Two Start Pitchers, Week 24: Snack 2 Snack

With my oldest starting kindergarten last week, I was reminded of my days in grade school and the things I looked forward to the most. The first was the recess basketball game. Your level of happiness for the rest of the day depended upon which side of the ball you were on from Bennett School Playground legend Rufus Frazier. This kid could ball, he had the crazy hook shot that was impossible for the other kids to defend. He had the wicked first step and was one of like five kids that didn’t travel once every four dribbles. The second was cafeteria pizza on Friday’s, if you were lucky you got the french bread ones with the extra cheese. But you didn’t complain if you got the Elio’s because it was still better than anything your Mom gave you all week. Amirite? But the thing I looked forward to the most was the daily snack time around 10 o’clock. The quality of your snacks was a direct correlation to how much your parents loved you. Lucky for me my Mom was killing the snack game way back in 88′ and kept it real proper. So for this week’s edition of my never-ending quest to connect my childhood nostalgia with two start pitchers we’re going to be discussing snack foods of the late 80’s and early 90’s. Some of these staples of my childhood are still in stores, while others have gone the way of Kato Kaelin. Wait he’s still around? Ayo, it’s two start pitchers, week 24….

Dunkaroos (Ace) – If you had Dunkaroos your mom loved you more than the other kid’s moms did. They had the commercials with the spokesman who had the cool Australian Crocodile Dundee accent. Not to mention tons of delicious flavors. I was always partial to the cinnamon grahams with vanilla frosting. Only the best for The Lifshitz…. Zimm gets the green light as my top ace of the week. Usually not one to label Zimm an ace, but the matchups are the best of the bunch…. Hamels Starts are tough but he’s been pitching well of late. Roll these blunts….

Fruit By The Foot (Good Starts) – This was a close second to the Dunkaroos. Fruit by the foot was cool because it unrolled forever and before you ate it you could creep out the prissy girl that sat next to you by using it as a lizard tongue. Strangely that girl grew up to be a stripper, but 63% of girls I grew up with became strippers. Oh Taunton you’re so delightfully white trash. Anyway, fruit by the foot was awesome!… Collin McHugh has been dealing of late and neither of his matchups freighten me much. The Texas start could be a landmine, but the A’s turn is a goer….Garrett Richards is coming off 11 K’s in his last turn and gets a sneaky matchup against a tougher than expected Mariners lineup. His second turn against the Twins is a must start…. Strasburg has the same matchups that I loved with Jordan Zimmermann, and he seems to be finding his best form… Carlos Martinez has been super freaking unlucky his past 5 starts. His FIP/xFIP is a superb 1.83/2.63 but his 5.60 ERA over that time is a product of a crazy high .407 BABIP…. Tyler Duffey is better than you think he he gets two bottom feeding offenses in Detroit and the Angels. He’s my favorite readily available streamer of the week…. Josh Tomlin is right there with Duffey, but he’s significantly outpitched his peripherals. He gets the slight edge over Duffey in the ranks due to the K potential.

Lunchables (Why Can’t I Sit You) – This was some next level snack shizz right here. Thing is if you broke out one of these packages everyone thought you were a huge show off. So did you get a stellar snack? Sure, but it was at the expense of getting your wig pushed back by the school yard bully Mark Rodriguez. Mark liked the Miami Hurricanes, but loved throwing you off the tire dragon even more. Just to be clear, these are big names that you’ll probably start, but they really shouldn’t be trusted due to recent form, or just a general track record of bi-polar performances. This is more or less the avoid these guys tier for arms that are over 50% owned.

Handi-Snacks (One Good Start/One Bad Start) – The good: The Cheese substance and the red stick. The bad: The weak-ass cheap-o crackers. Truly a metaphor for these blokes. They have a good start and they have a bad start. Now go read Razzball Soccer and feed my kids. Or maybe they’re Tehol’s kids IDK. If they’re Tehol’s I hope they get his looks and my wife’s brains. Not because my wife isn’t smoking hot, but because Tehol is dumb. He’s totally gotten his tongue stuck to frozen poles on multiple occasions. That one works in so many ways…. Tim Hudson is a good stream this week, I don’t love the Diamondbacks start, but it’s not at Chase which makes it more mediocre than bad… Mike Pelfrey gets two good matchups, but has pitched so well poorly he barley escapes the avoid tier. If you really needed a streamer in a deep league I could see swiping Pelfrey and praying to Jobu… I’d think twice about Henry Owens too, dat 4.15 BB/9 yo!

Gushers (Avoid) – Gross! Gross! GROSS! It was filled with jelly, you bit it, and it squirted in your mouth. No and thank you. I bet Tehol loved these balls of goo.

As always these starts are subject to change, go ahead complain about the rainout that happened last night that screwed everything up, or the sausage race in Milwaukee that went horribly wrong when Randall Simon showed up and just beat everyone within bat length with a pulse. Hey don’t blame me, just note it in the comments and I’ll rank ’em. Capiche?