Can We Get Some Sugano With That Fried D’oh?!

I’ll be honest with y’all. When I saw that Tomoyuki Sugano (3.2 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 4 Ks, and the no-decision) was scheduled to throw last night at Yankee Stadium, I reserved him faster than you could spell his name correctly (kudos if you got it on the first try).

The equally tough news is that Max Fried didn’t fare much better if you were looking for that W in a H2H league. 6 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 0 BB, 7 Ks wasn’t enough to snag Max his league-leading 10th win of the season, but the quality start and zero walks kept those pristine ratios in check.

The funniest part of it all? The winning pitcher was Baltimore’s Scott Blewett (2-0). So Blewett came in and picked up a vulture win. And that means he didn’t blow it. But he is Blewett. And you know what you needed to do to that Fried dough to cool it off when it came out of the oil. You probably should’ve blown… never mind.

Here’s what else I saw last night in Fantasy Baseball… 

Jackson Holliday – 3-for-5, R, SB (7) as he hit leadoff and DH’ed in place of Adley Rutschman (scratched with abdominal pain).

Aaron Judge – 3-for-4, R, RBI, and his 27th homer. Hitting .371. Fun fact: if he were Canadian, he’d spell his first name as EhEh-Ron.

George Kirby – 5 IP, 4 ER, 7 H, (2 HR), 1 BB, 3 Ks. Well, I guess that’s it. I’m pretty sure the rule is that if an ace pitcher loses a head-to-head matchup with Matt Boyd and/or Michael Wacha in one season, they have to retire. Happy trails, George.

Cal Raleigh – 3-for-4, 4 R, 3 RBI, 2 HR (28, 29) and a steal (2)! The man with the big dump gets a good jump and adds his 2nd stolen base of the year, too? NBD for our favorite booty meater, Cal Raleigh. He just tied and passed Johnny Bench as the first catcher to eat a box of donuts in less than 7 seconds…oh, AND to hit 29 bombs before the All-Star break. Wow.  King Dumper 

Mitch Garver – 2-for-4, 3 R, 5 RBI, 2 HR (2, 3). I guess it was dinger night for backstops in Seattle. Someone call Dan Wilson and ask if he had a good day, too.

Matthew Boyd – 5 IP, 2 ER, 2 H, 2 BB, 6 Ks. 76 pitches. It’s not a quality start, but it’s pretty darn close. And he caught a 104.7 MPH comebacker from J.P. Crawford like it was no big deal. Yeah, Boyd!

Reese McGuire – Kirby was down 3-2 in the bottom of the 5th when McGuire jacked one off the first row of seats beyond the Wrigley Field ivy in centerfield.

Jacob deGrom – 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 7 Ks, and his 7th win. ERA at 2.24. WHIP at 0.92. That’s three wins in his last four (no-decision vs CWS June 10), and a cool dozen consecutive starts with two or fewer earned runs allowed.

Adolis Garcia – 3-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI, HR (9). The .237 average leaves a bit to be desired, but at least he’s giving us a healthy dose of RBIs (35) and SBs (7).

Mike Burrows – 4.2 IP, 4 ER, 7 H, BB, 4 Ks, 2 HR allowed. Might as well bury the head in the sand after this one. If only there were a word for that.

Joey Bart – 3-for-4, RBI. Batting .248. A fine second catcher in those deep leagues, but with just one homer in 178 PAs, I wouldn’t expect much more than that.

Jack Flaherty – 2.1 IP, 8 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 3 Ks. ERA at 4.83. Giving up home runs to famed burner of worms, Yandy Diaz, and hard-hit doubles to Matt Thaiss isn’t the best recipe for success. Yikes.

Riley Greene – 3-for-3, 3 R, 4 RBI, 2 HR (14, 15). Greene was one of the lone bright spots for Detroit (Colt Keith hit his 9th HR, too), but this one was over before the end of the 3rd inning.

Yandy Diaz – 3-for-5, 2 R, 2 RBI, 2 HR (9, 10). Hitting .277. Yandy is just dandy if you roster him as your corner infielder.

Matt Thaiss – 3-for-4, 2 R, 4 RBI, batting .239. A deeper dive and shout out to Laura here. Nothing like a 3-hit night to boost your average up to…what’s better than a barf emoji? A gag emoji?

Shane Baz – 5.1 IP, 5 ER, 4 H, 4 BB, 6 Ks. An all-expense-paid trip to the I-Victory coast for Baz last night, courtesy of Captain Jack Flaherty. Can yar guess how many wins he’s got under that thar belt? If you said seven, (a) you cheated, (b) you are like me, a sucker who still rosters him in multiple leagues, or (c)…

Spencer Turnbull – 2 IP, 4 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 2 Ks. The Jays’ front office had it all set up perfectly. They’ve been one of the hottest teams in baseball since mid-May and they needed to bring Turnbull up in a favorable matchup. A home start against CWS? What could go wrong?!

Andrew Benintendi – 2-for-5, R, 2 RBI, HR (8), and Luis Robert Jr. – 1-for-5, R, 2 RBI, HR (7). Oh. That’s what could go wrong.

Bo Bichette – 3-for-4 with his 19th 2B. Hitting .278. No SBs, but I felt obligated to put Bo in here if only so people wouldn’t forget about him. Hopefully, he pushes his average even closer to .300 so the Jays can get something good for him at the deadline if they fall out of the wild card race.

Ronald Acuna Jr. – 2-for-4, R, SB (2). Ronald Aura Jr with his second swipe of the year! Only 71 more to get back to that 2023 total!

Janson Junk – 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 H, 0 BB, 5 Ks. The Janson 5. Beating the visiting Braves? It’s easy as Doh Ray Mi!

Agustin Ramirez – 2-for-4, R, 4 RBI, HR (11). Ramirez’s bomb in the 3rd inning put the Marlins ahead for good. His 11 HR is the best on the team. Good news for those who roster Ramirez. Bad news for those who roster any other Marlins hitters.

Brady Singer (6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 Ks) at Andre Pallante (6 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 4 Ks). Pallante/Singer could’ve been a playbill cover at the opera, or a pitching duel. If you’re a Cards fan, you’ll be happy to know it was the latter and that Pallante moves to 5-3 on the year. It might be time to tell that Top 100 Starting Pitcher list guy to take a look at adding Pallante next week.

Masyn Winn – 2-for-5, R, RBI, hitting .255. Winn and Lars Nootbaar (.263) both had two hits, but there wasn’t much more offense to report here.

Zack Wheeler – 5 IP, 0 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 8 Ks and the no-decision. I don’t know what’s worse, having a great name like Blade Tidwell (3.2 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 4 Ks) and getting excited to get called up to the bigs…only to find out you’re facing Zack Wheeler… OR, throwing a 4-hit shutout over 5 innings and not getting the win.

Pete Alonso – 1-for-4 and his 19th homer. I have him as my 1B in TGFBI, and was still surprised when I saw his batting average last night. If you’re guessing it’s at .275, you’re still too low.

Bryson Stott – 1-for-2, 2 BB, 3 RBI, and a bases-clearing double (7). While we’re on the subject of TGFBI, this guy is my 2B. He’s been hitless in just three of his last 10 games.

Nick Castellanos – 3-for-5, 3 R, 3 RBI, HR (8). Hitting .282 out of the clean-up s- “and there’s a long drive to deep left field…”

Jacob Misiorowski – 6 IP, 2 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 6 Ks, and perfect until a walk and a two-run bomb to Matt Wallner broke up the party. The Miz won the first of his career in just his second big league start, and if you’re not all over this kid in keeper leagues, you need to get on it.

Joe Ryan – 5.1 IP, 3 ER, 3 H, 3 BB, 7 Ks and one hell of a ticker shock. The 17-6 drubbing was mostly charged to three bullpen arms (14 ER). Don’t worry, though, Danny Coloumbe and Jhoan Duran managed to get three outs and escape unscathed.

Matt Wallner – 1-for-4, R, 2 RBI, HR (6). I noticed it yesterday afternoon when I was looking through my AL-only team. Before taking The Miz deep, Wallner had 5 HR and 8 RBIs on the year. Injuries cost him some time, but 6 HR and 10 RBIs in 115 ABs? Ugh.

Christian Yelich – 4-for-6, 0 R, 8 RBIs. Hitting .252. Eight runs batted in and zero runs scored? What? All I know is, I hope you didn’t trade him yet, Martin!  Then again, Jackson Chourio (2-for-3, 4 R, 3 RBI, HR) and Sal Frelick (3-for-5, 3 R, 2 RBI) more than chipped in in the runs scored department.

Hunter Brown – 5 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 2 BB, 4 Ks. It was a solid start for Brown, whose only blemish was when he was victimized by a certain blossoming superstar…

Uh Oh

Jo Adell – 1-for-3 and his 16th homer. Hitting .223. That’s a big fly in three straight games. Oh, Jo! Whaddaya know?! Jo Adell has been on one heck of a heater. Grey said this last week, but Adell has been what we were hoping to get from Adolis Garcia. Well, I was hoping I’d get it from Adell because I roster him everywhere, but you catch my drift.

Jeremy Pena and Isaac Paredes – 2-for-3, R, RBI, HR. Pena hit his 10th. Paredes hit his 16th. They were headed to extras when I typed this up last night.

Yusei Kikuchi – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 9 Ks and ZERO WALKS. If you’re a regular reader of the Top 100 Starting Pitchers, you’ll know how much concern there’s been about Kikuchi’s control troubles. Including this start, he’s now walked just three batters in his last 20 IP (3 GS).

Michael Lorenzen – 5.1 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 3 BB, 4 Ks. I joke a lot about these 5-and-change starts robbing our Roto-players on leagues with a quality start category, but at least Lorenzen was on his way to a win before Lucas Erceg coughed up a couple (2 ER) in his inning of work.

Jonathan India – 3-for-5, R, 3 RBI, HR (4). Hitting .245. I don’t know where the legs went (zero SB in 256 ABs), but more of these multi-hit games will boost that AVG closer to what we expected when we drafted him.

Bobby Witt Jr. – 1-for-5 and his 10th HR. “God dang it, Bobby. How many times do I have to tell you we expected 20 home runs with those 21 steals by now?”

Nick Pivetta – 4.2 IP, 4 ER, 6 H, 2 BB, 3 Ks, 2 HRs. The ratios aren’t bad…yet. But outside of a nice start last week in Arizona, Pivetta has given up 4+ ER in three of his last four starts.

Manny Machado – 2-for-5, 2 R, RBI, HR (12). I guess someone is happy that Tatis’s hand scans came back negative.

Tanner Bibee – 8 IP, 4 ER, 11 H, 0 BB, 10 Ks. Sure, the hits allowed aren’t great, but the zero walks and double-digit strikeouts are pretty sweet. That doesn’t help that he dropped to 4-7 last night, though.

Angel Martinez – 1-for-3 and his 5th HR. This was all the offense the Guardians could muster against…

Jeffrey Springs – 7.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 6 Ks. He’s been slipping in the Top 100 SPs for a few weeks now, so this is a welcome sight. The fact that it happened in Bing Bing Stadium is even more surprising.

Nick Kurtz – 1-for-4, 1 R, 2 RBI, HR (10). As hot as Jo Adell has been in Anaheim, this kid has been even hotter. Kurtz has now homered in 5 of his last 6 games and is well on his way to making up for the time he lost with the hip injury at the beginning of the month. It was a good night in the AL-Only league for MarmosDad last night!  Kurtz hurts

MacKenzie Gore – 5.2 IP, 5 ER, 7 H, 4 BB, 4 Ks. It just goes to show you that no matter how excellent your season is going, facing the Avengers in LA can bring it all crashing down around you.

CJ Abrams – 2-for-4, 2 R, RBI, HR (10). Hitting .279. Abrams homered off Tanner Scott in the 9th inning, but WSH still came up short in the comeback (lost 6-5).

Clayton Kershaw – 5 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 4 Ks. The only real blemish was two solo homers. Other than that, Kershaw looked pretty good. The bullpen managed to hold the lead for him, too (barely).

Hunter Dobbins – 4 IP, 4 ER, 4 H, 5 BB, 1 K. Dobbins is not a free elf. Dobbins needs someone to gift him a sock or something so he can escape the BB monster.

Ceddanne Rafaela – 3-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI, HR (7). Duran, Rafaela, Wilyer in the OF, and Anthony at DH? Yikes. Imagine if they had another DH they had to work into that lineup. *grinning teeth emoji

Hayden Birdsong – 4.1 IP, 4 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 4 Ks. He had a better night than Dobbins did, but we need to see more consistency if he’s going to be more than a streamer in your 12-team leagues.

Rafael Devers – 0-for-5 as he DH’ed against his former club. Maybe he forgot to pack his glove.

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it!  Drop some comments in the chat if you’ve got any comments or questions about the performances from last night.

 

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