Sometimes, baseball can be that game we all fell in love with *covers mouth so you can’t hear number* years ago. Whether it’s Paul O’Neil hitting a triple with an error to score a home run for a child in the hospital or that minor leaguer who crashed through a fence to make a catch or Bryce Harper tossing a foul ball to an actual clown to silence his questions or Reggie Jackson thinking about someone other than himself for a moment after Thurman Munson’s plane crashed or Lou Gehrig’s speech or Kirk Gibson’s fist pump or Saturday. It would’ve been Yordano Ventura’s 26th birthday. Obviously Edinson Volquez was very close to him when they were both on Royals. According to Volquez, they shared everything, even constantly having to tell people, “No, I’m not Johnny Cueto.” Edinson posted a pic of Ventura on his Instagram page Saturday morning, then went out and pitched the game of his life that afternoon, a no hitter — 9 IP, 0 ER, 2 walks, 10 Ks, lowering his ERA to 3.79. For one day, Edinson was able to say, “No, I’m not Johnny Cueto. I’m better.” Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Jorge Soler – Was optioned to the minors because he wasn’t performing up to expectations, which brings me to my question, why didn’t they option down the entire Royals team?
Whit Merrifield – 3-for-4, hitting .307, and his hitting streak has reached 19 games. Twenty more games to reach the hitting streak that Paul Molitor measures all hitting streak by, his own.
Carlos Carrasco – 4 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA up to 3.36. I will be shocked if he’s not DL’d before his next start, or looks terrible in his next start then is DL’d. Carrasco only seems to pitch terribly when he’s injured, and, if you’re keeping track, he’s been injured three times this year.
Jason Kipnis – 1-for-2, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer. After streaming both Bauer and Skoglund’s rain-shortened games, I don’t even want to talk about this Indians/Royals game. I’m mad, yo!
Ben Lively – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 0 Ks in his 1st start. He’s a control artist with few Ks. Looks like a poor man’s Nola. I will call him Ben Daytona Beach.
Odubel Herrera – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .234. Before the game was even over, I immediately added him in one mixed league. If you take nothing else from this post today, grab ODB, and not because “Ooh, baby, I like it raw,” but because he has a long way to go to get back to where he was last year, and this could be the turn around we’ve been waiting for, and, if it’s not, then you just drop him again, and this is a crazy long run-on sentence and, if Siri is reading this, she’s out of breath by now, and like, “Please consider revising.”
Freddy Galvis – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 5th and 6th homers, hitting .236. If you escaped this weekend without your pitchers getting absolutely killed, you’re living right. Without a doubt, Our Commissioner Manfred is sticking Capri Sun straws into baseballs again, juicing them.
Maikel Franco – 1-for-4 and his 7th homer, hitting .223. See what I said for ODB, but you can stop about 17 words into the sentence.
Eduardo Nunez – 1-for-4 and his 3rd homer. The Convent is hitting near-.375 in the last week. Yes, I’m really trying to make this Convent thing happen.
Brandon Crawford – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .268. Just another day at the juiced ball factory.
Eric Thames – 1-for-3 and his 15th homer. The Lord Thames took all of April to build a major league reputation as a home run hitter, then he rested in May, and now He has returned.
Domingo Santana – 1-for-4 and his 10th homer. Someone needs to hack his iCal so he thinks it’s Sunday every day.
Kenley Jansen – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 9th save on Saturday. Oh, and by the by, Jansen hasn’t allowed a walk all season. New major league record to start the year. “Pfft, I haven’t walked in five years,” someone reading this post.
Brandon McCarthy – Dodgers said he will be able to start on Tuesday, even with his blister. No one said he’ll be able to throw more than four innings. As the Latin dentist said, a small caveat.
Joe Ross – 3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 7.34. You need to impress before you regress.
Tanner Roark – 7 2/3 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.95. Decent start, though was left in a bit too long (Dusty!), and now Roark has three straight solid starts, lowering his ERA from 4.73. His peripherals, however, show a guy that will likely waver between a 3.70 and 4.30 ERA. Did I say waiver? Well, depends on the league and matchup.
Koda Glover – 1/3 IP, 5 ER. Not exactly a Kazam because he was brought into a two-run game in the 8th, but any sane manager would’ve removed him after he sat in the dugout for 40 minutes waiting to go out for the ninth inning. Emphasis on sane.
Ryan Zimmerman – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 16th homer, hitting .371. Which brings me to my question, where the flying effs in the effing eff hole was this year all the years I owned your stank ass?
Matt Wieters – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .278. I think if we were to track this, Wieters has more comments asked about him than any other player. Peraza is likely top five with a three way tie of Logan Morrison, Smoak and Bour.
Michael Taylor – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 6th homer, and 2nd homer in three games. Hot schmotato alert with a side of Taylor H.A.M.
Khris Davis – 3-for-4, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer. I’d put his chances of leading the major leagues in homers at about 20%. Yet, no one respects Khris Davis, I will call him Rhodney Davisfield.
Matt Joyce – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 7th homer, a grand slam. He also homered on Friday, so he could be a slight schmotato, or it could be he was facing Shawn Kelley.
Scott Schebler – Him and Billy Hamilton are both out with shoulder injuries, but the Reds said neither will hit the DL. T, see, Disabled List with tomatoes, they’re schmotatoes. Schebler, not Schweppes, diet tonic, not Nintendo’s Sonic, they’ll be back, for your DFS stack, that you got, it’s their shot. Sorry, saw Hamilton and was reading my Lin-Manuel.
Amir Garrett – 2 2/3 IP, 8 ER as he was activated from the DL. I hope Muslim Mrs. Garrett at least got some virgins out of that start. Namely, Mindy Cohn.
Zack Cozart – 3-for-4, 5 RBIs and his 8th and 9th homers, hitting .344. Since I own him in a few deep leagues, I’ve not only been pleasantly surprised by his output, but am glad to see him stay healthy. I just totally jinxed him, didn’t I? *smacks head* So stupid!
Ender Inciarte – 5-for-5, 2 runs, 5 RBIs and his 6th homer, hitting .299. Without actually doing any research, I’m going to say Ender has one big game once a month and does nothing else the rest of the month. Or at least it feels that way.
Matt Adams – 2-for-5 and his 6th homer, and third homer in two games. Damn, his bi-yo diet is paying off. That’s yoga and yogurt. If someone steals that, please just thank me in the introduction to your NY Times best seller. If you need a schmotato, by all means grab Adams, even if he no longer eats schmotatoes himself.
Julio Teheran – 5 IP, 7 ER, ERA up to 5.40. Maybe Teheran should stop taking the mound to the song, Bombs over Baghdad.
Danny Santana – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 1st homer. He plays about once a week, so he could be better than sitting through the Madoff movie on HBO, but only barely. By the by, that movie was terrible. I want my Saturday night back so I can watch something else on TV (notice how I didn’t say I wanted my Saturday back to actually go outside).
Tyler Flowers – 1-for-2, 4 runs. Guess what he’s batting. Go ahead, I’ll wait. *taps finger, goes for a glass of water, faucet won’t shut off, shoves towels into sink but it’s no use, inflates raft, paddles back to computer* Okay, time’s up. Flowers is hitting .365 with a .475 OBP. Zoinks!
Dustin Pedroia – Will be activated on Friday, the first day he’s eligible. Red Sox said it will be good to have Dustin back. Yeah, it’s allergy season.
David Price – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.00. He’s absolutely perfect and back to his old Cy Young self! Or this was a solid game, and I would still be hesitant with him. Like a teamster, I’m leaning on the latter.
Andrew Benintendi – 3-for-4, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and a double slam (6, 7) and legs (8), hitting .269. You see what happens when you play him? Goes from Benchintendi to Ben-extendi.
Manny Machado – 2-for-3, 1 run and his 3rd steal, and three times as many steals as last year. Machado is hitting .219 right now, which, to me, honestly, interjection, means he’s going to hit .320 the rest of the way.
Jacoby Ellsbury – Shut down with headaches. Funny, people that own him in fantasy also have headaches. I say make a group doctor’s appointment. Or one through Groupon.
Luis Severino – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.90. If you’re wondering, the underlying stats are saying Severino is pitching as well as his ERA looks. Contrary to their name, underlying stats are hashtag truth.
Jordan Montgomery – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.67 vs. Joe Biagni – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.31. This matchup was billed as, “Why again don’t I own these two guys?” I have no answer for the matchup billing. Joe “Bighead” Biagni has impressed the most of the two. His K/9 is 7.9, BB/9 is 1.8 with a 3.19 xFIP. It’s hard to make a case against him in any league.
Marcus Stroman – 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.25. This season feels like it’s missing more guys like Stroman. Not necessarily putting together an ace-like year, but being respectable. No one’s respectable this year. Y’all lost your manners!
Justin Smoak – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .283. He’s tied for the 5th most RBIs in the American League, fulfilling his preseason promise to Make The American League Great Again.
Mike Leake – 6 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA up to 2.64. The Regression Fairies deal with too hot or too cold temperatures by saying “I literally can’t,” they know who Zayn Malik is and they will ruin your pitchers’ ratios.
Michael Wacha – 4 1/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 4.67. Hey, you guys had a good run, if you ran around the block screaming bloody murder while watching Wacha ruin your fantasy team, but I think it’s time to look elsewhere.
Stephen Piscotty – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer, as he hit third. How a guy went from barely starting, he was struggling so much, to batting third, Piscotty doesn’t know! In fact, nobody knows!
Ian Happ – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and two homers (3, 4). Sonavabench! Just when I thought I was out on Happ, he goes and lays that on me! Lies on me? Lain on me? Why is ‘to lay’ so confusing to conjugate?!
Kyle Hendricks – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.09. The entire Cubs team looks like everyone that played at the original Woodstock twenty years after — dead, hungover or reborn into a shitty version of themselves.
Jean Segura – M’s revealed that Segura could miss up to two (stutterer!) months. I said six weeks. Then M’s said seven weeks. And I said I could beat Shazam in six and a half weeks.
Ariel Miranda – 9 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.74. Great start, and I dropped him before the game even ended. Live by the Stream-o-Nator, and die by the ‘holding streamers too long.’ Not pithy, but it makes sense.
Nelson Cruz – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .297. Regarding what I said for Rhodney Davisfield, I’d put Cruz’s chances at about 15%.
Ervin Santana – 4 IP, 7 ER, ERA up 2.44. The Regression Fairies were more overdue for that Ervin start than they’re overdue to send back a cape to the online clothing rental site, The Buy-In, the Switch and the Wardrobe.
Jose Berrios – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.76. Funny how sharp one pitcher can look against a terrible team vs. how bad one pitcher can look against the same team. Maybe funny isn’t the right word. Interesting seems wrong too.
Miguel Sano – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .303. On our Buy/Sell tool, Sano has scored $28 so far, and is due to score $17 more, which means he’s still a Sell, but not a crazy ‘sell this guy quickly to get him off my team.’
Albert Pujols – Sat out yesterday after hitting his 600th homer on Saturday. Pujols’ 600th home run was a grand slam (one of seven grand slams on Saturday, a major league record). Pujols was the first player to accomplish that milestone with a grand slam. Pujols was also the first player to accomplish that milestone who was balding at 21. Somewhere, Lebron’s forehead is like, “Oh no you dint!”
Carlos Rodon – Will start a rehab assignment on Tuesday. You should stash Rodon if you have DL room, which is absolutely no one.
Todd Frazier – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 8th homer, hitting .195, and third homer this week. Don’t look now, but–Why are you blindfolding yourself with a piece of bacon? You can look, was just going to say Frazier’s heating up.
Justin Verlander – Left yesterday’s game with a tight groin. If he has a tight groin now, wait until he gets home to Kate Upton. Hey now!
J.D. Martinez – 2-for-4 and his 10th homer. In case anyone forgot, that’s ten homers after missing the first five weeks.
Justin Upton – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 11th homer, 2nd homer in as many games, hitting .258. Since Upton hasn’t had that big sucky month, that we refer to as B.J. Upton, Justin may be capable of one of his old school productive seasons.
George Springer – 3-for-5, 3 RBIs and two more homers (15, 16), hitting .280. Too bad some think Springer is nothing but Adam Duvall at leadoff. Poor misguided shorthand.
Carlos Correa – 2-for-3 and his 11th homer, hitting .315. Real question, have the Astros ever had a game where they didn’t hit at least six homers?
Yulieski Gurriel – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .267. You know what kind of year he’s having? He’s having worst guy on best team year. So, he’ll be valuable just because of all the counting stats he will unavoidably get. We should have a glossary term for this — worst guy on best team — please suggest in the comments.
Brad Peacock – 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.30. His K/9 is 13.5, his BB/9 is 4, and his xFIP is 2.85. Astros are having one of those magical years, and that means they’re gonna give crazy run support and make some pitchers just so much more valuable. I think we’re seeing a career year from Devenski and Peacock. I’m in on Peacock, which means you’re in. Pun noted, and intended.
Cole Hamels – Ready for his first session on the hill. Sounds like a junior congressman. He should hang out with Jonah Ryan and the rest of The Jeffersons.
Rougned Odor – 1-for-4 and his 8th homer as he was moved down to the seven hole, hitting .204. I feel bad how terrible he’s performing, but we must soldier on. Whoa, that sounds a lot like “Sold Odor on…” If only there was a date sometime in April following that! All foolsies aside, he has eight homers and five steals, if he were hitting .270, which he should with neutral luck, he wouldn’t even be an issue. Neutral luck on his average, and he’d be a top five 2nd baseman.
David Dahl – His return from his rib injury has stalled. Dahlled? Every year there’s one player that pulls a Kotchman, and this year is definitely Dahl. I could really use him in the leagues where I have him stashed, but now I’d put his timetable to sometime in August.
Tyler Chatwood – 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.60. I told you to buy him on Friday, because I’m motherfudging psychic! How’s that, D eaters!? Sorry, should explain, Chatwood’s fans call themselves D eaters.
Jeff Hoffman – 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.61. I’d look at the Stream-o-Nator for Hoffman, which is to say, I’d stream him every time he was in Petco. Easy, peasy, hair so greasy.
Hunter Renfroe – 1-for-3 and his 11th homer. Renfroe! Or as Scooby Doo would say, Renfroe!
Steven Matz – Will return for next weekend’s series vs. the Braves along with Seth Lugo. After the start, Lugo will likely move to the bullpen until Matz is injured again, so Lugo may not move to the bullpen. Damn, did Matz get injured again while I was typing that previous sentence? “You’re not gonna have Matz to walk all over anymore!” That’s Matz doing a Nixon impersonation.
Andrew McCutchen – 3-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer, hitting .232. Knee McClutchin must’ve been wearing a throwback jersey, and the dread wig he donated then took back from a homeless man.
Jameson Taillon – Will make another rehab start. This is the feel-good story of the year, by far. Though, the runner-up feel-good story was Jose Altuve posing as a 5th grader and hitting a home run in a Pee-Wee League championship. Okay, kidding, but this does bring up a fascinating idea. You know how Kris Bryant pretended to be a college student and took batting practice with the college team? MLB should have Altuve go back to different grades until people realize he’s not really in the school, and fans can make bets when Altuve will be found out. “I say Altuve can pose as a 3rd grader.” “Well, I say he can’t make it back past 4th grade!” “He’ll never make it back past middle school!” I call this show, Are You Taller Than A 5th Grader?
