight RBI.
    Ken Griffey Jr., OF, Cincinnati: He has seven homers with 16 RBI while hitting .365this month.
    Craig Monroe, OF, Detroit: Monroe is batting .307 with four homers and 12 RBI in the month of May.
    Jack Cust, OF, Oakland: He hasn't done it against great pitching, but seven homers in 40 at-bats is good against anyone.
    W O R S T   H I T T I N G   S C H E D U L E
    MILWAUKEE BREWERS
    MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN
    @LAD
    Tomko     		@LAD
    Wolf     		@LAD
    Penny     		-- @SD
    Wells     		@SD
    Young     		@SD
    Peavy
    ' 06 Stadium stats: Dodger Stadium, 9.9 RPG (15th); Petco Park, 8.0 RPG (30th).
    LAD pitching: 3.54 ERA overall (6th), 3.60 Home ERA (10th), 3.74 May ERA (10th).
    SD pitching: 3.09 ERA overall (1st), 2.08 Home ERA (1st), 2.10 May ERA (1st).
    The Brewers are on the road for six games against two of the top five pitching staffs in the majors.

    Five other below-average hitter schedules

    1. N.Y. Yankees -- vs. BOS (3), vs. LAA (3)
    • The Bronx Bombers face two of the top three pitching staffs in the AL this week.
  • Colorado Rockies -- at ARI (3), at SF (3)
    • The Rockies will be away from Coors Field for six games, and they'll face two staffs that currently rank in the top 10 in ERA.
  • Texas Rangers -- vs. MIN (3), vs. BOS (3)
    • The Red Sox staff sits just behind the Padres in staff ERA and the Twins are better than average.
  • Chicago Cubs -- at SD (3), at LAD (3)
    • The Cubbies have the same schedule as the Brewers, just switched around, but they're a better offensive club on the road than Milwaukee.
  • Chicago White Sox -- vs. OAK (3), vs. TB (3)
    • While they do have six home games, they face the second-toughest pitching staff in the AL (OAK) and the Devil Rays haven't been pitching horribly in May (4.49 ERA).
    C O L D   H I T T E R S
    We aren't suggesting you sit anyone, but take a look at your roster to see if you have a better alternative. The following eight hitters have poor matchups and/or are in the midst of cold streaks:
    Ivan Rodriguez, C, Detroit: I-Rod has only 10 hits and a .182 batting average this month.
    Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis: He still hasn't shaken his early-season slump. He has just eight RBI in May.
    Ian Kinsler, 2B, Texas: He's here for the second week in a row! He's batting .100 this month.
    Khalil Greene, SS, San Diego: He's hitting only .155 with one homer and five RBI this month.
    Chone Figgins, 3B, L.A. Angels: His finger injury is behind him, but now he's hitting only .103 this month.
    Barry Bonds, OF, San Francisco: He has three homers in May, but he's hitting only .225 this month.
    Andruw Jones, OF, Atlanta: The Braves' big slugger has just one homer in May, with a .170 batting average.
    J.D. Drew, OF, Boston: Stephen's older brother has just five May RBI and now his back is giving him trouble.

    You can e-mail your Fantasy Baseball questions to DMFantasyBaseball@cbs.com. Be sure to include "Attn: Hitting Planner" in the subject heading. Please include your full name, hometown and state. Be aware, due to the large volume of submissions received, we cannot guarantee personal responses or answers to all questions.