Jacob Turner took care of business last night and grabbed the win in his 2013 debut, snapping Miami’s nine game losing streak as well as ending the Mets own adorable little winning streak. Jacob pitched seven quality innings against the Mets and gave up just 5 hits, 1 walk, and struck out three, managing 12 ground ball outs. After the game he assured his fans, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” I hope that’s true because his minor league stats were pretty underwhelming. You may remember Jacob as the primary get for the Marlins in the Tigers Anibal Sanchez/Omar Infante trade. Turner was initially expected to make the rotation to start the year but he struggled and continued to struggle in AAA in April, walking too many batters and just not pitching as consistently as the Marlins would have liked. Jacob improved, however, and posted a 3.00 ERA with a 20/6 K/BB ratio in five starts in May, and the injury to Alex Sanabia gave him a chance to start taking care of business in the bigs. Outside NL-Only and deeper mixed he’s just someone to watch for now. The former ninth overall pick is still just 22 years old and as he learns his way through the league he could prove himself streamer-worthy. He may be worth a flier versus the banged up Phillies next week, but temper your expectations as you would with any player who plays for the MIA Marlins.
Here’s what else happened in fantasy baseball last night:
Stephen Strasburg 2.0 IP, 1 ER, 2 K. The Strasborg: Bionic Pitching Machine had a serious system malfunction. Bleep blorp. Nooooo! Stras left after just two innings with a strained oblique but it looks like the Nats and owners dodged a bullet as initially Strasburg complained of shoulder pain. Regardless, still bad news for owners as the Strasborg was just starting to find his groove, mechanically. Few details at the moment, but you can count on at least a minimum trip to the 15-day DL for Strasburg, and expect the Nationals to baby Stephen like he’s Buster Bluth. Yup, the Nationals hate your fantasy team. Oh, fantasy gods! Why did it have to be St. Rasburg? Why not Carlos Quentin, or Brett Anderson again?
Alfonso Soriano 1-for-3, 2 runs, HR, 2 RBI. As the weather gets hotter, so does Alfonso. It’s science.
Matt Garza 7.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, 4 K and his first win of the season. The Cubs win their fifth game in a row! I’d be worried, too. If this keeps up, pretty soon we’ll be counting on Will and Jaden Smith to save us all from the alien/robot/demon/vampire/zombie apocalypse. That’s a lot of evil, ya’ll!
Marcell Ozuna 3-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. Grey told you to BUY him and buy him you should. Ozuna extended his hitting streak to 16 games last night and is batting .330 on the season. Suuuuure, looking at his BABIP we can assume he’s gotten a bit lucky, but better lucky than good, yo! And the Miami Marlins could use all the luck they can get after that monstrosity in center field scared all the leprechauns away.
Johnny Cueto 8.0 IP, 1 hit, 1 BB, 6 K. His best start since returning from the DL, which is saying a lot since he’s been stellar in all three outings. He hasn’t exactly seen the stiffest competition facing the Mets, Cubs and Pirates but he get his first real test next week when he faces…the 1927 New York Yankees! Dum dum dum!
Brandon Phillips 2-for-4, 3 runs with the slam (9) and legs (1). In Cincinnati, they serve their Slam & Legs with chili and cheese on top and everyone dies before they’re 65 years old. As is tradition. Regardless, hard to believe this is just B-Phillips first stolen base of the year, but when a guy has 44 RBI you can’t really complain.
Jay Bruce 2-for-4, HR. He’s been a bit of a disappointment to owners but after a horrid April he’s hit 7 homers in May including 5 in the past two weeks. He’s also batting .270, which is the craziest thing I’ve seen all week.
Max Scherzer 8.0 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB, 10 k. Was in line for the win until Jose Valverde ruined everything. He couldn’t even look at Jose after the game. In fact, they had to postpone their staring contest until tomorrow night.
Jose Valverde 0.2 IP, 4 ER, BS. Valverde allowed 2 home runs in the ninth including a walk off homer to Chris Dickerson for his second blown save of the year. No one blows a save quite like Jose Valverde, except maybe Mitchell Boggs. Boggs has some of the sickest blown saves EVER.
Miguel Cabrera 2-for-4 and his 16th HR. It was his 12th HR of May so he’ll be sad to see it go. Migs has 61 RBI through May. Extrapolate that through September and that puts him at…calculating…..calculating…..calculating…..305 RBI! Err, that seems a bit high, did I do math wrong again? Do’h. Oh well, this guy put it best.
Avisail Garcia 2-for-4, HR. I could tell you to pick up just about anyone in the Tigers lineup and it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad pick up.
Adam Jones 3-for-4, HR, 2 RBI. Adaaaaaayum Jones is my spirit animal. It was his 11th HR of the season and that along with his .319 BA, 8 SB, 42 runs and 37 RBI. Everyday I think to my self, hey self, I totally would have drafted Josh Hamilton over Jonesy if he wasn’t snatched up right before my pick. Life is full of little miracles like this. Except for the guy who drafted Josh Hamilton — he is screwed.
Jacoby Ellsbury Sat out the game with groin tightness and is day to day. I haven’t seen a groin that tight since!–er, never mind. Jacoby said he tweaked it stealing his fifth base of the game Thursday night. In that case, I can only hope that steal won the game for the Sox, or at least for some fantasy owner out there. Owners can’t be happy to hear this considering his power is a thing of legend now and literally all of Ellsbury’s value this season has been tied to his speed. But if you think you’re unhappy, his agent is kicking himself in the back of his designer slacks. Maybe that fifth stolen base was a bit much, Ells?
CC Sabathia 7.1 IP, 6 hits, 1 ER, 10 K. Saves his best games for Boston, Sabathia was on point last night. A true Yankee.
Kevin Youkilis 1-for-4 with an RBI in his return. Mark Teixeira was 0-for-3 but scored a run. Yankees fans, how much do you miss Lyle Overbay right now?
Dustin Pedroia 3-for-4, 1 run. Apparently he has a thumb injury? I could hardly notice. And neither could Pedroia.
Jose Iglesias 2-for-3. Mr. Churches won’t offer much outside of average and runs but deeper leaguers and AL-Only should take note, if you need a shortstop or potential future third baseman, I guess you could do worse.
Jonathan Lucroy 5-for-5, 2 HR, 3 runs, 4 RBI. The Hitter-Tron saw this one coming two weeks in advance and leaked oil and motor fluid for an hour after this performance. Lucroy could be about to go into one of his things, and you want to own him when he does. I might even drop your catcher to pick him up. Not my catcher, but yours for sure.
Jimmy Rollins 2-for-3, HR, SB. The slam & legs! J-Roll likes his eggs soft-boiled, cause he’s old like that.
Domonic Brown 2-for-4, 2 HR (14th & 15), 4 RBI. He hit his 11th home run of May, that’s one less than that other guy. The one that won the triple crown? Michael-something? Whatevs, he leads the NL in homers and Dom is literally the bomb right now. But you knew that already.
Cole Hamels 5.0 IP, 12 hits, 6 ER, 3 K. The one night Cole gets some damn run support and he goes and does it like that. Yovani Gallardo wasn’t much better (5.2 IP, 5 ER, 9 base runners, 3 HR, 6 K) but the Brewers actually have some offense. I feel like Gallardo gets more wins from not-so-quality starts than any other active pitcher. Can we get a stat check on that? Oh, that’s on me? Forget it.
Julio Teheran 6.2 IP, 7 hits, 3 ER, 9 K. Hey everybody! It’s all the strikeouts we saw in spring training, turns out they were behind the fridge the whole time! It was Julio’s fifth straight quality start and he gets the P-Rats next week. Yes, please!
Denard Span 3-for-4, 2 runs. Span hit two triples! Whoa-za! So if you’re in a league that counts triples, congratulations! And it’s time to find a new league.
Hisashi Iwakuma 7.2 IP, 9 base runners, 0 ER, 5 K. You think that was good, you should try his California Rolls. They are terrible!
Kendrys Morales 1-for-4, 2-run HR, his 8th. He’s been sort of a RBI-machine as of late with 11 in the past week. That’s what they got him for! A successful free agent signing, that may be the first of its kind in Mariners history.
Adrian Beltre 4-for-4, 11th HR, 2 RBI. Yo, Adrian! If you’re not busy later, let’s play volleyball on the beach while we blast “You’re the Best” by Joe Esposito on my Sony boombox.
Leonys Martin 2-for-4, SB. Leon–can I call you Leon? No? OK well, he’s got four stolen bases in the past two weeks and is available in 30% of RCL leagues. You know what to do.
David Murphy 2-for-5, run. Hey, another Texas outfielder. It’s almost like Arlington is a great place to hit or something? Yee-Haw!
Francisco Rodriguez 1.0 IP, 2 K, 2nd SV. Has yet to allow a run this season and could take the closer job and run away with it. Not that anyone in that Brewers pen really wants it.
DJ LeMahieu 2-for-4, run. Still mad at him for taking Josh Rutledge‘s place but at least DJ’s stealing bases, and during night games he hands out free glow sticks and ecstasy and plays dub step during BP.
Brandon League 1.0 IP, 2 ER, BS. Allowed a home run to Todd Helton in the ninth but got the win after Juan Uribe hit the game-winning single in the 10th inning. Clayton Kershaw had a great day (7.0 IP, 3 ER, 5 K and 2-for-4 with 2 RBI at the plate), or as he calls it “Friday,” but League was not having it. “No, not today! Today, that win is mine.” Jealousmuch, Brandon? Either way, I’m betting Kenley Jansen is your closer by the end of the month.
Jason Castro 1-for-5. Grey told you to BUY him and a home run is your reward for listening. Cheers!
Colby Rasmus 4-for-7 with his 9th HR and 2 RBI. Colby is amazingly available in about 40% of RCL leagues and is looking like he’s heating up at the dish right now and even robbed Yonder Alonso of a homer, which is always fun to see. He’s got three homers in the past 2 weeks and as the Jays have started hitting, Rasmus could reap some major benefits in that line up.
Bartolo Colon 9.0 IP, 5 hits, 0 ER, 5 K. Zero BBs, BC? That’s what I’m talking about! It was his second shutout of the year and he’s now pitched 18 straight scoreless innings. Colon continues his quest to eliminate walking altogether. Naturally, jogging and running are also unacceptable.
Matt Joyce 1-for-4, 2-run HR. What’d I’d just say about BUYing Grey’s buys. Homers, ya’ll! That’s now back-to-back games with a home run and his fourth in the past two weeks. I am literally jumping for Joyce right now.
Jedd Gyorko 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBI. Jedd played the hero last night with a 2-run double and scored the game winning run in the almost five hour, 17-inning marathon versus Toronto. But really, to be fair, anyone or thing that brought this game to an end last night would have be deemed a hero, including a thunderstorm.
Questions? Problems? Complaints to management? Advice, small gifts or large bribes? Please leave it in the comments below, or you can get at me on twitter @dandemanco. Join us next Saturday for another Friday recap as fantasy baseball continues next week, all week long!
