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Bryan Reynolds came upon a boy with a banjo on the porch of a rickety-old shack. The boy with the banjo looked like a 14-year-old version of the former MLB player, Johnny Dickshot, who was nicknamed Ugly, because if they called him by his last name, they’d be arrested in the 1930’s. Since this wasn’t Johnny Dickshot, but a smaller version of him, B. Reynolds called him Tiny Dickshot, and he played this song:

Just looking into Tiny Dickshot’s one good eye was said to curse a person, and Tiny Dickshot did curse B. Reynolds but, since he played for the Pirates, which is a curse in itself, it worked as a reverse jinx, and two negatives made it a positive for Bryan Reynolds (3-for-5, 6 RBIs) as he hit his 13th, 14th and 15th homer. After getting off to a very slow start, Reynolds is on pace for having his best power and speed season. Average (.258) is still below where you want it with him, but…I feel weird…What is this…Am I…liking Bryan Reynolds? I think I am. Yikes, maybe I’ve been cursed by Tiny Dickshot. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Mitch Keller – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.14. I fell for the banana in the ol’ tailpipe, didn’t I? I was Mr. Keller’s Got A New Pitch, and, damn, I walked right into that bear trap like I had a hankering for honey. Can’t believe I fell for the Mitch Keller sinker narrative when it was clearly a typo and actually was the Mitch Keller stinker narrative.

Daniel Vogelbach – 1-for-3 and his 10th homer. The Jelly Donut of Swat deep fly’d.

Yerry De Los Santos – 1 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 2.92, as he got the save with David Bednar temporarily sidelined. Fun fact! Yerry De Los Santos & The Pacemakers sang Yerry Cross the Mersey.

Yordan Alvarez – Collided in short center with Jeremy Pena, and Captain Woo Cubano needed to be carted off the field. It was then I began to understand what true sadness was. The loss of a love is always hard to deal with, my shrink told me, and I said, “You’re not gonna charge me by the Kleenex again, are you?” So, this sucks, but hopefully Yordan got back to the clubhouse, saw Jeremy Pena and was like, “I should be able to run over that guy, what am I doing over here?” Oh, Pena left the game too, but Yordan, man, Yordan!

Justin Verlander – 8 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.03. If I were remaking the video for the top 40 hit, Some Guys Have All the Luck by Rod Stewart, I would put frosted hair on Verlander and film him walking with Kate Upton, standing on the mound, winning a Cy Young, and other occasions that are very normal for him. Then when Rod Stewart sang the part, “Some guys have all the pain,” I’d show me looking at my fantasy team while Jose Berrios pitched.

Taijuan Walker – 7 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.72. Streamonator loved this start by Walker, and hates his next one, and, since Walker is due for regression, I would be careful.

Kyle Isbel – 1-for-2 and his 2nd homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. Welp, you don’t have to tell me three times (twice will do) — hot schmotato alert!

Leody Taveras – 2-for-3 and his 1st homer. Hey, there’s that 2021 sleeper! *dodges tomato*

Dane Dunning – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.09. One of the Rangers’ beat writers said, “One of Dane Dunning’s strengths this year is keeping the ball away from the vertical middle-third of the plate. Just 23.9% of his pitches are in that zone, 5th lowest in MLB.” Fair point, but he’s also carrying a 7.9 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9, so he’s not exactly getting great results by being nowhere near the plate.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. – Hit the IL with a back issue of Men’s Health. On the cover was a stripped-down Ricky Martin from the mid-90’s and the title read, “Is Ricky Livin’ La Vida Loca With Too Many Ladies?”

Sandy Alcantara – 9 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 1.95. As good as he’s been, the Marlins have been worse: 31 runs allowed by Sandy Alcantara this season, but only 24 earned. Across MLB overall, 9% of runs are unearned. For Sandy, it’s 23%.

Ryan Helsley – 1 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 0.88 and his 3rd blown save. He seemed to finally get the 9th inning like a closer, and Marmol used him in back-to-back games, and as with all good things, it turned bad. It’s Helsley’s Law.

Dylan Bundy – 5 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 1 K, ERA at 4.71. Finally took the throttle off my Bundy usage, went against Streamonator, and started him in an away game, and he rewarded me with an 83-pitch pfft.

Gio Urshela – 2-for-4 and his 7th homer, and 2nd homer in the last week while hitting around .300. Honestly, from my 3rd base spot in a lot of leagues, that looks like Aaron Judge numbers.

Alex Kirilloff – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. The time for monocles is over, you better be grabbing Kirilloff now.

Max Kepler – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer. As frequent commenter Mark keeps telling me, Kepler’s Statcast looks great (don’t know if that’s true, I’m going off of what Mark is saying — don’t lie, Mark!), but this is Kepler’s third homer since April, so Kepler could get hot, but to say he has been would be an overstatement.

Amed Rosario – 4-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI, stole his 9th bag, hitting .293, hitting near-.360 in the last month. Someone looking for a doctor to fix their batting average? Amed makes house calls.

Cal Quantrill – 8 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.72. Ya know what’s funny but not haha funny about today’s game? Even when a guy goes 8 IP, he does it in less than 100 pitches.

Nick Pivetta – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.23. It’s kinda weird how Pivetta was a fantasy baseballer’s darling, and he sucked. Then, he got good, and I don’t hear much about him at all.

Alex Verdugo – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 6th homer. He’s about as overdue as cleaning your toilet. You’re not supposed to be able to count the rings. It’s not a tree.

Franchy Cordero – 4-for-5, 1 run, and two steals (3, 4). Franchy flies are usually homers, not a comment on his running.

Alek Manoah – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.09. Recently was chatting with Rudy about coin flips that went right and wrong, and it’s so crazy how it could come down to just a few picks, and maybe just two Jays. In leagues where I took Manoah? I’m battling for first. In leagues where I took Berrios, I can’t get anything going.

Eric Lauer – 4 1/3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 4.02. Sigh, he’s broke. He might be able to fix it again. Bdon and I go over him on this week’s podcast. You can watch us on Youtube, if you prefer to see me vape every time Bdon talks.

Rowdy Tellez – 2-for-4 and his 14th and 15th homer, and four homers in three games. Maybe Captain Woo Cubano has been secretly managing Rowdy.

Luis Urias – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. Usually reserve “hot schmotato alerts” for guys who might be available in 50% of leagues or more, but, honestly, I don’t know Urias’s ownership numbers, so do as you will.

Darick Hall – 0-for-4 as he was called up. 16th round pick in the 2016 draft who mashes. About time the Phils put hitting for power and nothing else over defense and approach! The Phils fell asleep watching Edwin Encarnacion career highlights, and decided to make a whole team of E5’s. What are Darick Hall’s initials? DH? Yes, that’s about it, and just for NL-Only for now.

Rhys Hoskins – 2-for-4 and his 14th homer. Rhysus to the rescue! Oh, wait, the Phils lost. Oh well.

Adam Duvall – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer. We haven’t seen his standard 5-homer-in-seven-game heaters this year, but they could happen at any time.

Kyle Wright – 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.03. Had a 4.00-ish ERA in the last two months coming into this game, after a 1.13 ERA in April. He’s not April, but he’s also not completely May/June either. Maybe in July he can have a 3.60 ERA and I can say he’s July. Then he’ll be shut down in August.

Will Smith – 1 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 3.30 and hsi 3rd save. Oh, Snitker’s snitkering at us, huh? Sadly, this doesn’t make it definitively Smith’s job to lose either. I’d still say it’s 60/40 Minter/Smith, until we see both guys repeatedly used in the 8th or 9th inning.

Eric Haase – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, and his 2nd homer in the last three games. He’s going to be in Friday’s Buy column, which is already on the Patreon.

Rony Garcia – 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.28. Streamonator liked this start, and I remember thinking, “What’s that robot smoking?” Then I searched for two hours on Google “What do robots smoke,” which ended with me reading the Wikipedia entry for the buttered cat paradox.

Evan Longoria – 2-for-3 and his 8th homer, 3rd homer in five days, and, if you sort by players rostered in under 25% of leagues on the 7-day Player Rater, Longoria a top five available option.

LaMonte Wade – 1-for-5, leading off, as he was activated from the IL. He’s returning from synthetic joint cushioning injections into his knee, i.e., that foam you blow into a flat tire? He put that in his knee.

Alex Wood – 5 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.03. Feels like the Giants are losing games they should win and their pitchers are being unlucky more than usual like a payback for last year’s ridiculously lucky run.

Mike Clevinger – 6 IP, 0 ER, 2 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.79, in 86 pitches. Hate that he still doesn’t seem fully stretched out, or the Padres just don’t want to push him, but since I watched this game, I can say he looked about as good since he’s returned. An 80 MPH slider paired with a 95 MPH fastball, and the Dbags didn’t know what was coming or going. Not the strongest of opponents, but I came away impressed.

Christopher Morel – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. People seem to luck into a great waiver wire pickup, and all anyone wants to know is if they can drop him. I wonder if David Ross is a commenter, because Morel was bumped down to the nine hole.

Willson Contreras – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer. After he rounded the bases, he sat at a phone bank and fielded calls from perspective trade partners with the Cubs.

Justin Steele – 5 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.39. Justin Steele is not to be confused with Han at the end of Empire. That’s Justin Carbon. Cubs seem to just throw whoever to the wolves as far as hitters and pitchers, but Steele actually seems to appear better on paper than he’s doing. Unlike most Cubs, who appear much worse on paper.

Hunter Greene – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 5.72. If anyone is still running him out there, well, is the league that deep?

Freddie Freeman – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 9th homer. After the game, Freeman said of the homer ball, “I envy that ball, if only I could get that far away from the Dodgers.”

Cody Bellinger – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 10th homer, hitting .213. I would love to see Bellinger get traded to the Rockies. Not because I think it would fix him, but because everyone would get crazy excited for him, and he’d pull a Grichuk.

Archie Bradley – Fractured his elbow in the fight with the Mariners. I don’t know, Archie, you seem more like a Jughead.

Shohei Ohtani – 5 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.68, 0-for-3. I was the only early on talking about how Ohtani would need to rest so much it would hurt his value, but. Dot dot dot. Does he ever need to rest? He’s exhausting me!

Julio Rodriguez – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 12th homer, hitting .275. I’m gonna be so silly high on Jul-Rod next year it’s like I’m trapped in a dispensary on top of Murder Mountain. Also (terrible segue alert!), here’s a Sell on his teammate:

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Ronald Acuña Jr. – Back in Atlanta for treatment on his bruised foot, but is expected to rejoin the Braves this weekend, and we’re expected to believe that.

Aroldis Chapman – Now they’re saying he might not be with the club until Friday. Yanks are really trying to delay making a decision on their closer. Boone gonna just be like, eff it, and throw Aroldis for 75 pitches on Friday so he re-injures himself.

Jameson Taillon – 5 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.32. Clear demarcation line with this guy (and JoMo) that as long as he (they) are commanding his (their) pitches he’s (they’re) good. Sounds like a dad trying to be conscientious of someone’s pronouns. Any hoo! Taillon was a bit wild yesterday, and why he struggled a bit. Streamonator likes his next start, and I do too.

Giancarlo Stanton – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 19th homer, and that’s five homers in the last six games, and his last six hits were all homers, and the last daydream I had I was wearing a whipped cream bathing suit like the girl in Varsity Blues and Giancarlo was a giant tongue.

Aaron Judge – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 29th homer. Could he enter the All-Star Game with 39 homers, tying Barry Bonds for the most by the break? Let’s hear some calls into WFAN…Hello you’re on. “Hey, I’m Joey from Cedarhurst. Dis season from Judge is hundred percent bing bong! As long as da Astros don’t use no buzzers under their jerseys or use buzzers under da Yankees jerseys to tell them the wrong pitches, we’re gonna win number 28! Shoutout to Mary in Bethpage, I love you, baby!”