Greg Bird was called up by the Yankees. I wonder if when Greg Bird dies his ghost will be harassed by a 1980’s black gang calling him Larry Bird. But, more importantly, let’s pray Bird doesn’t wear ball-hugger shorts. Whoever thought those 1980s shorts were a good idea? They were so tight, you can tell which players manscaped. When Marv Albert said someone was dribbling a ball down the court, I had to wonder which ball he meant. Yes! Bird, Greg that is, has done nothing but hit at every stop in the minors — 20 HRs in Single-A in 2013; 20 HRs in 2014 across three levels; 12 HRs across two levels this year with six homers in only 34 games in Triple-A. He’s also not the type to strike out a lot and knows how to take a walk, and not like it’s a bad thing as, “Hey, take a walk!” Bird started yesterday (0-for-5), but for now he’s a bench bat, but I get the sense the Yankees are going to start looking towards the future as of next year and Bird should be someone on dynasty and keeper radars. And you know I have me some radar love. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Brian McCann – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 20th homer. On our Player Rater, he is now the 2nd most valuable catcher on the year behind only Posey. Yes, I know, behind Posey is all ass.
Stephen Drew – 2-for-3, 4 runs, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. Or as I like to call him, “Vomit,” because if you own him, you’re bound to say sarcastically, “Just the way I Drew it up.”
Michael Pineda – Will make a rehab start on Sunday. He’s coming back sooner than I thought he would and if he looks good in his rehab start, he may only be ten days away from a return to the majors. If you have DL room, I could see stashing Pineda. Or stashing candy in Pineda.
Brett Gardner – 3-for-4, 1 run, 3 RBIs. Hasn’t had a three-hit game in almost three weeks, so hopefully this is Gardner coming out of his nearly month-long funk. Would be about time and not like Stephen Hawking talks about time, cause I own A Brief History of Time and have started and stopped the first page about two dozen times. Put some pictures in, Cousin Chairpants!
Trevor Bauer – 3 1/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA up to 4.35. The most accurate thing I can say for Bauer is he’s reliable in how unreliable he is.
Yan Gomes – 3-for-4, 1 run, hitting .237. He can’t McCann, but Yan can hit, right?
Francisco Lindor – 2-for-3, 2 runs. Yup, he’s in this afternoon’s Buy column. Like you had any doubts.
Lance Lynn – 2/3 IP, 3 ER (and 4 unearned runs for the box scare), ERA up to 2.95. He’s usually straight money like how Ben Franklin used to take selfies of himself and sell them for $100, but he does occasionally have these insanely terrible starts. I could’ve done without this one.
Francisco Liriano – 6 IP, 3 ER, 10 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.19. He was staked to an early lead and then took the free room at the W overlooking the Ivictory Coast.
Pedro Alvarez – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 17h homer. Now has two homers in three games and is hitting near-.375 in the last week. All brays to El Burro.
Yasmani Grandal – Out yesterday with a sore shoulder. Hmm, I don’t remember reading that 18,000 word stanza in OBPwulf.
Mat Latos – 4 2/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.81. Well, it looked like he turned the corner, but he’s really just doing circles in the cul-de-suck. It’s kinda sweet retribution for the Dodgers trying to buy a title. I hate that shizz, and screw them with No Vaseline. Sorry, I’m feeling particularly gangsta, after just getting home from a Straight Outta Compton screening with a Cube Q&A. Apologies for the pic quality, iPhones suck. As for Latos, I think you need to look elsewhere if he can’t shut down one of the worst road teams in Dodger Stadium.
Joc Pederson – 1-for-2, 2 RBIs and his 22nd homer, hitting .221. Was beginning to think all J. Pederson was good for was exotic descriptions in his mail-order catalog.
Enrique Hernandez – 3-for-4 as he starts at 2nd base again. Mean’s while, Jose Peraza and Alex Guerrero played an intense game of patty cake.
Eugenio Suarez – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 7th homer. Has two homers in the last week while hitting near-.350. Could be a small schmotato, but nothing eumongous.
Billy Hamilton – 4-for-4, 4 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (4) and legs (53). Ha, 53 steals and guess how many runs. 12? No, that’s an awful guess. He has 54 after this big night. Still pretty ridonkulous that he barely has more runs than steals.
Nolan Arenado – 1-for-3 and his 28th homer. Oh, no, Auntie Em, it’s a Torenado!
DJ LeMahieu – 1-for-3 and his 5th homer. This homer came in Metco, and every time DJ came up, every third seat had someone say to their friend, “I ever tell you about my friend who deejays in Jersey?”
Tommy Kahnle – 2/3 IP, 3 ER, Kazaam!
Kelly Johnson – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 11th homer. I was thisclose to making him my batty call, but ended up going with Michael Conforto (2-for-3, 3 runs). What does that say about me that I skipped over a batty call with a guy with a hot girl name for a Michael? It says nothing, you judger!
Wilmer Flores – 1-for-3, 2 runs. When Flores went up to bat, would be awesome if opposing catchers said, “Hey, I heard you just got traded.”
Juan Lagares – 1-for-1, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer. Super, terrific, adjective, but it came as a pinch hitter, because the Mets hate Lagares and he’s platooning. He was leading off on Tuesday and Wednesday because of matchups.
Curtis Granderson – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 20th homer. Because this is always a fun exercise (not fun), on our Player Rater, Granderson is in the top 20 for outfielders. Yuppers.
Noah Syndergaard – 7 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks. His ERA is 3.07, his xFIP 3.08 and his FIP is 3.09. Also explains why 3.06 is afraid of 3.07.
Greg Holland – 0 IP, 4 ER. Infinity ouch. Amsterdamn! This was his 4th blown save, moving his ERA up to 4.15. Haven’t seen Holland screwed that bad since they traded New Amsterdam for a pot of tulips. Also, in this game, Wade Davis gave up 2 ER in 1 IP to raise his ERA to 0.96, but yesterday aside I think the Royals have to seriously start exploring Davis as the closer since Holland’s been on empty for a while. Obviously I’d own Davis, and, even without saves, he should be owned anyway.
Garrett Richards – 6 IP, 3 ER, 10 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.55. This is the 2nd start in a row he’s allowed three runs in six innings, which is cool and all, if he were a streamer.
Eric Hosmer – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and two homers in the last three games. What, he thinks it’s the playoffs already?
Ryan Braun – 3-for-4, 1 RBI and two steals (17, 18). All of last year, Jon Lester (6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 3.21) didn’t attempt one pickoff. That’s not a misprint, unless it’s a misprint from the source I cribbed it from. Due to this, David Ross, Lester’s personal catcher, has started 31 games. Anyone want to guess how many steals he’s allowed? Too late, he’s allowed 31. And Ross isn’t even bad with baserunners when catching a normal pitcher. Because I went down the Steals Allowed rabbit hole, guess how many steals Cervelli’s allowed in 83 starts. 71!
Jean Segura – 2-for-5 and his 17th steal. If he doesn’t miraculously get to 30 steals this year, it’s gonna be hard to like him again next year, and me not liking Segura is like me not liking Gyorko. Just hard to fathom, as Jacques Cousteau never said.
Kyle Schwarber – 3-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 7th and 8th homer. I rarely embed videos, maybe like once every three years, because I don’t know how. Plus, eff MLB and their copyright rules. Way to adopt to the internet! To this point, I tried to post videos of Schwarber’s homers, because I wanted to make sure people saw how effortless he swings. He looks like Billy Butler with power. No blimpotence for him. It’s just sexy. I’m like all Schwingber. Yesterday, he tied Ron Santo for a Cubs rookie record for the most multiple multi-homer games in a rookie season. It’s a Cubs sacrilege to say anything negative on Santo, but he did it in three times as many ABs. Well, technically, Schwarber’s got no abs.
Dexter Fowler – 2-for-3, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 12th homer. He has two homers in the past week, but is also hitting around .240 in that time. In other words, Wrigley in the heat of the summer is a nice place to hit for power.
Anthony Rizzo – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 22nd homer. It might surprise some people, but unless something weird happens, Rizzo will likely be penciled into my top ten overall for the next three years. Not for 1st basemen, that’s for all players.
Sonny Gray – Scratched with back spasms. So he missed a start versus the 1927 Blue Jays. Smart kid, this Gray. And him too.
Jesse Chavez – 6 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 9 Ks as he got the emergency start on short day’s rest vs. the Jays. Impressive considering the circumstances. This was like being told at 1:55 AM that you’re the designated driver after five hours of drinking. Chavez downed a Red Bull, a water and vomited out the side of the car, but got everyone home, even if he did run over a few lawn ornaments on the way.
Mark Buehrle – 7 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.31. Even if he looks good on the Stream-o-Nator, I wouldn’t pick him up. Just one of those guys. Speaking of which, when can we get a remake of this classic 80’s movie? With Caitlyn Jenner in the news, the time couldn’t be more appropriate.
Stephen Strasburg – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 8 Ks. Lowercase yay. Glad I finally got him back in my lineup. Ugh, stupid ulcer.
Gregor Blanco – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 9th steal. Shouldn’t his first name be Negror? Greg or white is apples and oranges.
Maikel Franco – Likely to return this weekend. Feels fast to come back from wearing a splint on his wrist, but he likely can only shake Prospect Mike when he’s on the field.
Phil Hughes – Hit the DL. Can we backdate this to March and give back everyone the time and energy invested in him in this year?
Trevor Plouffe – 1-for-4 and his 16th homer. Plouffe goes the dynamite! No, Plouffe won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but you know I like to say when Plouffe hits one homer, he tends to hit another soon thereafter.
Ervin Santana – 6 IP, 5 ER vs. Chi Chi Gonzalez, 5 2/3 IP, 5 ER. Ervin and Chi Chi need to return to basketball and golf, respectively.
Mitch Moreland – 4-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 17th homer. Moreland cooled off like a witch’s areola, but this big day could go a long way to starting something, so that witch’s areola rubbed against a goblin that looks like Antonio Sabato Jr.
Adrian Beltre – 3-for-4, 3 runs. Thank you for hitting once a month; I appreciate it.
Josh Hamilton – Will undergo an MRI on Friday, and said his season has been extremely frustrating. “Smoke crack in your 20’s and your 30’s ain’t a walk in the park.” That’s a Nancy Reagan quote.
Cole Hamels – Scratched due to his groin on Thursday, but he said he can start on Monday since this ‘groin thing is pretty minor.’ Hehe.
