Do you know what humanity’s face looks like? It’s very specifically Cher from the If I Could Turn Back Time music video. When she’s shining down on a team, there’s no stopping them. There will be signs that are undeniable. One sign will be Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (1-for-5, 2 RBIs) hitting his 5th home run. People previously thought he was going to the plate without a bat and just swinging his fist like handball. The videographers were slowing down the tape to see if he was swinging a bat or a fist. He was swinging a bat, poorly. Another sign Cher from the If I Could Turn Back Time music video was smiling down on the Jays was Dylan Cease (8 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 3 BBs, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.56). In my top 100 for the 2nd half (available on Patreon this week; on site next week), I realize something about Cease that I will share with you now after this awkward segue. Misiorowski fixed his command and became the best pitcher in baseball, and, if Cease were to fix his command or just faced a team that swung at a lot of garbage, he’d also be one of the best pitchers. Yesterday, was the latter. Dylan Cease came up a little short of the no-hitter but only because he was a bit too wild. Perennial Cy Young stuff if he ever reined in the command. Though, at 30 years of age, it might be too late for him. If only he could TURN BACK TIME! If he could FIND A WAY! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Kazuma Okamoto – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 21st homer. No kidding, I wonder if Murakami is out there rehabbing thinking, “I can’t let that guy beat me in homers, I need to return, pronto.”
George Springer – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 9th homer, hitting .222. Vlad Jr. has been cheeks (derogatory), but Springer, because I don’t roster him, has avoided a lot of scorn from me, while being his own form of hot, stinky garbage.
Logan Webb – 7 IP, 5 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.86. Pitchers should be warned against having an exceptional month, because the expectations for the next month are way too high. Like I’d say during my state championship third runner-up title for limbo’ing, keep the bar low.
Jared Jones – 6 IP, 0 ER, 0 hits, 0 walks, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.37. A couple of thoughts here. 1) Braves have been a mess for a few weeks now. 2) Great effort from Jones, but it takes more than that to declare a guy out of the woods from struggling for, well, basically his whole career. 3) There’s no 3. 4) Depending on the size of league, I could grabbing him now before someone else does, if he were dropped. 5) No, that’s about it.
Endy Rodriguez – Hit the IL with a glute strain. Happens when you push too hard. Common blunder!
Grant Holmes – 5 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.61. Grant Holmes and Bryce Elder are tagging in and out like Cowboy Bob Orton and Don Muraco for who will wear the Shroud of Touki. Streamonator isn’t locked and loaded for after the break yet, but I’d look at Holmes.
Kyle Stowers – 1-for-3 and his 12th homer, 2nd homer in three games, and four homers in four games. Stowers of powers!
Tyler Phillips – 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.28 vs. George Kirby – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.76. Watched the majority of this matchup and not to Bobby Darin on anyone’s Phillips parade, but Kirby looked much better, and Phillips was especially meh to watch. A lot of, “Wow, can’t believe Phillips got out of that.”
Pete Crow-Armstrong – 2-for-4, 3 runs and his 20th and 21st homer, hitting .296. If he is going to take another massive dump in the 2nd half, at least he’s tacking on the good stuff before the break.
Carson Kelly – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 5th homer. He’s hitting .283, which I know is absurd without looking at any of his underlying metrics.
Michael Conforto – 1-for-4 and his 8th homer, 3rd homer in a week. He’s been a hot schmotato for a minute. Not an Urban Dictionary minute, which is a long time. Just, ya know, about a week.
Seiya Suzuki – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .260. Seiya ball!
Dean Kremer – 5 IP, 4 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.09. Other than four homers allowed, it wasn’t a bad start. [dodges thrown tomato] What?
Pete Alonso – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer, hitting .250. Albombso!
Tyler O’Neill – 2-for-2 and his 4th and 5th homer, both of which came after he entered the game as a pinch-hitter, which really deflates their impact like a needle to his biceps. Uh, not that kind of needle.
Luis Garcia Jr. – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and a slam (20) and legs (4), hitting .291. I’m gonna name my firstborn LuGaJuJu.
CJ Abrams – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer, hitting .276. Squeeze the Corange Juice and it’s all pulp, baby!
Foster Griffin – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 hits, zero walks, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.77. Suddenly, I’m the world’s biggest Nats fan. I love everything that’s going on there. It starts with Wood and it goes all the way down to the 9-hole. That’s not a euphemism.
Spencer Arrighetti – 4 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 4.50. Sp. Arrighetti is inedible macaroni. Stick it in your hat because you can’t eat it.
Chase Burns – 5 IP, 3 ER, 3 hits, 6 BBs, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.54. Six walks to two strikeouts is the stuff of nightmares. Sell, daddy, before regression comes home!
Sal Stewart – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 18th and 19th homer. Was worried when his May/June was a come-down from his March/April, but, as with most great hitters, as the pitchers adjusted to him, he adjusted right back. S’al good, man!
JJ Bleday – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer. Sounds like growing discontent with Bleday recently. I like hitters in a goofy park like Cincy in the summer months.
Elly De La Cruz – 2-for-3, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer. E!’s wild on the Phillies and Noelvi Marte (2-for-5, 4 RBIs) hit his 6th homer. Before looking at the game, I thought the Phils pitched Nola.
Kyle Schwarber – 1-for-4 and his 32nd homer, 2nd homer in two games and thirty-second homer in 89 games. Schwarber does Schwarbombers.
Christian Scott – 5 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.17. His underlying numbers look great — 10.8 K/9, 4.3 BB/9. Not sure why the command is so bad, but that’s usually one of the stronger aspects to his game, so it’s all rather encouraging and I suddenly sound British. Cheerio! Ta!
A.J. Ewing – 2-for-5 and his 7th homer, and 2nd homer in two games, and third homer in four games. Not sure if he’s rostered everywhere, but he should be, at least while a hot schmotato.
Alex Lange – 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.92. Why not just wrap a turd in foil, put it in a Yodels box and let me snack on it?
Kyle Karros – 2-for-4 and his 8th homer, 2nd homer in four games. He hit this one in Dodger Stadium while his father watched, and while I read a 12th birthday card from my daddy while he read a 12th birthday card from his daddy while we listened to Cat’s In The Cradle. Can you even handle the emotion you’re feeling right now?
MacKenzie Gore – 5 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 4.72. I’ve unofficially decided to not mention starters who have ERAs over 5, and Gore’s diddling the line.
Mike Trout – 1-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer as he was activated from the IL. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “Hey, Claire, sorry about commenting ‘again??????’ on your birth announcement.”
Jo Adell – 2-for-4, 3 runs, 5 RBIs and his 12th and 13th homer. Buy! Might be late now, but Buy! anyway.
Vaughn Grissom – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 4 RBIs, as he hits third, hitting .249. That was the same number of hits he’s had total since mid-June. That’s VG, not as in very good.
Walbert Urena – 4 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 5 BBs, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.88. Walbert’s wheels were teet-teet-teetering, but did not fall completely off. They will at some point, and Streamonator will never like him.
Jake Bennett – 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.64. Sigh. I picked him up, then dropped him right before the start for a bat to fill-in my corner slot, then saw Soderstrom was back so I didn’t need the fill-in, but I already dropped Bennett and thought if I went back it was bad luck. I’m literally the scarediest of cats. He’s got a 6.6 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, and 50+% ground ball rate, so prone to BABIP misfires, but can battle through Fenway because of the heavy ball.
Shane McClanahan – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 4 hits, zero walks, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.83. McClanhananananan being helped by Yananananananandy Diaz (4-for-4, 1 run, hitting .327) and Jonathanananannananananan Arananananananananada (2-for-3, 3 RBIs, hitting .284).
Gerrit Cole – 6 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.04. For what it’s Wuertz, everything looks fine, except for his command, which could still take time to return. Velo is still crisp as a Pringle.
Brandon Woodruff – Additional testing showed new injury to anterior shoulder capsule, and I want to cry. Say bye bye, need Clearasil.
Kyle Harrison – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.01. Hmm, that’s the kinda outing one has when one is injured I hope one is not injured and I’m worried so much I’m doing a run-on sentence.
Alec Burleson – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 15th homer. Not sure who Burleson pissed off, but he’s hitting 5th now, and he’s a top 50 overall guy on the Player Rater. Considering he doesn’t add much in speed, i.e., he’s giving a lot of real-life value and not empty stats, not sure what’s going on.
Michael McGreevy – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.01. McGreevy’s one of those guys who makes me wish I knew less. If I were just going off of vibes and ERA, I’d be in on McGreevy all season. Because I’m an idiot that knows stuff, I look at McGreevy’s stats (5.8 K/9!) and ugh. Command is nice (2 BB/9), but ugh again. Double ugh.
Michael King – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.41. More like a 4.41 ERA pitcher, so, yeah, still not the “King stays King.”
Rhys Hoskins – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer, and 2nd homer in two games. Hot schmotato alert!
Brayan Rocchio – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 7th homer. His overall stats (7/15/.272) are shockingly decent. I know, if “shockingly decent” gives you a four-hour erection, then your doctor’s on speed dial, but that’s not nothing.
Max Muncy – Optioned to the minors by the A’s. Bit surprised by this but in the fine print on the MLB Constitution it does say there can only be one Max Muncy. I guess the A’s are really happy with Joshua Kuroda-Grauer. Brucely, I am too in my AL-Only league.
Tyler Soderstrom – 1-for-3, 1 run as he was activated from the IL. Whoa, that was fast. I hope the A’s know what they’re doing because it would’ve been easy to let him stay on the IL through next week’s break. Please, don’t make me the voice of reason.
Spencer Torkelson – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 15th homer, hitting .215. Torkelson manages to consistently be the most boring 27-30 home run hitter.
Troy Melton – 5 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 1.82. I’m hesitant about saying negative things about a guy who isn’t even rostered in 100% of leagues, but Melton is officially pitching much worse than his 1.82 ERA. That does not mean I wouldn’t roster him, while he was still careening through raindrops without getting wet.
Justin Verlander – Announced he would be getting a Legends spot in the All-Star Game, and Verlander said he would retire at the end of the season. If I had more money than needed for five lifetimes and Kate Upton waiting for me at home, I would’ve retired seventeen years ago, but we’re built different, I guess. This reminds me of a story. A while back, I was being driven to a set in a production van, and Danny DeVito was in the van with me (and about seven other people). Anyway, we were passing by a huge billboard of a swimsuit model, and Danny says, loudly, “Can you believe it, there’s someone somewhere sick of f**king her.”
