At Stephen Strasburg‘s summer DL rental, the driveway is an inverted W and he timeshares with Ryan Zimmerman. The Nationals said Strasburg’s elbow issue is not structural. Yeah, it’s deconstructed like a Cobb salad at some overpriced restaurant. I’m sure Strasburg is totally fine and it’s completely coincidental that he has a 10.19 ERA in August. Totally unrelated, guys and five girl readers, totally unrelated. Strasburg feels like the kind of pitcher that we can never rely on for more than 150 IP. In five years, he’s thrown 200+ IP once and he’s 28 years old. Oh, and ‘member how Strasburg was supposed to bounce back this year? He currently has the worst ERA of his career. Yeah, great. In my fantasy team news, because who doesn’t love someone talking about their fantasy team, Strasburg hit the DL about an hour after my weekly Scout league locked. The same league where I was in first a week ago before Strasburg went to Coors and Lackey went to the DL. The same league where I’m now in 2nd. The same league where I needed Strasburg to start twice this week and Lackey was set to face the Padres. The same league that ends at the end of August. The same league that just made me cry. I need a tissue, you karmic bullies! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
A.J. Cole – 7 IP, 4 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 5.14. In a few months, Cole will be 25 years old and he had a 4.26 ERA and 7.9 K/9 in Triple-A this year in 124 2/3 IP. Maybe Cole will never be a diamond, no matter how much the Nats try to polish him.
Anthony Rendon – 1-for-3 and his 16th homer. He also has 12 steals and is hitting .270+. So? Well, that’s not bad, it’s just not that exciting. On our Player Rater, he’s a top 12 2B. Again, not bad, not wow.
Matt Wieters – 0-for-3 as he was activated from the paternity list. This was his 2nd son. He now has a Maverick and Micah Wieters. I would’ve went with Dieters 1 and 2.
Dylan Bundy – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners (4 BBs), 4 Ks, ERA at 3.33. A start like that (lots of walks, not many Ks) is like clicking with a girl, then, when you make your move, she gives you the cheek. It’s promising, but I’m still going home to see what’s on Cinemax.
Mark Trumbo – 1-for-2, 2 RBIs and his 38th homer. At this point, I want him to hit 50 homers, so he’s wildly overrated next year.
Jonathan Schoop – 1-for-3 and his 20th homer, hitting .284. And back down to the eight hole. Buck Showalter puts names in a hat and picks them out for the lineup. It’s just a surprise he doesn’t accidentally rip out the tag, and try to bat “New Era” fifth.
Josh Reddick – Sat out with a jammed middle finger. Call him Reddigit.
Justin Turner – The Dodgers scored 18 runs, so you know Turner must’ve did some work in the middle of that order. Wait, he didn’t play? Holy sit!
Adrian Gonzalez – 3-for-6, 8 RBIs and his 13th, 14th and 15th homers, hitting .299. A Dodgers’ beat reporter tweeted out, A-Gon tied his career high for homers in one game. He didn’t say it ironically. There was no tongue in cheek. Straight-faced. Sports reporters are drier than your dead mawmaw’s vajayjay. No wonder you read Razzball. I would too. At 34 years old, A-Gone still looks like the slugger he’s always been. Sorry, I forget a critical ‘not’ in that last sentence. He had a big game in Great American Ballpark, but there weren’t too many Dodgers that didn’t yesterday.
Scott Kazmir – 2 2/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.59, and now complaining of back and neck issues. I say BS, unless you say it before you throw a terrible game. Pretty bad when you’re staked to a huge lead like Kazmir was and fantasy owners walk away exclaiming, windoh!
Andrew Toles – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 1st homer. Also, in this game, Rob Segedin (1-for-3, 2 RBIs) hit his 1st homer. Here was me on waivers right before game time yesterday, “Damn, everyone from both teams is owned, except Toles and Segedin. Meh, I’ll just grab Chase Headley and hope he plays later tonight.” Thanks for the 1-for-4, Chase Headley!
Corey Seager – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 22nd homer, hitting .321. I don’t get the sense Seager’s going the way of Correa in this year’s drafts, i.e., headed to the 1st round. I don’t even get the sense Seager’s headed to the 2nd round. Well, I may have something to say about that.
Yasmani Grandal – 2-for-6 and his 21st homer. I mean, homers aren’t everything, but Grandal has six more homers than A-Gon. Cust kayin’.
Chase Utley – 3-for-5, 4 runs, hitting .260, hitting near-.350 in the last week with three homers. As long as pomade isn’t declared a PED, he’s worth a pick up.
Zack Cozart – Remained out on Monday. He hasn’t played since last Wednesday–Whatevs! Jose Peraza (4-for-6, 3 runs) has been playing and hitting. Peraza is 9 for his last 15 with a homer. Hard to say if he’ll play every day when Cozart returns, but Scott Schebler (3-for-4, 2 RBI) is hitting .205, and has already been demoted to utility man once this year.
Homer Bailey – 2 1/3 IP, 6 ER. Homer is part of the Greek tragedy, “Ill-if-you-add.” Like Iliad. C’mon, that was dope! Okay, okay, hot take: Bailey sucks.
Joey Votto – 4-for-6, 2 runs, 4 RBIs, hitting .309. In the 2nd half of the year, he’s hitting .450. How you doin’?
Chris Carter – 1-for-2 and his 30th homer, and third homer in the last four games. Fact: the X-Files Donkey hits them in bunches.
Jonathan Villar – 1-for-3, 1 run and two steals (49, 50), hitting .299. Has all but wrapped up SAGNOF of the Year award with over a month to play. Take a bow! And now I’m singing that Rihanna song while remixing it with Madonna in my head. Damn, that sounds good. Watch out, Steve Aoki!
Jimmy Nelson – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.26. Solid start for Nelson, but he’s no more than a streamer, so check the Stream-o-Nator, foolio! Old school diss points.
David Dahl – 2-for-4, 2 runs and two steals (2, 3). I told you to pick him up the day he was called up. Nothing’s changed, except the date and he’s now hitting .337.
Steven Matz – Hit the DL with a mild shoulder strain. Oh! Just one of those! Like a corpse being pronounced mildly dead.
Robert Gsellman – Was recalled by the Mets. On the down side, he had a 4.54 ERA combined in Double and Triple-A this year. On the bright side, he has a mullet and, if you look real fast, he looks like deGrom. I will call him, deUm…no.
Yulieski Gurriel – 0-for-1, but didn’t start yesterday after feeling tightness in his hamstring. In his native Cuba, they call that Puigstring.
Teoscar Hernandez – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer, and 2nd homer in the past 4 games. And the hottest schmotato Teoscar goes to… Well, there’s only one Teoscar nominated, so come up and get your award.
Alex Bregman – 1-for-4 and his 4th homer. Okay, so he had a tough first couple weeks, so did Trout when he was a rookie. Get over it! *smacks Nicholas Cage*
Doug Fister – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks vs. the Pirates, ERA down to 3.59. Somewhere, there’s an old, bitter Pirate saying, “Argh, in my day Pirates were Fisters.”
Jameson Taillon – 8 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.92. Like a pimp command, ho-hum, just another Quality Start.
Jason Heyward – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. To help Heyward get his head straight and find his groove, Maddon inexplicably benched him for the Cubs’ series in Coors to start him in Petco, which you know seems assbackwards and slightly bizzonkers, but it’s Maddon and, of course, it worked for one day.
Addison Russell – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer, and third in two games. Addison’s swinging with such force it looks like he’s Maddie. Or maybe it’s the Al Jarreau playing in my headphones.
Kris Bryant – 1-for-5 and his 32nd homer. Must be nice for Bryant to come back to San Diego where he played college ball. If Trump wins the presidency, San Diego should ask to have the wall built to include them in “The Others” section, so San Diego can keep all of the baseball talent that grows up there to themselves.
Anthony Rizzo – 4-for-5, 1 run. Build a wall!
Jon Lester – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks vs. the Padres, ERA at 2.81. We talk more about this on the podcast that’s coming later today. Or tomorrow if you live in Australia. But with Wil Myers struggling and Kemp gone, the Padres are a supremely bad hitting team, hitting .232 in August as a team.
Blake Snell – 3 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners (5 BBs). Rays announcing Snell is shut down in T-minus 12 days.
Evan Longoria – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 29th homer, hitting .291. He’s hit 4, 5 or 6 homers in four months of the season. Also, has hit .290 or higher for four of five months. Nothing great, nothing terrible. He’s like The Big Bang Theory of players.
David Price – 8 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.00. Don’t want to be a spoiled brat, but it’s the Rays. Make it look that easy against tougher teams.
Xander Bogaerts – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. He’s certainly cooled off in the 2nd half, now down to the 3rd best shortstop in a year that’s had a bunch of them (Villar has been the best so far, exclamation mark times three). Bogaerts is going to present some difficulty ranking next year, because so much of his value is tied up into counting stats and average. You don’t hit 30 HRs or steal 50 SBs, then you have to hit .330 and get 100 runs and RBIs to be a top guy.
Krispie Young – 1-for-2, 1 RBI as he was activated from the DL. Which is whatevs, but this meant Jackie Bradley Jr. was benched yesterday. I really hope John Farrell doesn’t try to show he got an 800 on managing on his SATs and make this a common occurrence.
Gary Sanchez – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and two more homers (7, 8), hitting .385. Forget Filthy Sanchez, Dirty Sanchez or any other Sanchezes, there’s one Sanchez and it’s Gary, the whitest-sounding Sanchez of them all.
Starlin Castro – 2-for-4 and two homers (16, 17). Not to downplay your achievements, Starling, and Imma let you finish, but Gary Sanchez is the greatest Yankee of all-time!
Michael Pineda – 5 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA up to 5.02. I watched the Doc & Darryl 30 for 30 last night, and I was really hoping for a scene where the players hit a piñata and greenies and cocaine fell out.
Mike Zunino – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer. That’s nine homers in only 26 games. Zoinks!
Freddie Freeman – 3-for-4, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and broke the 60th RBI barrier! That makes him the 70th player this year to get 61 RBIs. Next up on the RBI list is Ian Kinsler. You know, a leadoff hitter.
Adonis Garcia – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 10th homer. Damn, I just dropped him in a league where I was carrying him for longer than I should’ve been. So why is Adonis my waiver equator, pulling me to grab him? Not to answer, but to contemplate like a Shaolin monk.
Enrique Burgos – 1 IP, 1 ER and his third blown save, but ended up the escape goat. The Diamondbacks’ bullpen is the clothes they refuse to take at Goodwill and end up in the dumpster.
A.J. Pollock – Could return this week. Buh-buh-buh-buh-but what about Mitch Haniger?!
Zack Godley – 5 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 5.53. Lots of people were asking yesterday if I’d start him. I wouldn’t, Stream-o-Nator had a negative number for him, so not sure why everyone– Oh, ESPN’s Klara Bell suggested him. I see that now on the ESPN homepage. Yeah, you got clowned.
Yasmany Tomas – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 26th homer, hitting .266. Hasn’t he hit a lot of homers recently? Yas, many.
Paul Goldschmidt – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 19th homer. Au Shizz!
Shelby Miller – Diamondbacks owner, Ken Kendrick, vetoed a trade of Shelby Miller to the Marlins because “it just wouldn’t look good” after what they gave up to get Miller last offseason. In related news, Ken Kendrick never heard the saying, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy,” and argues with his wife daily.
Carlos Carrasco – 8 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.12. How bad I said the Padres were above? The A’s, Carrasco’s opponent, might be worse. They even benched Semien, because they are so impotent.
Carlos Santana – 1-for-3 and his 27th homer. Solo shot. Dot dot dot. Of course it was! The extra 20 RBIs that Napoli has, Santana should get to see them on the weekends.
Andrew Triggs – 6 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.38. I have a theorem why Triggs was good, but it’s a total tangent.
Billy Butler – Hit the concussion DL after getting into a fight with Danny Valencia. Butler kept calling Valencia “oranges” and Valencia squeezed Butler’s moobs and called him “grapefruits.” The A’s maintain this can work itself out, and everyone can produce together.
