Hello, I am Hunter Renfroe. I have homered in four straight games. I am also your father that is why I play for the Padres. Please, call me daddy. Not sure why I’m talking like a robot. Elon Musk has bought my body and repurposed my soul. By the by, you know what’s fun to do, next time you’re in a quiet place where people will be able to hear your phone, have Siri say, “You’re the reason the robots take over the world in the future.” And have Siri keep saying it while you look at the person next to you, then finally say to your phone, “Me or this guy?” Any hoo! Hunter Renfroe (2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 12th homer) sent the Padres into the Space Force! He has power (still makes no sense he’s hitting third, don’t care what he’s done), and I’d grab him if you need that. Him and Franmil Reyes (3-for-5, 2 runs and his 9th homer, and third homer in four games) have put on a show these last few days. Not sure why they’d hit the Brewers hard, they just traded for Jonathan Schoop. He’s a good pitcher, right? Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Corey Knebel – 0 IP, 4 ER. He’s definitely calling the Padres his daddy. Evil Knebel, less because of his motorcycle stunts, and more for the cruel and unusual punishment he inflicts on your fantasy team. Knebel must be out as the closer. I mean, he’s singlehandedly ruining the Brewers’ playoff chances. I say go Josh Hader, but Jeremy Jeffress (1 IP, 0 ER, 1.29 ERA) has been solid. And they have Joakim Soria, but he hurt his groin on the Renfroe homer yesterday. Maybe that’s the problem for Soria, he’s pitching with the wrong balls.
Junior Guerra – 6 IP, 2 ER, 11 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.40. This was an obvious stream on the Stream-o-Nator and his next one is as obvious of an avoid, and meagrees. That’s like methinks but with more affirmation.
Fernando Rodney – Traded to the A’s. He said he’d meet up with his new club on the back of an invisible arrow like Wonder Woman. Fernando Rodney said he also likes women, like millennial Wonder Woman. He will work setup in front of Blake Treinen and loses most of his fantasy value. More on the Twins pen in the Twins team blurbs below.
Drew Pomeranz – Kicked out of the rotation, i.e., Pomerunz out to the bullpen.
Rick Porcello – 4 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 4.17. He better hope he’s not demoted to the bullpen next, i.e. you’ve been Rick rolled!
Mookie Betts – 4-for-4, 2 runs and his 27th homer as he hit for the cycle. Who’s the Betts? Mookie Ballgame!
Teoscar Hernandez – 1-for-4 and his 18th homer, and back-to-back games with back-to-back ding-dongs. Back by popular demand, the Teoscars! But no popularity contest in The Oscars! I want meditative expressions on death by Joaquin Phoenix and Sam Elliott. How dare you change, Oscars. You’re supposed to be about art. Like the art of Harvey Weinstein paying people to vote for his movies and not press charges when he fondles their bush*. *Talking about plants, you sickos.
Randal Grichuk – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 16th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. He will definitely be in this afternoon’s Buy column. Refresh the page in a few hours, and it will magically appear.
Ryan Borucki – 5 IP, 4 ER, 12 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.81. The good news is his last name is not bukkake. The bad news is now you’re Googling bukkake.
Ken Giles – 1 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 6.29. Someone should explain to him that you can’t pitch yourself into a save.
Jurickson Profar – 2-for-4 and his 13th homer, and 2nd homer in three games. Some might say we need a living wage. I say we need a hot fire emoji replacing the ‘u’ in Jurickson’s name. Friends, countrymen, Juricksons, where are the fire emojis? Profar isn’t in the afternoon’s Buy column, but I think that’s because he’s owned in too many leagues to qualify, if not, he’s obviously hot.
Miguel Andujar – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer, and his 2nd homer in three games. Sauce likes to be the boss, nah’mean? I don’t either, but maybe I’m being too literal. Andujar really feels underappreciated, which is so bizarre considering the team he does his summertime raking for.
Aaron Hicks – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. He’s somehow only owned in 70% of leagues. He’s nearly a top 25 OF on our Player Rater, so, yeah, no idea.
J.A. Happ – 6 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.07 as he returned from Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Ya know what they say? Shizz Happ’ens. Near his mouth, apparently.
Giancarlo Stanton – 1-for-4 and his 28th homer, and his 3rd homer in as many games. If he gets anywhere near his preseason projections of sixty homers in the final 48 games, I will faint like a southern belle.
Neil Walker – 2-for-4 and his 5th and 6th homer, and three homers in the last four games. The Yankees are suddenly the Rockies in Coors. About to sign them all up for a weekend romp.
Aroldis Chapman – 1 IP, 0 ER, 2 BBs, 2.20 ERA, and he struggled. Sure, he always sweats like Ted Striker, but he lost three to four miles off his velocity and no one was casually reading Nun’s Life in the dugout. Zach Britton seems to be the obvious handcuff, which is poor word to use with Aroldis, but something seems off.
Felix Hernandez – Mariners might bump him from the rotation. Always hard to move on from a fan favorite, but I say keep him close by making him a pitching coach and stop pussyfooting around! Tough Love starring Grey Albright, Fantasy Master Lothario (don’t abbreviate it).
Dee Gordon – 0-for-3, 1 run as he was moved to the nine hole, hitting .278. Gordon, F-Her and Ichiro could make a dream team of coaches. Just throwing it out there.
Mitch Haniger – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 19th homer, hitting .271. Glad his month of July when he hit .191 with one homer is over. He’s been hitting near-.333 in August and now he’s hitting leadoff, and I’m not sure how I feel about that, but better than ninth.
Jean Segura – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer. Also, in this game, Denard Span (3-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs) hit his 9th too. Elsewhere, Ben Revere pulled nine flower petals saying for each, “I am Denard Span, I am not Denard Span,” ending on, you guessed it.
Carlos Correa – On track to return tonight. He’s 3-for-16 at his rehab stint at Corpus Christi. That’s different then when Chris Christie ate a dolphin and it got halfway down his gullet with the fin sticking out of his mouth. That was Porpoise Christie. Then it became Poopis Christie when the snout started coming out the other–You get the picture.
Justin Verlander – 2 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 2.50, and he he was ejected, which might’ve been best for him with how he was throwing. He gave a homer to the aforementioned Haniger, Span and Segura. He’s now in the top 30 (bottom 30?) for home runs allowed per nine with 22. For just straight numbers, 22 is the 6th most in the majors behind Bundy, Junis, Colon, Chase Anderson, Hamels and tied with Teheran. Not exactly the who’s who that your parents paid money for you to be in in high school. The rest of his numbers aren’t shockingly bad, however. So hope this is a blip.
Tyler White – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games, hitting .281. All of this in 64 ABs. When Altuve returns, Marwin could move to 1B, and there might not be room for White. I know what you’re thinking, can’t Altuve play in someone’s pocket while they all play? Not sure on the rules with that. Feels illegal. Until then, I could see snagging White.
Ji-Man Choi – 1-for-3 and his 2nd homer. Fun fact! Ji-Man is Korean for the FBI.
Ross Stripling – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.62, as he was activated from the DL and started in Coors. Dodgers need to figure out their fake injuries better than bringing a guy back for a Coors start.
Cody Bellinger – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and a slam (19) and legs (8), hitting .246. If he gets to 30/15/.260, his season goes from disappointing to decent. If he gets 25/12/.250, it’s disappointing. So close, yet so far apart.
Joc Pederson – 1-for-2 and his 18th homer, hitting .258, as he entered as a pinch hitter. I’m so thankful I only own Pederson in leagues where I have to play him no matter if he’s starting or not. Gotta remember that for the ‘around the Thanksgiving table’ thanks.
Chris Taylor – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer, as he hits 8th. Big hit on value if he stays in the eight hole, but there’s just as much likelihood Max Muncy (1-for-1 and a pinch hit homer, his 25th) hits 8th, because the Dodgers have more weapons than Genghis Khan, the Mongolian BBQ place near my house that has swords lining the walls.
Wade Davis – 1/3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 5.51, moving his record to 1-6. Davis should enter games with avocado on his head, because he is toast. Feel sorry for the people who handcuffed him with Oh too, because yesterday he was Oh crap (2/3 IP, 2 ER). How many games are the Rockies going to give away before they just go with Ottavino?
Adam Frazier – 3-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs, hitting .291 as he hit leadoff. It took C**nt seven-tenths of the season to realize Frazier is their leadoff man after I drafted him in March in an NL-Only league for that reason. No idea if Frazier will stay leadoff, but he’s hitting near-.500 in the last week, and is a full-on hot schmotato.
Josh Bell – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 7th homer, hitting .263. The narrative from last year that Bell is a 20-homer hitter is laughing at the narrative that Bell is a ten-homer hitter this year.
David Freese – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer. Also, in this game, Elias Diaz hit his 8th homer. Elias Sports Bureau said, “Hey, our son!” They also might’ve said the Pirates are the only team in August to have three guys hit a home run in a game and not have one with double digits.
Jose Berrios – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 3.66. Frequent commenter, GrassyKnollRedding, mentioned this yesterday, “It will be nice next year when Berrios is a guy you don’t have to worry about with certain matchups.” Berrios is right on the cusp of being Aaron Nola, but he needs to lock down all matchups, not just favorable ones.
Trevor Hildenberger – Could take over as the Twins closer, or because he’s been super awful for the last week (7 ER, 2 2/3 IP) it might go to Addison Reed, who has been in own kind of special. He lost yesterday (2/3 IP, 1 ER) and has given up five runs in his last five outings with the palindromic 4.74 ERA. Next up, maybe Taylor Rogers, who has 55 Ks in 47 1/3 IP, but a 3.80 ERA. Mr. Rogers sounds like he’s in the neighborhood of decent, but he’s a lefty, so he’s weird and situational saves only. I’d guess Addison Reed is the new closer, but it’s far from decided.
Leonys Martin – Hit the DL with an illness. He is always on the DL. Either call him DLeonys or Illness Martin.
Yonder Alonso – 1-for-4 and his 20th homer, hitting .247. Who’s over Yonder? Yo-day-lay-ee-hoo, 14 other 1st basemen on the Player Rater, even C.J. Cron, but Yonder’s closing the gap.
Jorge Polanco – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 1st homer. It was a bold choice for his Players’ Weekend nickname being PEDslanco.
Anibal Sanchez – Left yesterday’s game after a comebacker struck his shin. Below-the-belt comebackers should be off limits in everything except roasts.
Nick Markakis – 2-for-4 and his 14th homer. Sparkakis!
Ronald Acuna Jr. – 1-forp4 and his 13th hoemr, and 2nd in as many games. Tilde discover a protomolecule that makes humans fly, we got baseballs off the bat of Acuña.
Michael Taylor – 1-for-4 and his 6th homer. I know why this guy is a Bowden fluffer. He’s so sexy, but can’t seem to run into full-time at-bats or fantasy value. I will always enjoy when Taylor goes H.A.M., but, I mean, damn.
Gio Gonzalez – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.89. Braves came for Nat-Gio, but ended up safari away. *National Geographic magazine insert falls* No one is subscribing, guys! Stop with the magazine inserts! This reminds me of another thing that drives me up the wall, if I buy something at the grocery store, stop handing me a gee-dee receipt! I’m not writing off the effin’ olive bar purchase! Or ask me if I want it! Holy Jesus Aguilar, how much paper is wasted on paper for receipts that are immediately thrown away? “Hello, welcome to natural foods market, we are making the world better with our kombucha. Oh, and here, don’t forget your useless paper receipt.” This drives me crazy. I might need a horse tranquilizer.
