Between trade deadline deals and prospect call-ups, I am so super jacked right now, I could jackhammer a road with my excitement! Is it weird that I’m picturing a mural of Giancarlo on the ground while I jackhammer said road with my excitement? “Hey, move that traffic cone! Giancarlo’s birthmark is further down and to the right!” That’s me directing city workers as they put my Giancarlo mural on my block. So, with Dexter Fowler hitting the DL with a forearm strain, the Card called up Harrison Bader. I’m kicking myself for going Willie Calhoun over Harrison Bader two weeks ago in NL-Only FAAB. Real bad call by me. Now, I got Willie Calhoun, who sounds like someone in Alcatraz, and I’m kicking rocks. Why do we care? Bader has 19 HRs, 9 SBs and a .297 average in Triple-A, and Prospector Ralph put him 36th overall on his top 100 fantasy baseball prospect list. I attempted to add him everywhere, even in ESPN leagues where he’s not in their system yet. Oops, guess they didn’t see him coming. Apparently, they don’t put the ESP in ESPN. Bader’s overall profile looks to be a 20-ish homers, 12ish steals, .275-ish average. His -ish looks Fowler-ish, and I’m chicken-lickin’. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Adam Wainwright – Hit the DL with a stiff back. Painful, but less embarrassing than a stiff front. Taking Wainwright’s place will be Luke Weaver. “Stream Weaver?” Who are you, Gary Wright? Ya know, I like Jack Flaherty a little bit more, but in NL-Only leagues, obviously Weaver’s an own. He could be just as good as, say, Jose Berrios, or unstartable. Hard to say with rookies.
Paul DeJong – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer, and, like, his 18th homer in the past five games. Let’s see, I’m just going to paint the word “schmotato” on the side of this house that looks like it would fit a family of four comfortably–Hayzeus Cristo! Why is Paul DeJong burning the roof off the schmotato house with his fire?! YOUR FIRE BAT HAS BURNED MY OUTARDS!!! Outards are opposite of innards, right?
Lance Lynn – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.21. Dirty trick the Rockies pulled when they all put on Cards hats in the dugout to try to get Lynn to come over to them without an official trade. Stay away from Coors, Lynn, for the love of Giancarlo, stay away.
Ian Desmond – Left yesterday’s game after re-injuring his calf. This guy’s having more issues with his calf than a cheese worker in Wisconsin. “He needs to pay to have a donkey give it love.” That’s a cheese worker. This could potentially knock Desmond out for a spell, which S-U-C-K-S. I also picked up Ryan McMahon, just Nicasio.
Trevor Story – 1-for-4 and his 14th homer, hitting .237. Isn’t it hard to believe this is the same guy that looked like a top 10 player before his injury last year?
John Lackey – 5 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.97. This horse-toothed jackass is such a hinderance to wonderful, I was thrilled to get a 5 IP, 2 ER game. Now just to get the same in Milwaukee for his next start, so I don’t completely regret this 2-start week.
Willson Contreras – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 16th homer, and 2nd homer in the last three games. Seemed all but conclusive that Contreras was going to be a bust after a 2-homer, .242 April, but each progressive month has been much better. Or each Aflac month, if you prefer.
Carlos Rodon – 4 IP, 4 ER, 11 Ks, ERA at 6.29. 11 Ks, but only gets through 4 IP leaving box score lookers to be all:
Anthony Swarzak – Traded to the Brewers to work middle relief. Tyler Clippard (1 IP, 1 ER) came in yesterday for garbage time, which seems perfectly appropriate. He should pitch once a week to coincide with garbage collection. He also doubles as recycling since he’s bounced around so much. With Anthony Swarzak traded, I suppose Clippard could ‘reclaim’ the closer job, but I bet on Dan Jennings in my leagues, and not because I have a category for “Sounds Like Jeopardy Champions.”
Jordan Montgomery – 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.92. No real explanation for his success. He had solid command in the minors and a 9+ K/9 at certain levels. He keeps the ball on the ground a decent amount of the time (40+%) and his swinging strike rate is in the top ten in the majors. His fastball is decent, great changeup and–Wait, this all is a real explanation, isn’t it? Like Humpty Dumpty, there’s egg on my face.
Didi Gregorius – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer, and three homers in the past two games. The move I didn’t do that I’m kicking myself over is picking up The Gregorius Didi. Prolly could’ve dropped Owings to grab him even, and I wouldn’t have regretted it. I’m not Jamaican, but I am a rue’d boy.
Zack Cozart – Aggravated an injury. Which one? With Cozart, take your pick!
Charlie Morton – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.83. Can we take bets what round the Astros starters who looked good in the regular season break down in the playoffs? I hope when Fiers, Morton and Peacock sold their souls for solid seasons they included October.
Eduardo Nunez – Acquired by the Red Sox. The Red Sox gave Devers two at-bats, and one of those was a double play, so sayonara! They wouldn’t play Nunez at 3rd base, would they? I mean, they just called up Devers. That’s some cold shizz to do to the man, said like Shaft. Nunez could play all over the infield and left field, so maybe Devers stays up, but this is definitely going to cramp his playing time. Obviously, it helps Nunez’s value, he went from the Giants to the Red Sox. If you need me to tell you that’s good, you have bigger fish to fry.
Taijuan Walker – 6 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.47, and he pitchslapped Foltynewicz. If I were Walker, I’d walk around every day with a shirt that reads, “Made in Taijuan.”
Mike Foltynewicz – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.82. This Walker/Faultywirewitz start felt like an old school, “Hey, as long as I’m starting NL pitchers, I’m safe.”
Kurt Suzuki – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 9th and 10th homers. Kurt Suzuki has three more homers than Matt Wieters. Keith Law once said Wieters would be the best catcher that ever played the game. Therefore, Kurt Suzuki is the best catcher to ever play.
Jose Berrios – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 3.76 vs. Kenta Maeda 5 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.09 – Fun fact! Maeda/Berrios translates from Spanish to, “I made a berry drink.” Thanks, Rosetta Stone!
Hunter Renfroe – 1-for-4 and his 20th homer, and 3rd homer in the last two games. If you’ve never seen him hit, well, do yourself a favor and Google that shizz. I give him about 11 months until he’s in a Home Run Derby.
Amed Rosario – Mets said Rosario will be up in a week or so. They then asked Robert De Niro to point down an alleyway to show Asdrubal some new fur coats. “A little further, Asdrubal…A little further…”
Yoenis Cespedes – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 10th homer. So, he didn’t retire in April! Crazy! Good to know!
Kevin Kiermaier – Will begin rehab on Thursday. But Thursday’s “Two Shot Thursday!”
Jacob Faria – 7 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.67. I’m not trying to put the jinx on him, but his peripherals are telling a slightly less interesting story than his 2.67 ERA.
Trey Mancini – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 16th homer, hitting .304. Not sure what underwhelms me so much about this guy. Maybe it’s because his name makes me think he should be a lounge singer that looks like Rudy Ray Moore.
Dan Straily – 4 IP, 6 ER, ERA up to 3.84. Well, you really shouldn’t have started him there anyway, so, while bad, when do you take some of the blame? Oh, I see you’re blameless! Like Dick Cheney wanted to be Valerie Plame-less! *must resist urge to rap* I’d try to hold Straily for his next start. (Boom bap!)
Christian Yelich – 3-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 10th homer, hitting .284. He homered off Hamels, who is old enough to be his dad (in West Virginia).
Joey Gallo – 2-for-3, 3 runs, and his 24th and 25th homer, hitting .199. From now on, I’m calling him, Donkey Dong Jr. We are not putting unrealistic expectations on him. Donkey expectations never mean any harm. Donkey expectations just want a roof over its head, a hot meal and foot rub from a topless dame.
Rougned Odor – 2-for-3 and his 20th homer, hitting .215. Multiple hits and only one homer? *puts handkerchief to head* Please, someone catch me, I’m getting lightheaded.
Mike Napoli – 3-for-5, and his 22nd homer, hitting .206. The Rangers look like they’re coached by Glaucoma Rob Deer. Have they ever strung more than three hits together without a homer? Inquiring minds, and all.
Danny Duffy – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.56. Random Prediction Alert! Next March, you’re gonna look at Duffy’s 3.60 ERA and be like, “Damn, he looks better than just about all these number threes.”
Whit Merrifield – 2-for-4 and his 11th homer, hitting .291. I knew I shouldn’t have looked at our Player Rater about how good Merrifield’s been, because it was only going to bum me out, and, sure enough, it did. A top ten 2nd baseman on the year. Next time someone calls me an MF’er for driving like an idiot, I’m gonna scream back, “Did you just shorten Merrifield? Awesome!”
Michael Fulmer – 8 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.35. Hey, another MF’er! These MF’ers are all over!
Sonny Gray – 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.43. Never saw this before, but it was super classy. Before the game, Sonny took his cleats and wrote in the mound dirt, “New York, I want to help you.” Such a sweet gesture. I wonder what he wants to help them with, traffic clogging in the city? Inner city youth baseball? Staten Island, in general?
Luis Valbuena – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 10th homer, and his 2nd homer in as many games. Hot schmotato alert!
Kole Calhoun – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 13th homer, hitting .234. This guy feels like he’ll be traded to or signed by a good team very soon and become a 4th outfielder posthaste.
Bud Norris – 0 IP, 4 ER, as he gave up three straight walks, then a grand slam to Edwin Encarnacion (his 21st). You couldn’t just give up one more walk and allow one winning run? That would’ve been too easy, right?
Jesse Chavez – 2 1/3, 7 ER, ERA at 5.35 vs. Mike Clevinger – 4 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.20. Funny, after streaming both sides of this matchup, I wanted so badly to try BASE jumping without a parachute. Like you’re doing the naming rights outside Dodger Stadium, you can throw Chavez in a ravine, but Clevinger I’d try to hold, but Stream-o-Nator does hate his next start.
Michael Brantley – 1-for-5, 2 runs and his 7th homer. Aw, seven homers, how quaint. 2011 called and wants its home runs back. Okay, in fairness, Brantley has been hot recently, with two homers in the past three games.
Bradley Zimmer – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and a grand slam (6) and double legs (11, 12). Zimmer sat at the bottom of the order for so long, I had to drop him. Yesterday, he was leading off, and I could see going back in on him.
Eric Thames – 1-for-4 and his 24th homer, hitting .251. See, he doesn’t only hit homers against Reds pitchers! Though, the Nats were wearing their white and red unis.
Lewis Brinson – Headed back the Brewers. I hear he was tearing it up in Triple-A Colorado Springs. Let’s see, Colorado with even worse pitching. Hmm… I keed. Of course, I’d try Brinson one more time. Phillips wasn’t really the answer in center, so Brinson should get playing time. He could go 10/10 the rest of the season, or strike out 15 times in 16 at-bats and get sent down again.
Manny Pina – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 7th homer, hitting .302. We need to get a Parrothead on the podcast, get him real liquored up and have him slur out, “I want Manny Pina.”
Travis Shaw – 2-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 23rd homer, hitting .297. Oh boy, we got ourselves a race now between Shaw and Thames for the Brewers’ home run lead. Too bad Randall Simon’s no longer around to bop one of them on the head as they round the bases.
Zach Davies – 7 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.45. Member how I was saying yesterday there is a shizzton of pitchers with bleh stuff and more bleh (bleher?) Ks? Well, as DJ Khaled would say, and another one.
Trea Turner – Fielded some grounders yesterday. Dude straight ghosted after fracturing his wrist. No timetable, no nothing. Like he was Rocky headed to Russia to train. Such good news to hear he could be back mid-August. That seems insanely optimistic, but I want to be insanely optimistic about him.
Stephen Strasburg – Had ‘some nerve impingement that has been alleviated.’ He had some nerve to blow an easy win last time out! They say Strasburg should start his next time up. Here’s something that’s funny (not funny). They removed Strasburg after two innings because they didn’t want to push him too hard, so, rather than letting him miss a start, they’re gonna throw him out there after five days. Oh. *goes to space camp, learns to be astronaut, gets passed over for flight to Mars, goes into insurance sales for 35 years, then Bruce Willis shows up at my door and says he needs me for flight to Mars, I go, make feces potatoes, return to earth* Kay.
Madison Bumgarner – 5 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.38. It’s almost August and Bumgarner just got his first win. Yup, saw that coming!
Jameson Taillon – 3 IP, 9 ER, ERA up to 4.03. Is he wearing transparent pants? Because they sure saw the ball well tonight.
