Sometimes in fantasy baseball it’s necessary to hurt the ones we’ve grown to love. Or at least trade them for above market value.

It’s great to ride the unexpected wave of success from overachieving players, but that wave can crash in a hurry and leave you wishing you had sold high when you had the chance. In most cases, it’s best to be proactive and put guys on the block before they cool off. You might get burned on occasion, but it’s dangerous to depend on players whose statistics seem too good to be true. Usually they are.

Let’s take another trip to the trade show:

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Kris Benson, SP, Orioles.

Stats: 6-3, 3.86 ERA, 28 strikeouts, 20 walks.

Benson is more famous for his model wife, Anna, than his pitching, but he’s been surprisingly steady in Baltimore’s rotation. The former Met and Pirate has allowed two or fewer runs in six of his nine starts and seems like a good bet to surpass his career high of 12 wins. Still, there’s too many games coming against the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays for our liking.

Stats: 5-1, 2.88 ERA, 31 strikeouts, 12 walks.

Few pitchers in baseball are hotter than Tomko, who is 4-0 with a 1.36 ERA in his last five starts. This from a guy who was 8-15 last season, owns a career ERA of 4.47 and is playing for his sixth team in 10 seasons. Something tells us the other shoe will drop sooner rather than later.

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While the talented Swisher is capable of continuing his breakout season, it’s not a stretch to think there’s a serious dip coming here. The 25-year-old slugger hit .236 last year and owns a career average of .252. See if he can fetch you a big-name hitter with a longer, better track record.

Stats: .284, 14 homers, 35 RBIs, 30 walks.

Like Swisher, Gomes is a good young player who could be a fixture in the middle of the order for years to come. But he’s never played a full season, so we don’t know when he might hit the wall and start to fade. Tampa Bay’s not exactly known as a fantasy gold mine.

Nomar Garciaparra, 1B, Dodgers.

Stats: .351, 5 homers, 26 RBIs, 19 runs.

Yes, Nomar is hitting over .370 in May and still qualifies at shortstop in most leagues. But outside of Ken Griffey Jr., is there a more brittle player in all of baseball? Garciaparra has missed nearly 200 games over the last three seasons. At this point, it would be an upset if he stayed healthy.

Stats: .274, 4 homers, 22 RBIs, 26 runs.

When you’re a top-five pick in many leagues and hit one home run in a 21-game span, your owners start to get antsy. Now is the time to see if the Teixeira owner in your league is willing to part with his franchise player. The Texas slugger likely won’t approach last season’s 43 homers or 144 RBIs, but he didn’t lose his power overnight. His price may never be lower.

Stats: .239, 1 homer, 7 RBIs, 25 runs.

For all of Giles’ problems this season, he’s still on pace for over 100 runs scored and nearly 100 walks. His early struggles can be attributed to a finger injury he suffered in April, although Giles recently said he’s fine health-wise. If that’s the case, the numbers will only get better for Giles, who hit .291 with 15 home runs last season.

Stats: .264, 2 homers, 12 RBIs, 12 runs.

For a catcher who hit .328 with 43 home runs just three years ago, Lopez could probably be had for a bag of balls at this point. He missed two weeks earlier this month due to back spasms, but hit .421 with a homer and four RBIs in his first five games off the disabled list. With Ramon Hernandez handling most of the catching duties, Lopez could settle in nicely as Baltimore’s full-time DH. Worth a flier.

Stats: 1-3, 3.38 ERA, 8 saves, 1.45 WHIP.

Relatively speaking, Rivera is in quite a slump. The future Hall of Famer has allowed runs in four of his last seven appearances and took the loss in Friday’s game against the Mets. He’s given up 22 hits and five walks in 18 innings, and opponents are hitting .297 against him. That said, he’ll still finish with 40-plus saves and an ERA around 2.00. It’s like clockwork.

Stats: 3-4, 4.76 ERA, 41 strikeouts, 17 walks.

It hasn’t been the most consistent season for Pettitte, who has allowed at least six runs in three of his nine starts. The veteran lefty shut out the Rockies in his last start, so this is a good time to try trading for him before the price gets too high. Pettitte went 17-9 with a 2.39 ERA last season for Houston.

Oakland needed one of its starters to step up in the absence of injured ace Rich Harden, and Haren has done the trick. In two starts this week, the 25-year-old Haren went 2-0 and allowed just one run and eight hits in 17 innings. After going 1-3 with a 5.27 ERA in his first six starts, Haren is 3-0 with a 1.48 ERA in his last three. That’s stopper material.

He had one hit in 18 at-bats this week. Martinez is 3-for-37 over his last 10 games despite snapping an 0-for-21 skid with an RBI double on Friday. That’s hardly reason to celebrate, but his owners will take it.

Frank Coppola is the assistant sports editor for Seacoast Media Group in Portsmouth, N.H. He can be reached at fcoppola@seacoastonline.com.