Jonathan Papelbon has a contract that insures that he remains the closer if he’s traded. He would likely be the closer in Washington even without that stipulation, but it’s so like Papelbon to have that in his contract. Should just call that the douche clause. To fix him, the Nationals should bring him into games where they’re up one run in the seventh and run him out there for three innings every night until his arm falls off. Sure, they’d cost themselves a closer and games, but isn’t spite worth it? I know it is when Cougs says she has a headache and I say, “Fine, I’m gonna sleep in the bathtub!” Sure, I could stay in the bed, or even opt for a couch, but the spite wouldn’t be driven home as well. Papelbon’s trade obviously kills all value for Drew Storen. Shame, his career feels like the exact opposite of Fernando Rodney. No matter how well Storen pitches every year he seems to lose the job for some unforeseen reason. Maybe he can figure out a way to work into his contract, “Must pitch after any white guy that is a terrible dancer whether that is Mark Madsen, Grey Albright or Papelbon.” Of course, in Philly, this means that Ken Giles gets his long-deserved chance to close for the Phils. All three games where they’re leading. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Devon Travis – Was moved to the leadoff spot and hit a leadoff home run in the 1st, then left the game aggravating his shoulder. It’s almost like it was his entire season sped up to fit into a Vine.
Jose Bautista – Pulled up lame and it looked like a hamstring injury. *checking news reports* But Bautista is saying it was just cramps. Grey Albright, M.D. FML.
Ryan Zimmerman – 2-for-3 as he was activated from the DL. Last year he had five homers in 61 games, but this year he has five homers in only 57 games, so throw away all projections, he’s blowing through them!
Jayson Werth – 1-for-4 as he was activated from the DL. For what it’s Werth, I wouldn’t go and fill your DL slot that quickly as Werth will likely need it again soon.
Dee Gordon – 2-for-3, 1 run as he returned from his dislocated thumb. Thumbs? Where Gordon’s going he doesn’t need any thumbs!
Jose Fernandez – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.53. I can’t feel my face when I’m watching J-Fer pitch, but I love it.
Henderson Alvarez – Undergoing shoulder surgery. Kinda scared for him if someone reads that previous sentence in two months, because that will mean he’s still undergoing shoulder surgery. Maybe it’s best if I delete this post after tomorrow.
Aaron Hicks – 2-for-3, 1 run, 3 RBIs. Still hitting, still schmotatoing.
Francisco Cervelli – 3-for-5, 2 runs, hitting .301 and hitting near-.500 in the last week. *you looking at your stats from your catcher, you looking at Cervelli on waivers, you banging your head*
Jung Ho Kang – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 6th homer. He’s the star of Obama’s fantasy team, Yes You Kang.
Trevor Bauer – 9 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks vs. the Royals, ERA at 4.13. You have bigger grapes than I if you started him in this game. In future games, I’d also use the Stream-o-Nator for him.
Michael Bourn – 2-for-3, 1 run and 3 steals (8, 9, 10) as the Indians stole six bases total off Geoffrey the Giraffe, excuse me, Christall Young in less than five innings. Young’s leg kick takes so long that Neil Armstrong has time to make grand proclamations.
Ben Zobrist – Traded to the Royals. Let’s face it, Zobrist was always a square peg in a round hole in Oakland. His Christian singer wife had been complaining to him about playing with Reddick/Semien/Burns for a while, and then throw in Billy Butler and his manssiere and it was never going to work out. “Do you know what people are saying at church? These are the devil words, Ben.” Zobrist will likely share time in left and at 2nd base, spelling O-M-A-R and D-Y-S-O-N. This likely kills most of Dyson’s value. Damn, right after someone got a SAGNOF tattoo on their hand! You can always change it to EGGNOG!
Joe Blanton – Designated for assignment. That assignment could be anywhere from working in Yordano’s entourage to sucking less.
Eric Hosmer – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 11th homer. Also, yesterday, Evan Longoria hit his 11th homer. *closes computer, shuts lights, moves curtains very gently, realizing that if there is an apocalypse happening it might blind me or melt my face* A gentle breeze rustles the leafs. Clear skies. Then…Yasiel Puig hang glides past my window. AH!!!
Curt Casali – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and two homers, after hitting two homers on Monday, and that’s 7 homers on the year for him in only 20 games! Okay, hot schmotato, fo’definites, but who is this guy, you ask in that sultry voice of yours. Let’s see, okay, so he’s never hit more than five homers in any one stop of the minors above Single-A ball. What say you, Guru, he’s got Maas appeal!
Jake Odorizzi – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.76 as he beat David Price (6 IP, 5 ER, 9 baserunners, 4) in such a way that it makes me think Price really wants to be traded to a contender, or Price just has a generous heaping of nostalgia for the Rays. Maybe that’s why he sleeps with a Don Zimmer bear.
Yoenis Cespedes – 2-for-4 and his 17th homer. Stay hot, you sumsabeech, stay hot! But please not too hot that you get traded to the Mets.
Matt Cain – 6 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks. Solid stream by me. Hayzeus Cristo, it’s the Brewers! They don’t even want to win!
Wily Peralta – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks as he returns from the DL. Incredible, he would’ve been the better streamer yesterday. Throw me a frickin’ bone, Stream-o-Nator!
Gerardo Parra – 3-for-4, 3 runs, hitting .324. He’s in the middle of a career year, so I almost feel like it’s destined for him to be traded somewhere and become a 4th outfielder.
Krispie Young – 3-for-6, 4 runs, 5 RBIs and his 12th homer. Of course, my batty call from Monday does this on Tuesday. Then again, if you owned anyone on the Yankees yesterday when they scored 21 runs, except Mark Teixeira (0-for-3, 1 run; ticker tease!), you did well.
Brett Gardner – 3-for-4, 5 runs, 3 RBIs and his 11th homer. Hamels is rumored to be going to the Rangers. Hopefully, he can pitch continuously on one day rest.
Didi Gregorius – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and has back-to-back huge games. It could be a hot schmotato, it could be the Rangers pitchers are terrible, it could he loves it when the ladies call him Big Poppa.
Chase Headley – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs. Yesterday, I said he was a hot schmotato. Today, I say indeed.
Jaime Garcia – 6 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks as he was activated from the DL. Well, it wasn’t all razzle dazzle, but I would try to hold onto him if I had room. How’s that for a spectacular endorsement?
Randal Grichuk – Sat out again, nursing his groin. If I could nurse from my groin, I’d never leave my house!
Mike Leake – 8 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.56. Because people respond to finger-quotes stats, Leake has a 0.60 ERA in his last four starts.
Joey Votto – 3-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 19th homer, hitting .311. Racist!
Jason Motte – 1 IP, 0 ER. You could almost see Maddon’s wheels turning in the Cubs game yesterday. The Cubs were down by multiple runs and he started charging schmohawk relievers out there, all except Hector Rondon, i.e., I wouldn’t be surprised if Rondon gets the next save.
DJ LeMahieu – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI, hitting near-.425 in the last week and hitting .750 on the year without that anchor Tulo around!
Zach Godley – 6 IP, 3 ER, 10 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.25 thru two starts and it will be near-4 after four starts and near-6 after six starts. Sorry, but I feel like Christopher Hitchens on Godley.
Ender Inciarte – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer. Member when Yasmany was a thing? Did he even slump before the Diamondbacks benched him indefinitely?
Hisashi Iwakuma – 5 2/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 5.10. Hisashi my dashi — burp burp. I’m guessing there’s still an injury here the M’s are trying to ignore so they can trade him.
Nelson Cruz – 1-for-4 and his 26th homer. I liked not owning him better when he was slumping. Can we go back to that?
Mike Zunino – 1-for-4 and his 10th homer. I own him, and I’m serious when I say I kinda wish he wouldn’t do anything, because when he does something, it reminds me I have him on my team.
David Wright – Began baseball activities. Hopefully his scratching himself and spitting went well.
Jenrry Mejia – Suspended for 162 games after his second positive test for PEDs. Forget Mejia, he’s plotting more than Medea (Greek version, not Tyler Perry version).
Noah Syndergaard – 8 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners (all hits), 9 Ks, ERA down to 2.70. Thor, Thor like a dungeon dragon! A few more of these starts and he’ll price himself right out of my next year’s drafts.
Lucas Duda – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. Still hot, still Duda Duda day’ing.
Curtis Granderson – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. This was your Curtisy check-in.
Chris Davis – 2-for-4, 5 RBIs and two more homers, now has five homers in the last week. Again with some stank, I said in the top 100 of the 2nd half that Davis is one of the few guys that could hit 20 homers in the 2nd half. And that’s me paraphrasing me!
Ubaldo Jimenez – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks. Ooh, Unkie Grey, Ubaldo’s back, yeah, yeah? Nope, neef, this was vs. the Braves.
Freddie Freeman – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer, hitting .291. The days until he’s shut down for the season? 25 days? 30? It’s coming. We could do a parlay bet and say within three days of Dickerson being shut down Freeman will too.
Julio Teheran – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 4.71. Incredibly, this Teheran is still not as painful as the one portrayed in The Brink. Lately, HBO Go should be called HBO Go Away.
Edward Mujica – A’s announced that the Last of the Mujicas would get the saves. They announced it about ten minutes after I stashed Doolittle on my DL slot. Since he’ll be back mid to late-August, you should do the same.
Sonny Gray – 9 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.16. Could my boy bring home the Cy Young to the Gray family? It feels unlikely, but less unlikely than three months ago.
Josh Reddick – 3-for-4 and his 13th homer. Reddick seems to get hot in spurts–Okay, now I’m just gagging. Oh God, that’s worse!
Jose Abreu – 3-for-5, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 16th homer. Member back in June when I was begging him to get to 17 homers by the All-Star break? Aw, Grey, you’re handsome, but hella dopey, and hella behind the times on using the word hella, but at least I’m not on cleek, Taco Bell.
Jeff Samardzija – 8 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.94. He’s making an art of the 8-inning, non-Quality Start.
Melky Cabrera – 4-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI. I love what Melky’s been doing recently, so don’t take this the wrong way, but for my next birthday I want to go to the batting cages and spend the whole day in the cage labeled, “Red Sox pitchers.”
Mookie Betts – Left yesterday’s game after tumbling over the bullpen wall at Fenway, and now he’s showing concussion symptoms. Uh-oh, well, I guess we can always hope he’s fine by 2019. If he needs to miss a week-plus, Rusney should get everyday playing time, but I’m still not 100% that’s a good thing.
Pablo Sandoval – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer. Are you telling me Hosmer, Longoria and Sandoval all homered on the same day? Ugh, Cougs told me to pick up an earthquake kit at Consumer Value Store and I forgot. We’re all gonna die!!!
Chris Carter – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer. Tupac’s dropped more singles in the last ten years than this guy.
Carlos Correa – 3-for-4 and his 9th homer. Can I predict his draft slot for next year? It will start in the 80’s, then someone in a mock draft will take him in the 70’s, then someone else will take him in the 50’s, then he’ll be labeled overrated and start getting drafted in the 40’s.
Jose Altuve – 3-for-5, 1 run, 5 RBIs. This was his first five ribbie game of his career, and that’s from a guy with six ribs in his doll torso.
C.J. Wilson – 4 IP, 6 ER vs. Collin McHugh 5 IP, 5 ER. In a matchup of two guys that everyone likes to own until they actually own them.
Mike Trout – Sat out yesterday with a tweaked wrist and went for an MRI that came back clean. Good thing hitters don’t need their wrists!
David Murphy – Traded to the Angels. Well, Shane Victorino (1-for-4, 1 run) had one day of being the left fielder in The Town That Bobby Grich Built, or simply Grichville. Murphy will form a platoon with Victorino and be asked to supply his own scissors.
David DeJesus – Also acquired by the Angels. Why do I feel like The Sciosciapath wouldn’t stop until Cron was a bench player again? I can see it now, Scioscia walking past Cron on the bench, saying, “The power of DeJesus compels you!” Sorry, that’s thurible.
