C.J. Wilson doesn’t really know what’s going on unless Twitter tells him. He tweeted out Mike Napoli’s phone number. He watches Shark Week. He has a big TV. He hasn’t watched his TV since November. His TV is bigger than his car. His car is big. He watches Lost reruns, out of order. He wears Old Spice, on his head. He is a Taoist. He thinks a Taoist has something to do with wearing a towel while being interviewed. He told a guy to wash his mouth out with soap. He listens to Killswitch Engage, which Google tells me is a metalcore group. Even Google didn’t know what metalcore was. Four ladies and gentlemen, those were all C.J. Wilson quotes. Yesterday, he continued his dominance with a performance of 8 IP, 1 ER, 3 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA down to 3.18. So, you’re saying after Curtis Jackson Wilson was mollywhopped in his first start of the year, I should’ve held him? Since his first start, he’s thrown 34 innings with a 2.12 ERA and he has more Ks than innings pitched. He’s hard to like him because of his all-around douchebaggery, but his numbers aren’t lying and right now they’re saying he’s a strong fantasy number two. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Bryan Holaday – 1-for-3, 1 run, 2 RBIs. Fun fact! In Spain, you say good morning, “Hola day.”
Austin Jackson – 0-for-1, 1 run and three walks. The NSA intercepted cellphone calls between Austin Jackson and Tigers manager, Brad Ausmus. Here’s what they heard, “Hey, Skip, I can be your leadoff hitter!” “What kind of defense can you play?” “Um, solid, I guess. Skip, I’m taking walks now.” “Can you block balls in the dirt?” “Um, maybe.” “I’ll consider you. Now hit the showers!” “I’m calling you from my car.” “Then drive through a car wash with the windows open!”
Max Scherzer – 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks. Nothing fancy, but just a good, reliable start from The Golem.
Dayan Viciedo – 2-for-4, 1 run, hitting .348. He cooled off pretty abruptly leading up to this game — three for his last 16 — but maybe this is the start of another schmotato run.
Zach McAllister – 4 1/3 IP, 4 ER. Yeah, there’s some room in the Indians rotation for Bauer.
Aaron Harang – 4 2/3 IP, 9 ER. I’m reminded of Project Runway Tim Gunn’s metaphor. Tim Gunn said, “I have this refrain about the monkey house at the zoo. When you first enter into the monkey house, you think, ‘Oh my god, this place stinks!’ And then after you’re there for 20 minutes you think, ‘It’s not so bad’ and after you’re there for an hour it doesn’t smell at all.” If you thought The Harangutan was gonna be good all year, you were in the monkey house too long.
Nate Eovaldi – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 5 Ks. The nicest thing I can say is I wish I had him on every team. You can imagine how well my nuptials went over when that was the nicest thing I could say.
Christian Yelich – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his first homer. The fan who caught the ball returned it so Yelich could have all his classmates sign it, but then Yelich lost the ball, thinking he put it in his book bag and, boy, was he bummed, saying, “Geez, anyone see it? I wanted to show my Mom.”
Marcell Ozuna – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer. OZUNA was recently dropped in the order and you just don’t do that to OZUNA. OZUNA no like.
Casey McGehee – 3-for-4, 2 runs, hitting .297. One month in, the Marlins are top ten for OPS, OBP, AVG and runs. Yup.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 1 RBI, hitting .299 with a .409 OBP and hitting near .400 in the last week. Reggie Roby is smiling down, admiring the hang time on some birds and proud of you for punting catcher. You made dead Reggie Roby happy!
Jedd Gyorko – 1-for-3 as he was activated from paternity leave. Him and his wife had twins. I have two child names for you, Jedd — Oferthree and Oferfour.
Jace Peterson – 1-for-3 and his 2nd steal; he’s been playing 3rd base for the injured Headley. He doesn’t offer much, except bona fide, old fashioned, crazy-as-fudge SAGNOF! (42 steals in his last minor league season albeit in High-A.) His bat may not play in the majors, but speed translates everywhere like a nice tush.
Brandon Hicks – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer, his fourth this week. No, it won’t continue forever, but you can pick him up while it is going on.
Tim Hudson – 8 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, 2.17 ERA on the year. Maybe he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t get ignored for a journeyman 1st baseman if someone does a movie about the 2014 Giants.
Tony Cingrani – 4 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 2 Ks and pulled after 79 pitches. After his next bad start, I’m guessing we’re gonna hear that he’s dealing with a dead arm, which sounds like the first step in ‘Doing the Bernie,’ but it’s not.
Zack Cozart – 2-for-4. I said yesterday that he was a hot schmotato. Today, I say, “What Tuesday Grey said!”
Anthony Rizzo – 1-for-1, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer. HR to the Rizzo!
Junior Lake – 2-for-5, 2 runs. Really would love to see what Lake could do if the Cubs just played him every day rather than jerking his chain around and playing Kalish, the Destroyer of Lake’s Value, though with a formal title like that it’s not surprising.
Starlin Castro – 3-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .308. Fun fact! Starlin Castro is also the name of the lead character in the Cuban staged adaption of The Silence of the Lambs. The other main character is Hannibal Kennedy who loves a nice Chianti with pinto beans.
Robbie Ross – 3 1/3 IP, 5 ER. Ro-Ro looked more ruh-roh.
Jesse Chavez – 7 IP, 0 ER, 2 baserunners, 8 Ks. Bfweoibfdcsvn– Sorry, was banging my head on the keyboard. Sonavabench! But you didn’t pitch well vs. the Astros in your last start! Why couldn’t you have pitched well there so I would’ve started you yesterday? Ugh. So, his so-called demise after one mediocre start might’ve been a tad premature like your moments of ecstasy. Of course, when a 30-year-old comes out of nowhere, it’s always a bit risky, but there is nothing in his peripherals that are screaming he’s not to be trusted every time out. O&S (Own and Start; acronyms are somewhat less effective when you need to explain them.) The Stream-o-Nator even faintly likes his next start, and SON doesn’t get excited about anything with a small sample size. That’s what she said! Huh?
Coco Crisp – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 3rd homer. On the fo’really, if I could hang out with one major league baseball player, I’d choose Coco Crisp. No sarcasm. How badass would it be to tell your friends that you’re hanging out with Coco Crisp? Especially the ones that don’t know baseball. They’d think you were a total fruit loop. Pun point!
Derek Norris – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 1 RBI and now hitting .386. Not sure if the A’s would ever officially say Norris is the starter and there’s no platoon, because platooning is the new Moneyball, but for our porpoises — hey, dolphins! — Norris looks like the starter for now. He should get one of our Being in a Platoon is a Full-Time Job shirts.
Alberto Callaspo – 3-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI. Basically, everyone on the A’s had multiple hits as they racked up 12 runs. Well, except Josh Reddick (0-for-3). Ticker tease!
Andre Ethier – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI, hitting .227. Marla Gibbs called, she wants her address back!
Zack Greinke – 6 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks. I look profoundly wrong on my preseason call to stay away from Greinke. His velocity is still eroding like a beach that Al Gore has in a slideshow, but his peripherals look fantastic.
Clayton Kershaw – Struck out nine in his final rehab start. Only if you had a rehab slot instead of an N/A one.
Melky Cabrera – Left yesterday’s game with a bruised shin. He said it feels tender. I’m sure it’s not as tender if he would’ve braised it.
Drew Hutchison – 7 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks. I’d say he looks like the most effective Blue Jays pitcher, but that’s not giving him enough credit. His peripherals don’t scream out regression right ahead like a nerdy captain of the Titanic.
Yordano Ventura – 5 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks, pulled after 92 pitches. I was watching Cingrani, so honestly have no idea how he only pitched five innings with that few baserunners and Ks. Was it “Foul ball for the first 10,000 fans in attendance” night?
Tyler Chatwood – Hit the DL. Now he’ll have more time for what someone with his name is much better for, gay pornographic video chatting!
Paul Goldschmidt – 2-for-5 and his 4th homer. Au Shucks!
Adam LaRoche – Sat out with a sore quad. Whenever I hear sore quad, I think of an angry Murderball player. Is that bad?
Jordan Zimmermann – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 7 Ks vs. Houston. When J, Z like Zorro, get in that Asstro, better luck tomorrow.
Anthony Rendon – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer. He homered off the Astros’ Paul Clemens, who’s been far more successful than Ralph Pettitte.
Danny Espinosa – 2-for-4 and a slam & legs. His third homer and third steal. He should see Hunter Pence about Stats OCD; it’s a real condition.
Chris Carter – 0-for-4, 2 Ks. Hurry-K’d Carter!
Alex Cobb – Threw a bullpen session and is still about a month away. Trying to stay optimistic, but can’t help think that’s a full month to have a setback. Lowercase yay.
Jean Segura – Will return from plastic surgery on Thursday. Out of context, that could’ve been a line from TMZ. Be cool if they unwrap Segura’s face and it reveals Nicholas Cage’s face.
Matt Garza – 3 IP, 5 ER, but left the game with a thumb contusion. And here I thought he left early cause he was suckin’ up the suckhole of life.
Carlos Gomez – 2-for-5 and his 7th homer. When people say CarGo, the better player is thought of, only I’m not sure which one is better.
Mark Reynolds – 1-for-2, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. Speaking of which, he faces Homer Bailey today and I grabbed him for a batty call. The Hitter-Tron was bit blasé on it, but the Hitter-Tron was also distracted, diddling himself to an issue of Popular Mechanics.
Matt Adams – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer. I’m not embarrassed to say I was turned on when they showed Adams’s homer in slo-mo and his moobs did a slow jiggle.
Jon Jay – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI. The Federalist was oh-for-the-last-week coming into the game, but he does tend to get hot in bunches like Mr. Chiquita Banana.
Allen Craig – 4-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer, still only hitting .220. He will be hitting .300 by May 15th. Wanna bet me? C’mon, I’m not good for it anyway!
Shelby Miller – 6 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 1 K. His season ERA of 3.15 still looks tasty, but I haven’t liked him since the preseason and still don’t like him at all. I.e., you should really consider moving him in a trade. I.e., ignore me at your own peril. I.e., I am your Fantasy Master Lothario now bow down. I.e., what was I saying? I.e., what does i.e. even mean? I.e., how do I end this sentence? I.e., I can’t with a question. I.e., that’ll do.
