Gavin All My Love To You

Ya know when you don’t know where you’re going in NYC and the taxis take you for a whole ride? “I’d like to go to see the Empire State Building.” “Right-o, champ! Tourist, huh?” “Yes, I am very happy to be in your great city.” Boom, he’s taking you from Chinatown to LaGuardia. You’re gonna be in Queens at his cousin’s quinceañera for four hours before you get where you’re going. So, that journey to the Empire State Building? That’s my feelings this year on Gavin Williams (7 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 3.81). My feelings on him have taken a whole ride. I started with, “Nah, I’m good,” because his command last year (4.5 BB/9) was so hideous, and his strikeouts (9.3 K/9) couldn’t sustain them. Then this year, with each start, I’ve traveled to a different borough, metaphorically, finally landing in the Staten Island of feelings as he now sits at 10.6 K/9, 3 BB/9, 3.17 xFIP. There’s a lot of starters who are exceeding expectations but Gavin Williams is one of the few who is actually a buy low, and I actually now love him as I look at the window to the Meat Packing District. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Gabriel Arias – 1-for-4 and his 2nd homer in four games. I wouldn’t say it’s the age of Arias, but it might be the week of.

Chase DeLauter – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer, hitting .279, and his 2nd homer in four games. DeLauter might be getting the juice back together. “Getting the juice back together” is a common expression for getting hot. Learn something once in a while!

Connor Prielipp – Hit the IL with a blister. “Somebody doesn’t pee on their hands.” That’s Moises Alou.

Bailey Ober – 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.40, as he was activated from the IL. Hmm, now I think the Prielipp blister has a bridge in Kansas to sell me. Well, whatever, Ober does nothing for me, for fantasy or otherwise.

Royce Lewis – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 9th homer. Studies need to be conducted in Stamford or Davos or somewhere that sounds smart and research what on earth happened to Royce Lewis.

Munetaka Murakami – Will be activated today. Absolutely called that shizz. I said once Okamoto passed him in homers he was going to speed-run his rehab back the majors, and sho’ nuff! Wait, that’s a different Japanese player.

Aaron Judge – Will have new imaging done during the All-Star Break. Are they worried about too much exposure to radiation? I’d have my star player being imaged daily. Let’s see some progress!

Ben Rice – 2-for-4, 3 runs, 5 RBIs and his 27th and 28th homer. Twice-a-HRoni!

Austin Wells – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 5th homer. Guess what he’s hitting. Go ahead! You’ll surely get within thirty points of his average and, yes, I called you Shirley. Bzzt! Wrongo! He’s hitting .151. Anyone would be hitting 151, if they were hitting that poorly.

Junior Caminero – 1-for-4 and his 27th homer, hitting .277. One day I’d like to feel the joys of Juco Loco. Instead, I’m Mr. Four-Year Smart Guy with freakin’ Eugenio!

Drew Rasmussen – 2 1/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.26. Quit ‘mussen with my feelings.

Mark Vientos – Suffered a fractured hand on a HBP by Wacha. Finally, Wacha does something good. Vientos’s out for weeks, at least, and that moved A.J. Ewing to 2nd base. [gets out intrigued crayon] Color me up, crayon!

Juan Soto – 1-for-2, 2 runs and his 21st homer, hitting .297. He has four homers in July. [checking calendar] That’s nine days!

Sean Manaea – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.56. Don’t trust him, don’t think anyone does so not earth-shattering news there, but Streamonator loved this one because it was a good matchup. That’s about it.

Lane Thomas – 1-for-4 and his 7th homer. Someone’s suppressing Tolbert-mania! You think we’re gonna do Lane-mania? Lania?! Not happening! Stay in your Lane! Though, Lane does have two homers in the past week and won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column, but could be hot. Ya been notified!

Bobby Witt Jr. – 1-for-4 and his 13th homer. Joys de Witt are never-ending with The Ropers!

Michael Wacha – 4 2/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.77. Fozzie Bear, “Wacha, Wacha, sucka!” Whoa, harsh Fozzie.

Randy Arozarena – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 10th homer, hitting .287. Wonder if the Rice Bowl or anyone on the M’s looks at Josh Naylor (2 more steals, 17th and 18th) and thinks, “Biscuit pants sure can’t run, but he sure can steal bags.”

Dominic Canzone – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer, hitting .269. I’m so psyched he’s breaking out. This must be what childbirth feels like. “Mr. Canzone, I’m your mommy!”

Bryce Miller – 5 IP, 4 ER, 13 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.18. Marlins are a freakin’ buzzsaw all of a sudden (well, since the beginning of June).

Owen Caissie – Hit the IL with a hamstring strain. Rece Hinds was recalled, i.e., a Rece-call on Hinds, the number 57 was misplaced on bottles; people are complaining they’re banging the side of the jar and seeing no movement.

Griffin Conine – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 4th homer. They’re giving out home runs to nepo babies now? Ess em dee aitch!

Jesus Luzardo – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 3.51. No one scares me more than Luzardo. Saw Obsession and Backrooms in a double feature the other day. Nothing compared to Luzardo.

Brady Singer – 7 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.72. Cincy put their humidor on extra suck. Streamonator couldn’t even get me to start Singer.

Framber Valdez – 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 hits, zero walks, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.10. Still don’t trust Framber, and this was an easy matchup. Three worst road teams are A’s, Phils and Jays. Yeah, last two surprised me too.

Jake Rogers – 1-for-1 and his 3rd homer, and 2nd homer in two games. He won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column, because A) He’s here now. B) He’s a walrus. C) There’s no C.

Brandon Nimmo – 2-for-4, 2 runs and a slam (9) and legs (4). Nimmo found one!

Wyatt Langford – 1-for-5, 1 RBI as he was activated from the IL. “Oh, crap, here we go again.” That’s his quads.

Justin Foscue – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, 2nd homer in three games. Rangers love developing these zero power, zero speed, good average guys, and Foscue fits the bill. Though, clearly he’s hot right now.

Ezequiel Duran – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer, and 2nd homer in four games. Elias Sports Bureau said, “With his eighth homer, he finally has more homers than eligible positions.” Adding, “We didn’t say that.”

Reid Detmers – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 4.39. Shame he can’t be, like, normal.

Manny Machado – 2-for-3 and his 19th homer. [adjusts tinfoil cap] Has someone done the math on his batting average? Because it doesn’t seem possible it’s still below .200.

Nolan Arenado – 1-for-4 and his 11th homer. Hey, ‘member Rip Taylor? The guy who used to throw flowers on the floor where he walked? Yeah, I bought one of his toupees on eBay! Come here and check it out over by this open window–NOOOOO!!! Torenado!

Casey Schmitt – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer. For the first time this year, someone asked in the comments about dropping Schmitt. I think they got him going again. Thank you, stranger.

Bryce Eldridge – 2-for-3 and his 8th homer. Every day people ask about picking up Eldridge and, meh, it’s fine. He’s your basic corner infidel in a 12-team league or deeper. Might be special some day, but hasn’t shown it.

Willy Adames – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. Great, he’s about to get hot, then get cold during the break. My luck!

Seiya Suzuki – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and a slam (15) and legs (1), 2nd homer in two games. We’ve seen these kind of runs from him before — I Seiya, and I like ya. Just hope he stays healthy. He said he was eating 100 bananas a day. (Not a joke.) Actually, his translator said it. Ya know what would be funny? If MLB players’ translators just made up some shizz. “How were you seeing the ball, Seiya?” “Seiya says, ‘He wishes to pork your mom.'”

Tyler O’Neill – 1-for-3 and his 6th homer, and three homers in two games. I hate that he came in as a pinch-hitter on Wednesday and was pinch-hit for on Thursday, but clearly he’s swinging a hot bat.

Trevor Rogers – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.48. Currently, in a nice groove that is rosterable, but his underlying numbers are hilariously bad.

Matt Olson – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 25th homer. 10 more to go! (Bro’s gonna breeze through my preseason 35-homer projection.)

Mike Yastrzemski – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 6th homer. Carl’s Jr. Jr. hit a grand slam off Dennis Santana, which you know if you’re chasing Pirates’ saves and I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but for Pirates saves I got Mason.

Jim Jarvis – 3-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. You know Jim Jarvis, he was a 1970’s NWA jobber, who used to get housed by Harley Race. He’s also the Braves’ current shortstop. Um, okay. Let’s see, in Triple-A, he went 6/32/.313 with a 13.2 BB% and 15.8 K% in 297 ABs, but he’s 25 and assumption is he’s not much of anything outside of steals for NL-Only.

Bryce Elder – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 4.12. Braves must’ve been happy to win this game, because it seems like they’re starting Elder in games they want to forfeit.

Bryan Reynolds – 1-for-4 and his 14th homer. After he hits a home run, he should return to the dugout and have a robe draped over him like James Brown with a bedazzled Mr. Excitement on the robe’s back.

Jake Mangum – 4-for-5, 3 RBIs and a slam (2) and legs (18), hitting .311, as he hits leadoff. He will be in this afternoon’s Buy column, because he’s been hot, and kinda just good all season for some stats (SBs and BA).

Esmerlyn Valdez – 1-for-4 and his 7th homer, hitting .293. That’s seven homers in 25 games. Not to be a total fanwaggoner for Pittsburgh because I enjoy fries on a sandwich, but their lineup is not bad and The Magician has big power.

Mitch Keller – 3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 5.14. Dude should be put out to pasture. Let Mitch go roam somewhere with Zac Gallen and Colin Rea.

Patrick Sandoval – 4 1/3 IP, 1 ER as he was activated from the IL for the first time in two years after Tommy John surgery. This game was televised on NESN and on QVC, as the Red Sox GM Breslow held a live auction to see if they could trade Sandoval. No takers yet, but he did sell a dozen hand towels.

Caleb Durbin – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer. Funny thing (not funny) happens when a guy gets hot. Y’all go crazy for them, then they go 0-for-4 once and you’re like, should I drop him?

Logan Henderson – 5 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.18, as he was activated. You know I love me some Logan Henderson, but his rehab starts were janky and he seems like he’s still getting back into form. I would hold him, but I haven’t seen anything to give me much confidence yet.

Jake Bauers – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 17th homer, hitting .268. Because I like to torture myself, I went to look at how much higher Bauers is than Vlad Jr. on the Player Rater. Thirteen dollars of difference! That’s the difference between Jose Ramirez and Ryan Rolison! Put a stake through my heart! I am an energy vampire!

Brice Turang – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (13) and legs (15), hitting .269. Just thought of how I called him the new Treat Urner and named him Bricet Turang. Only issue is, I can’t remember if I wrote it or it’s just something I thought, and that got me thinking about how the next 20 years of Razzball is gonna be hilarious with me being like, “I think I said this, did I say this?”

Kyle Harrison – Dealing with elbow soreness. If he didn’t have a short start on Wednesday, I’d be like, “Oh, I know this impression! It’s Dave Roberts pretending Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are only healthy for the playoffs,” but, no, this doesn’t seem like that. We are not the fortunate ones.

Jordan Walker – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 22nd homer, and 2nd homer in four games. Announced he would be participating in the Home Run Derby. Sweet, nothing can go wrong with a guy who took two years to fix his swing. How about he swings a fungo bat with his right arm and a sledgehammer with his left. Now, Walker’s gonna come out of the break hitting 500-foot pop-ups to the 2nd baseman. Hashtag stop the Derby! No on cares about the Derby anymore! Or, I guess, since you asked, we need some revamping of the Derby. Put the outfield fences on carts and have them move in and out during the Derby, put quicksand in the batter’s box, have some baseballs be mangoes. Stuff like that!