Imagine Gangsta Gangsta’s Ice Cube singing, “With a right left, right left you toothless, and then you say goddamn they ruthless,” but not coming out of Ice Cube’s mouth, but out of Glass Joe’s mouth from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. Imagine Mola Ram reaching into a chest and ripping out a heart. Only instead of Mola Ram, it’s Arvid from Head of the Class. Imagine the head Neo-Nazi from Oz, walking into your shower, only instead of him it’s the guy from the Farmers Insurance commercials…Oh, wait, that’s the same guy. Those were the sort of visions Chris Sale must’ve been having when he looked at the Twins. We see nerds, he sees Ice Mola Cube Ram Nazis. The Twins scored eight runs on him in three innings and, without looking at a box score, you can’t even imagine who did that damage. Brian Dozier? Yeah, he went 2-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Joe Mauer? Yup, he went 3-for-5, 1 run, 2 RBIs. Eduardo Escobar? Okay, now you’re cheating. You would’ve never guessed Eduardo Escobar. Up until two seconds ago, you thought Eduardo Escobar was Pablo’s peacenik brother. Sale’s ERA is up to 5.32, but that’s almost entirely due to last night. If his owner is panicked, I’d look for a little sale on, um, well, you know. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Trevor May – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 11 baserunners, 4 Ks. When May shows up, he sure is punctual. Even a day early sometimes.
Shane Robinson – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .342. I’ve been seeing Robinson do well for a few weeks now, but every time I look at his stat sheet for his previous games, I see the same thing. DNP, DNP, 0-for-0, 1 BB. “Powdered Sugar” Shane Robinson is nothing, but a platoon outfielder until the Twins play him regularly.
Ricky Nolasco – Will be activated on Saturday. Great news for Nolasco’s family who couldn’t wait until he got out of the house. Stop hogging the remote, Nolasco!
Anthony Rendon – Hopes to resume his rehab stint today. At this point, I say put him in a bubble and get five of his biggest and least psoriasis-y fantasy baseball owners to help roll him around.
Stephen Strasburg – 5 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks. Far from gorge or engorged, but also a step in the right direction from his early season shenanigans. I want Strasburg to be better or die tryin’. Okay, not die, but maybe throw out his elbow tryin’. That was from the 50 Cent/Dr. James Andrews collab joint. You ‘member the big hit’s chorus, “We gonna party like it’s your surgery, and we don’t give a f*** it’s all about surgery.” The good news is Strasburg was sorta the dog’s breakfast last April too, so maybe it’s the cold weather.
Bryce Harper – 2-for-4, 1 run, 3 RBIs, hitting .286. At this point, I can say almost definitely I know all my fantasy teams, and I wish I owned Harper somewhere. “Almost definitely” because by the time I get to the end of this post I may have picked up and dropped someone else. I cannot lie, I’m a rosterbator!
Yunel Escobar – 3-for-5, 3 runs, hitting .306. Not doing anything power or speed-wise, but he is having a solid average/runs early season. Aside from Andrelton sliding into his glove, but Yunel has Yordano standing outside Andrelton’s UFO, waiting for him.
Ryan Zimmerman – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs, hitting .217. Sky’s chanting MVP! MVP! MVP!
Denard Span – Left yesterday’s game with soreness in his abdomen. You’d think a guy named Span would know how to do pregame stretching.
David Wright – At least a week away from returning. Or two weeks if you blink very fast.
Jacob deGrom – 5 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA up to 3.34. His minor league K-rate was usually in the 7s. His major league K-rate last year was inexplicably 9.2. His K-rate now is 7. Yup.
Desmond Jennings – Will likely sit out all weekend due to his knee. His brother, Ken, said the problem is more in the patellofemoral joint.
Albert Pujols – The news reported that Pujols said his knee felt “OK.” Technically, wouldn’t he say it felt “Okay?”
Garrett Richards – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks. It’s funny that during draft season everyone’s like, “I don’t want to draft Richards (McGee, Doolittle, Koji, whoever) because he may not be back for a few weeks.” Then once the season starts, nearly half your team is new by the third week and you wish you just drafted the injured player. Okay, not haha funny.
David Freese – 3-for-5, 1 RBI and his 1st steal, hitting .233. He also has four homers on the year. Well, he’s no David Wright but he’s been okay. Thankfully, he’s not Wright, otherwise he wouldn’t be okay. He’d be awful. On our Player Rater, Freese has been about as good as Bogaerts. You know, Bogaerts. The guy we all swear is breaking out.
Erick Aybar – 2-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .222. Now has a modest four-game hitting streak, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hitting .275 by mid-May. “April sours, bring May Red Hots,” says a grandmother’s purse.
Josh Reddick – 2-for-4, 2 runs, hitting .368. He’ll be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but, I have to be honest, I was surprised he wasn’t owned in more than 50% of leagues already. You could just pick up Reddick and then say, “No homo,” if that’s the problem.
Jesse Chavez – 5 IP, 4 ER, 10 baserunners, 5 Ks. That’s not a real indication of the starter he is. Last year, he had a 3.45 ERA and a 8.4 K/9 in 146 IP, and doesn’t allow a crapton of walks. This year, it was more or less the same in the bullpen. Can’t really extrapolate bullpen stats out, but his 2014 is a good sign, and I’d ignore yesterday’s start and grab him in most deeper mixed leagues with the chance for more.
Mark Canha – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Mostly hangs with the LLAMAS, but since I like pointing this out whenever I can, he has the same number of RBIs as Freddie Freeman. Canha? I can ha at that.
T.J. House – 3 IP, 5 ER, ERA up to 13.15. Who’s House? Giving-up-runs House!
Kevin Pillar – 1-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs, hitting .273. Even with Saunders and Pompey, Pillar’s making it hard for Gibbons to take him out of the lineup. Not to mention, Gibbons has barely conquered the round peg/round hole experiment.
Daniel Norris – 3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 1 K. Imagine there’s a torrential rainstorm, but instead of raindrops, it’s raining runs. Norris went outside without an umbrella and still managed to not get wet. He was then pulled before he got soaked.
Shelby Miller – 7 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.17. Like a David Copperfield ex would tell you, “I liked him at first, but it was all smoke and mirrors.” No reason you can’t keep going with Miller while he’s pitching well, but his peripherals don’t back it up.
Mike Leake – 8 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 3 Ks vs. the Braves and he pitchslapped Miller. I always feel like with Leake I’m wondering if the opponent was bad or he was good. It’s like the fantasy baseball chicken/egg paradigm. Or scratchy rear/smelly finger paradigm.
Tucker Barnhart – 1-for-4 and his 2nd homer in as many games. Just think, if you were to have drafted Barnhart in the 7th round instead of Mesoraco, and just left Barnhart in your lineup for three weeks while he didn’t play, it still would’ve made more sense.
Todd Frazier – 1-for-5 and his 7th homer, and 2nd in as many games. The reports of his 2014 being a fluke were inaccurately reported? P to the erhaps, he still has a shizzton of steals to get.
Billy Hamilton – 1-for-5, 2 runs and his 2nd homer. I have guys for that. Can we just count his homer as four steals?
Alfredo Simon – 4 1/3 IP, 6 ER. Damn, if only Ventura pitched against Simon tonight. It would’ve been like the end scene in Training Day mashed up with every Tarantino film. As for Simon, I told you the sub-whatever ERA wouldn’t last.
Alcides Escobar – Sat out yesterday, but passed concussion tests. Those tests: “How many fingers am I holding up?” “That’s a foot.” “He’s good!”
Yordano Ventura – He dropped his appeal of the seven-game suspension. He dropped it on Adam Eaton’s head!
Kris Medlen – Ready to throw to hitters. Sending best wishes out to one of the remaining flat-billed pitchypusses. May you stay as strong as the starch you use on your hat.
Danny Duffy – 7 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA is at 3.45. Duffy’s going to wake up any moment and realize this season is a dream.
Eric Hosmer – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer, and 2nd in as many games. I drafted him on a few teams this year, and when I drafted him, I likely thought he was capable of hitting homers, but I honestly am still surprised when he does anything.
Mike Moustakas – 2-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .356. Moistasskiss! We established that’s a positive, right?
Jarrod Dyson – 3-for-4, 1 run. Inconceivably, he didn’t steal any bases yesterday. He did steal three the other day on one hit, so get on base less!
James Paxton – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA down to 5.74. His peripherals still look good and I’d continue to try to hold him, if you have room. The matchups don’t get easier, according to the Stream-o-Nator, and in one league I had to move on, but I held him in another league, so I’m still in on him.
Austin Jackson – 3-for-5, 1 run and 2 steals. I could be remembering this wrong, but I feel like this is the best fantasy game from Austin Jackson ever.
Adam Wainwright – Had successful Achilles surgery. After the doctors removed the arrow, it was just basically like ironing on a patch.
Tim Cooney – 2 1/3 IP, 3 ER. If you were to have watched Cooney’s first major league start in black & white, it would’ve been worse than Good Night, and Good Luck.
Matt Adams – Collected 3 hits, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer. Then, keeping with the theme, he chugged three bottles of Mrs. Buttersworth and put them on his mantle with the others. “I drank this Mrs. Buttersworth after I was signed by the Cards.” That’s Adams showing a date his pad.
Jon Jay – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. Like Betsy Ross, I grabbed The Federalist for a batty call.
Matt Carpenter – 2-for-3, 3 runs, 1 RBI, hitting .372. Yadda4 yay. On a more general note, how is it that Matheny bats random platoon guys leadoff and refuses to move my Wong up? I mean that in every sense of the Wong!
Darin Ruf – 2-for-3 and his 2nd homer. Who let Darin out? Ruf, Ruf, Ruf!
David Buchanan – 4 1/3 IP, 7 ER. Is there any better pitcher for get away day?
Jose Fernandez – Faced live hitters yesterday. I wonder if one of those was David Wright, cause I hear he’s facing live pitching. If it wasn’t, they should check out each other’s schedules. Oh my God, I just thought of something! Someone should make an app to keep track of everyone that is facing live hitters and everyone that is facing live pitching and do a Tinder service to match them up. Sean Doolittle’s facing live pitching? Cool, swipe to the right!
