Yesterday, Shin-Soo Choo hit the DL again. Yeah, surprise, surprise. Never would’ve seen that coming, unless you’ve followed Choo’s career for the last three seconds. In other news, Joey Gallo was called up. Here’s my transactions yesterday: Team Albright dropped Tyler Goeddel for Mikie Mahtook. Twenty-nine minutes later: Team Albright dropped Mikie Mahtook for Delino DeShields. Two hours later: Team Albright dropped Delino DeShields for Matt Holliday because someone else grabbed Joey Gallo already, and Team Albright didn’t feel like adding Junichi Tazawa for the sixth time. Gallo has e-meants power. His power is so e-meants I can’t even spell immense correctly, except there. He had 8 HRs in 24 games this year in Triple-A and six homers in about a month last year in the majors. This offseason I said, “I get the sneaking suspicion that Joey Gallo is going to be The Return of the Sucky Average Lagoon Monster, who was played briefly in an off-Broadway revival by Chris Carter. In Double-A last year, Gallo had a 39.5% strikeout rate. That’s absurd. That’s the same rate historians have said Babe Ruth had after an all-night bender with Fatty Arbuckle when Ruth showed up and accidentally went up to bat still wearing his sleep mask. Fun fact! Sleep masks for the wealthy used to be made from raw hamburger patties. So, with Gallo wearing a raw hamburger on his eyes, is there any chance of him hitting above .200? Not if he can’t tame his strikeouts.” And that’s me quoting me! Good news, prematurely balding men and five lady readers, Gallo’s tamed his Ks by a lot this year in Triple-A. He’s cut them to 22.6%, and was hitting .265. If he can hit .265 with the Rangers, he’ll be more valuable than Prince Fielder this year because Gallo has 40-homer power. I tried to pick him up in every league, and I suggest you do the same. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Josh Hamilton – Done for the season after undergoing another knee surgery. We’re sure he’s not having knee surgeries for the after-surgery painkillers, right?
Jared Hoying – 0-for-2 as he was also called up yesterday. In Triple-A, he had 7 HRs, 13 SBs in only 41 games, but has been at Triple-A for three years and is slightly old, which means he’s likely a Quad-A player. Admittedly, I’d be more excited for him if his name were Gerund Hoying.
Huston Street – Nearing rehab games. Sounds like Street’s on the road to recovery. High fives self!
Albert Pujols – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer. Pujols went deep off Holland (6 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.21), which is a sub-Reddit called “Dutch Ovens.”
Nicholas Tropeano – 6 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.86. I’ve mentioned this before but it continues, Tropeano’s stats, ballpark, everything say to pick him up, but I’ve having a hard time getting excited about him.
Lucas Duda – Hit the DL with a stress fracture of his back. That sounds painful, like the constant talk of Theon Greyjoy having his penis cut off. We get it; he’s a eunuch! Can we stop talking about it? Can we put the penis getting cut off conversation in the cabinet with the talk of you wearing Zubaz and lock it away forever? Teams are almost always optimistic with timetables about a return from injury. Yesterday, the Mets said Duda had no timetable and, “It will be a while.” That’s code for, “You can DL him if you like, but he’s not returning this year.”
David Wright – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .225. Sadly, he’s doing better than I expected.
Neil Walker – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 11th homer. Wow, he’s still playing? I thought he misunderstood that saying and April powers meant “hit the early showers.”
Yoenis Cespedes – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 15th homer. Too bad he’s going to slump poorly after the All-Star Game Homer Derby. What? Blame my crystal ball.
Bartolo Colon – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.44. Yeah, yeah, but he went 0-for-3. BORING! Stream-o-Nator doesn’t like his next start, but I could see streaming him at home in that start. Plus, he’s due for a jack!
Jordan Zimmermann – Will miss his next start with a Grade 1 strain of his groin. For what it’s Werth, I didn’t strain my groin until the tenth grade. Late bloomer!
Gio Gonzalez – 5 IP, 7 ER. The Regression Fairies love what Madonna did at the Billboard Awards, they like a Tumblr with Lorenzo Lamas pics and they will defecate on your ratios.
Mikie Mahtook – 1-for-3, 1 run as he hit 2nd and could see everyday at-bats with Kevin Kiermaier out for the next 10 weeks. Mahtook has one of those profiles that is interesting in deeper leagues, due to his power/speed combo, but not wildly exciting in shallower leagues; kinda like the guy he replaced. Mahtook is also my favorite excuse for twerking on a stranger’s lap. “Oh, I Mahtook you for someone else.”
Brandon Guyer – 3-for-5, 3 runs and his 5th homer, hitting .330, and three homers in the past week as he hits leadoff. Where do I know that Guyer from? The hot schmotato chronicles, that’s right!
Taylor Motter – 2-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Fun fact! Taylor Motter used to go to Camp Granada.
Matt Moore – 5 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.47 vs. Wei-Yin Chen – 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 4.61. This was a matchup billed as, “Okay, I’m starting this guy only because he has two starts this week. Dot dot dot. DAH!!!”
Marcell Ozuna – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 9th homer, hitting .321. OZUNA no longer scared to hit. OZUNA get pro-tip. OZUNA learn Vomiting Unicorn Statue in centerfield can’t hurt me.
Justin Upton – Scratched from the lineup with quad tightness. Assuming quad tightness is being used here to indicate a general form of suckiness.
Miguel Cabrera – 3-for-3, 3 runs and two homers (10, 11), hitting .327. After only hitting 18 homers last year in 119 games, he looks like he’s going to blow through that number like he blows through a .18 BAC.
J.D. Martinez – 1-for-4 and his 10th homer. “Siri, please remind me to buy Just Dong low next April.” “Sorry, that’s not nice.” (Swear to God, Siri really said this. Steve Jobs can abandon his daughter but I can’t buy a dong low? What the what?!)
Nick Castellanos – 2-for-3 and his 9th homer, hitting .346. Ah, my favorite Spaneek player! Spanreek? Greenish? Well, however you say Spanish-Greek.
Vince Velasquez – 4 IP, 3 ER, 11 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA up to 2.75. His home ERA is 0.74; his away ERA is near-5. The threat of batteries being thrown at him obviously works.
Tommy Joseph – 2-for-4 and his 2nd homer. Joseph was only playing because the game was in an AL park with a DH, but maybe since this homer came against a righty, it might extend the leash on his playing time over Howard, who is the world’s largest Albertross.
Odubel Herrera – Was pulled from the game for a lack of hustle. Manager Pete Mackanin said he “didn’t like it.” Luckily, he wears horse blinders and can only see what his best player is doing.
Maikel Franco – 2-for-3 and his 8th homer. If you monitor the comments on Razzball and see someone is being floated to drop by a multitude of people, you should be buying that player.
Brian Dozier – Didn’t start yesterday with a case of Les Miserables. *insert link of Hugh Jackman singing, sees Hugh Jackman’s wife, thinks about putting quotes around wife*
Danny Santana – 0-for-4 and his 10th steal, and I think all ten of them led to nothing. Move him to the top of the order! There’s no benefit to a 2nd leadoff hitter batting ninth if you have no number one leadoff hitter batting first!
Joe Mauer – 3-for-5 and his 3rd homer. Somewhere, Lloyd McClendon admires Mauer’s man muscles.
Kevin Jepsen – 1 IP, 2 ER, ERA up to 5.89. I’d say Kazaam, but calling Jepsen a closer feels generous.
Alex Gordon – Out for a month with a broken scaphoid bone in his wrist. The scaphoid bone is just below the thumb and is used to make a thumbs up sign. It was often said Roger Ebert had a strong scaphoid. This all according to WebMD. Jarrod Dyson (1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 8th steal) and Paulo Orlando (3-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs and his 2nd steal) should now be regular outfielders. Also, ‘being regular’ on WebMD leads to a long discourse on bran.
Salvador Perez – 5-for-5, 3 runs, 1 RBI. He was a home run short of the cycle, which is colloquially called a dirt bike with flame decals.
Clayton Kershaw – 9 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 1.48. I looked at the Stream-o-Nator yesterday for Kershaw’s start and it said, “DUR!!!”
Trayce Thompson – 1-for-3, and his 1st steal. Trayce doing it all! He used to only face lefties (I misspoke yesterday) but now he’s been facing everyone. Matt with an at sign, gave you his top 100 hitters yesterday with a feature on Trayce.
Brandon Finnegan – 8 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.97. Had a tough matchup yesterday vs. Kershaw, but when you have lemons, you make an album that celebrates black females while saying it’s okay to be cheated on. I don’t know, Bey.
Todd Frazier – 4-for-7, 3 runs and the slam (14) and legs (4) in the first game of the doubleheader. JB and I talk about Frazier and the trade Prospector Ralph and I did on the podcast that’s coming later today. Actually, we don’t talk about it as much as I gasp in pain as Frazier homers, then JB and I talk about Prospector Ralph dropping rhymes on the mic.
Brett Lawrie – 2-for-5, 2 runs and the slam (6) and legs (3), hitting .256. There’s been a lot of talk of dropping Heyward, Upton and others, but I think Lawrie is in the early lead for absolutely no one wanting to own him. I imagine it’s because at some point in the past few years Lawrie has disappointed you, so now you refuse to get on board. All I’ll say is in one league where I’m doing well on offense, I’ve had Lawrie as an MI the entire year.
Rajai Davis – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and the slam (5) and legs (11), though they came in two different games, but, whatever, fantasy baseball peasants don’t question the King of SAGNOF. Also, he has yet to cool off since last week, so yes you should own him.
Marlon Byrd – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer. That would’ve been a nice batty call, cause around here we say Byrds not b*tches. What happened to that guy? I loved me some Mike Skinner (The Streets), he’s now more rare than a three dollar bill with Alfred E. Neuman on it.
Mike Napoli – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer. That’s six more homers than his mother has nipples. Supposedly.
Jose Ramirez – 2-for-8 and his 2nd and 3rd homers, getting one in each side of the doubleheader for the Ernie Banks special. Ramirez hasn’t shown much going into yesterday, but it could be the start of a schmotato run.
Brian Matusz – Orioles traded him to the Braves who immediately designated him for assignment. Orioles are like the girl in high school that has her best friend tell you she’s dumping you.
Rich Hill – 8 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.18 vs. Taijuan Walker – 7 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.70. The Hill/Walker matchup was also billed as the Treadmill Incline and the first 10,000 Senior Citizens got in for free, but were turned off by Coco Crisp’s hip-hoppy walk-up music and went home during the first at-bat of the game. As for Hill and Walker, they both have ERAs under 3.00, you know what you’re supposed to do.
Stephen Vogt – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer. Rock the Vogt!
Drew Pomeranz – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 1.70. Pomeranz is known for that Prague rock, because he keeps other teams in Czech.
Johnny Cueto – 9 IP, 0 ER, 2 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.38. In a parallel universe, there’s a Cueto on an AL team struggling. It sure is nice to be in the NL West.
Shane Victorino – Cubs released The Flying Hawaiian and, if this is the end of the line for him, Victorino, may your leis forever be hypoallergenic flowers and may you never encounter a Hawaiian impersonating Flavor Flav screaming, “Yeah, poi!”
John Lackey – 7 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks as he returned to Busch. See, you can go home again. Though, I wonder if Lackey walked to the mound thinking, “I remember this place being much bigger,” because that always happens to me when I go home. Why do childhood homes shrink? Deep thoughts with Grey Albright.
Randal Grichuk – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 6th homer, hitting .228. Been a bit of a struggle for him in the early going, but his strikeout rate is down from last year and he’s actually been unlucky. Could see him turning his season around in a big way.
Adam Wainwright – 6 IP, 3 ER, 10 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.77. True story, I farted while I wrote Wainwright’s line.
Jung-ho Kang – 0-for-1 as a pinch-hitter and expects to play today after injuring his hand, i.e., Jung-ho must keep his pimp hand strong.
Ryan Vogelsong – Left after being hit in the face by a Jordan Lyles pitch. If that was gonna happen to a Pirate pitcher, I would’ve guessed Niese. Vogelsong needed to be carted off, but was sitting up, talking. He was saying, “If the umpires didn’t screw up the rain delay on Sunday, I wouldn’t even been pitching. Way to go umpires! I’ll now think of you whenever anyone orders an Arnold Palmer, because to make that you need tea bags, and teabagging is another name for balls on the face! …and the winner for Best Actor in a Daytime Baseball Game goes to…the crew chief umpire who acted like he couldn’t read Weather dot com!”
