The Braves opened up their new park in style last night and Ender Inciarte began the charge going 2-for-4 with his third home run and two RBI. It’s a new year and new park and with that comes and new line of over-the-top ballpark food. Come for the cannolis, craft beer and 5 lb pork chop sandwich, stay for the Braves win. Speaking of winners, this was Ender’s Game and we were all just alien Buggers living in this crazy war-torn universe, preparing for the next Invasion against the Fleet. Just ignore that the book/movie is subliminally telling you to hate the gays and eat at Chic-fil-a. Inciarte must be a “Third.” Ender has the privilege of being the first player in SunTrust park history to collect a hit, score a run, and hit a home run. That’s right, folks, Inciarte is officially the greatest hitter in SunTrust Park history. In addition, he’s now homered in back-to-back games after hitting two bombs on Wednesday and Ender has been known to get hot quick. In 131 games last year, Ender hit .291 with 3 homers and 16 stolen bases. He’s already matched his 2016 homer total! That’s gotta be a good sign, right!? He’s available in about 40% of ESPN leagues, and if he’s still out there I’d grab him while the Braves are still undefeated at home. This might not last long. Come on Atlanta, let’s give him the chop!
Here what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Aaron Nola – 5.0 IP, 6 hits, ER, 6 K. Nola was a real treat to own in the early going last season but completely fell apart in the second half. 2.93 ERA in April-May, 8.36 ERA in June-July. The difference this year is you had to draft him to get him for his April-May, and now you’ll just have to remember to trade him before you get his June-July.
Stephen Strasburg – 7.0 IP, 5 hits, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K. Just because I would never draft you, doesn’t mean I don’t want to own you. Whose fastball would you rather take to your chest? No pads. Max or Strasburg? Watching Stephen pitch, I think I’m leaning slightly towards Max, but the whole scenario seems unnecessary.
Salvador Perez – 1-for-3, HR (5), 2 RBI. When your catcher leads the league is home runs your fantasy team is having a good time.
Mike Moustakas – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBI, HR (4). Oh hey, Moose. Remember when you were the bane of my existence? Me neither! You the man now, doggo!
Danny Duffy – 7.0 IP, 3 hits, ER, 2 BB, 6 K, W. Duffy was the first pitcher I drafted in a few leagues and I got some heat for it. They told me, “Bro!? what are you doing, bro? You got no pitching. Duffy, bro? You gots to be kidding me.” And I was all like, “Bro! You gotta trust me, bro. Trust me. We can’t be bros if you don’t trust me.” Danny Boy is rocking a 1.80 ERA and 1.05 WHIP so far, and its safe to say he’s my bro.
Matt Davidson – 2-for-4, HR (3). Hitting .364 with five extra base hits and nine RBI. I thought about the possibility of thinking about maybe considering the prospect of deciding whether or not I should pick him up. But then the LSD kind of wore off so I decided to go swimming.
Dee Gordon – 3-for-5, run, RBI, SB (3). FLASH. AAA-AHHHHHH! Savior of the universe! (Well, Florida, at least. But that’s a great place to start).
Lucas Duda – 2-for-3, HR (4). Dudabides! Happy Passover! Another year and The Duda returns shomer shabbos with Friday home runs so I can quote the movie we all quote way too much. Grey told you to BUY and you should abide by that advice or shut the h*ck up, Donny.
Noah Syndergaard – 6.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 hits, ER, 4 K. Left this game with a “pulled back fingernail,” which I bet looks a lot grosser than it sounds. I certainly wish I had an ace who pitched outings like this when he was injured. “What about Duffy, bro?” “Bro! stay outta my blog, I’m working, bro!” By the power of Asgaard, Thor will see to it that his new movie trailer is amazing by adding more scenes of the superhero we should be really making another Marvel movie about. The Hulk.
Michael Conforto – 1-for-3, RBI. Conforto is so trending right now. Like cold brew and coconut milk trending. Grey told you to BUY, and he may be stuck in a platoon but that shouldn’t deter fans of the hipster’s favorite player–hipsters. In fact, that only makes him cooler because when he does finally get more playing time that means they liked him before he was cool. And there’s nothing cooler than that!
Jonathan Villar – 1-for-3, run, RBI, 3 SB (4). Ryan Braun also stole 2 bases. Sweet sassy molassy! Yeesh Reds pitching, pick-off-a-batter-much or nah? When one game drastically shifts the dynamic of your roto league. #aprilfantasyproblems
Daniel Norris – 6.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, W. Norris has a 2.19 ERA and 1.30 WHIP in his two starts but the 7/7 K/BB rate don’t impress me much, Shania. I could see using him for his match up in Tampa next Thursday though.
Miguel Cabrera – 2-for-3, 3-run HR (2). Miggy spent the offseason training with B. Rabbit and Mekhi Phifer in the ‘Roit and is ready to take on Tha Free World and bring the fire.
Brad Miller – 3-for-4, 3 runs, HR (1). How is it that this jabroni ended up being 80% owned. Is it the position eligibility? Is it the 30 homers in 2016? Or did you think you were drafting the former Sacramento Kings big man? It was the homers wasn’t it.
Logan Morrison – 2-for-5, with a grand slam (3) as the Rays scored 10 runs. You better believe he live tweeted it, too! Next time add it to the snap story already, LoMo. Don’t you even social media!?
Chris Archer – 5.2 IP, 6 hits, ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 2nd win. Archer has a 2.21 ERA and 18/6 K/BB and grabbed his second win last night. After locking in Archer as my Cy Young pick last season he proceeded to lose no less than 20 games, so this year I will spare him any praise and hopefully he’ll just do his thing.
Rick Porcello – 4.1 IP, 8 hits, 8 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 4 HR. Woof. Not a fully good show for the defending Cy Young. Porcello sort of came out of nowhere as an ace last year but I’m afraid for fantasy purposes I just don’t see him in the ace territory. I’m not saying Porcello won’t be solid, I’m saying if you can sell him at an ace price I would explore options. Mathematical!
Mookie Betts – 4-for-5, run, RBI. Oh, welcome back, old friend. How I have missed you bbe. Feeling better? You are hydrating right? How are your BMs? I want to hear all about it. I tried to bring you some soup and gatorade but I was denied entry by your security team! To be fair, I probably shouldn’t have been crawling into that window.
Xander Bogaerts – 3-for-4, RBI. AWESOME-X! I listed Bogey as my “infatuation” in our Razzball picks, but I feel infatuation is a bit strong its more of an obsession or a manic fixation of passion. I said last year, “…if I can’t win a fantasy championship with Xander as my shortstop I don’t want to win at all.” Extreme, perhaps, but I want to let you all know that me and X achieved this goal last fall, and we have started planning the next phase in our life together.
Gerrit Cole – 6.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, BB, 5 K, W. I think G. Cole is having Wet Dreamz about this upcoming season. That’s a rap reference people, this is a family-friendly blog…that references a lot of not-so-family-friendly rap. Hmm.
Clayton Kershaw – 8.1 IP, 4 hits, ER, BB, 8 K, W. Yo, bro he is good at throwing baseballs, no, bro? Bro! I told you I’m happy with my tier-3 ace! Now come at me or bro out of it!
Zack Greinke – 5.0 IP, 10 hits, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. When you’re all excited about coming home Easter Sunday but then you get there and you can’t remember why you were looking forward to it in the first place.
Andrew Toles – 2-for-5, 2 runs, HR (3), 2 RBI. The Bell Toles for Andrew, apparently, who led off for the Dodgers last night. Toles has 3 homers in the past week and even though he’s stuck in a platoon he responding positively. I could see adding that?
Jarrod Dyson – 2-for-3, SB (3). SAGNOF. His second steal in as many games. With Segura set to return, this could hurt Dyson’s chances of hitting in the top of the order more. Still, he should remain a great source of cheap speed, which is how some of the best worst nights of my life started.
Carlos Gomez – 2-for-4. I rarely tell you to outright buy players because trading is for people with social skills and I don’t want to be blamed for ruining your team, but if you can somehow net CarGo Lite before he goes off I think you would like this result.
Chris Davis – 2-for-3, 2 runs, HR (3). THE POWER OF CHRIS COMPELS ME! THE POWER OF CHRIS COMPELS ME!
Wade Miley – 6.0 IP, 5 hits, 3 ER, 8 K, W. Miley can’t stop. Miley won’t stop. Dude is a wrecking ball. Are these references still relevent? What if I told you he’s “woke.” Wade has 2.45 ERA, 1.18 WHIP in his first two starts and gets Cincinnati next week. I would consider owning as long as he stay woke.
Jon Gray – Headed to the DL. Gray has a fracture in his foot and is set to miss at least a month. I would never say I told you so, because I don’t think of this post as giving advice, more as rambling or ranting. But I guess that’s what you get for drafting a Coors ace. Actually this is probably one of the more positive scenarios.
Austin Romine – 2-f0r-4, HR (1). Back-to-back multi-hit games sure, but Gary Sanchez would have had back-to-back multi-homer games. Boo Austin for not being Gary! Boooo!
Mitch Haniger – 2-for-4, RBI. Grey told you to BUY! Click the link to read all about him! That’s how the internet works–but that’s not how the force works! That’s my Han Solo impression. Seattle fans are almost as excited about Haniger as I am about The Last Jedi trailer. “Hey, nice segue, writer guy!” Thanks! I just want to talk Star Warses. Also, clicks. Did you see those AT-ATs? OP Rey be OP? Whiny Kylo be whiny? And why Captain Phasma do dat? She mad? Is this the end of JEDI? I have so many questions!
Thanks for reading! Questions? Problems? Complaints to management? Advice, small gifts or large bribes? Please leave it in the comments below. Join us next Saturday for another Friday recap as fantasy baseball continues next week, all week long!
