Jesus Celebrates Labor’s Birthday

Happy Labor Day, or as MLB calls it, “Happy Give Some Teams Off On A National Holiday Because We’re Professional Idiots.” Welcome to my semi-monthly tribute to the couple who used to make the MLB schedule for, like, 20 years and were awesome, and, ever since they retired a few years back, the schedule’s been awful. It’s your last national holiday before football begins — our fantasy football subscriptions are open and running — and you’re not starting every team? What an incredibly idiotic thing. You are the only sport going on, and you’re not taking advantage, you supreme morons! (Thats’ not a moron with sour cream.)

When you see MLB’s not playing a full schedule on a national holiday

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— Razzball (@razzball.bsky.social) September 7, 2026 at 7:15 AM

Jesus Luzardo (9 IP, 0 ER, 2 hits, 1 walk, 12 Ks, ERA at 2.87) did not take Labor Day off. Luzardo must’ve thought it was Max Effort Day. High five me right now! That is so good! No? Okay. Luzardo since start of August: 1.08 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 64 Ks in 50 IP. Phillies might be the first team to have three starters drafted in the top 10 starters for 2027 fantasy baseball. Kinda depends on where people fall on Luzardo; I think Cristopher Sanchez and Zack Wheeler are locks. The crazy thing is Luzardo might be the best one of the three! He’s sitting on 11.1K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 2.93 xFIP. I cackle when I come across a player that is so good that words fail. I am cackling very loudly now. Thank you, Jesus, for never taking a day off. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Kyle Schwarber – 2-for-4 and his 43rd homer, 3rd straight game with a homer. Death, taxes and Schwarber being underrated in the preseason.

Grant Holmes – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.46. Mermaid emerging from the sea with seaweed hanging to her shoulders for hair…Wait, that’s Grant Holmes.

Jonah Tong – 5 IP, 4 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.80 as he was recalled. He’ll be in the rotation for the rest of the season. That’s good. He should’ve been in the rotation since they were out of it in June to give him experience, but water flowing under a bridge. That doesn’t mean I’m interested in Tong for fantasy. Way too many issues with command in the minors.

Graham Pauley – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer. He hit another home run on September 1st. [you shaking your loved one awake] Baby, I’m up to date on Graham Pauley news!

Eury Perez – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.94. Ugh, put him in the recycle bin with Kyle Harrison.

Pete Crow-Armstrong – 2-for-4, 2 runs and a slam (41) and doubler legs (34, 35), hitting .281. Ah yes, the double legs of a man who now wants to get to 40/40. If he can get 50 homers, he will go 50/50. Watch this space for more insights.

Matthew Boyd – 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.03. Just can’t trust Boyd or Shota anymore, and that’s just from the first two Cubs starters I thought of! I can’t even think of a Rockies starter.

Robert Gasser – 4 2/3 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 4.43. I streamed him (not because of the Streamonator, but just had a feeling, maybe it was the pizza), and I think every manager should have to write an essay of at least 500 words why they’d take a starter out at 4 2/3 IP.

Pedro Ramirez – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer. That was his first hit in September. And he’s still hitting .263! Was that worth an exclamation mark? Meh, who’s to say? It’s September, we’re loosey-goosey on punctuation now

Noah Cameron – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.93. His 2nd half ERA: 2.51. Boing.

Corbin Burnes – Will return today from the IL. OH MY GOD!!! Sorry, I just watched the new Nathan Fielder movie trailer with Elizabeth Holmes and was excited. Now, I can see how that might be confusing, reacting to that while in Burnes’s blurb. Burnes has always been great, so if he can throw five innings, I’m interested, but I don’t know if he can throw five innings. He threw 53 pitches in his last rehab, and I wouldn’t expect much.

Joey Cantillo – 2 1/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.00. He just didn’t have it (yesterday/this season).

Coby Mayo – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 20th and 21st homer. This was his 1st and 2nd home run of September, but it’s still early. His July (4 HRs, .256) and August (5 HRs, .272) are promising. If he can repeat that in September, you’re looking at one of the better 2nd halves, then radars are blinking and beeping for a possible 2027 sleeper.

Trevor Rogers – 7 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 6 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.15. That’s his longest start of the season

Andrew Kittredge – 2/3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.83. Kazaam, I guess, but he really shouldn’t be the closer. Who the closer is is up to whatever is floating around in Craig Albernaz’s big ol’ brain though. Rico Garcia and Yennier Cano are both better.

Joe Ryan – 4 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 3.68 (66 pitches) as he was activated from the IL. At this point in the season, starter vs. Streamonator should be your call for every single start, even if you drafted a guy as your number one. That’s even more applicable for starters who are just coming off the IL, who might not be stretched out, so please appliqué!

Trevor Larnach – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 12th homer. He had a nice June and July and there’s a reason why I’m not mentioning his August and September (so far).

Riley Greene – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer in three games. He has 301 ABs as a cleanup hitter, by far his most frequent spot in the lineup. He’s never hit higher than third, so RBIs galore right? Guess how many he has. Go ahead! What could it be 85? 80? 75? He has 64. Sad trombone.

Kevin McGonigle – 1-for-4 and his 15th homer. Police chief screaming, “McGonigle!”

Troy Melton – 5 2/3 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.42. The proverbial woowoo has come off the hooha, if you know what I mean. (Unlikely, so I’ll spell it out: The league is catching up to him and I’d no longer trust him.)

Shohei Ohtani – 0-for-3, 2 Ks. He’s back, baby!

Emmet Sheehan – 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 5.08. He’s back, baby! (Just saying that for everyone. It’s my new catchphrase.) Sheehan was the worst thing your dog ever barfed up before being sent down, and I wouldn’t trust him anywhere, even if this start was about as good as I could’ve ever possibly imagined.

Teoscar Hernandez – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and a slam (13) and legs (4), hitting .261. He has thirteen homers. It’s September 7th. He had nine homers and four steals through April of last year. That’s age.

Elly De La Cruz – 2-for-4 and a slam (24) and legs (25), and 3rd homer in three games. Just saw that he’s still only 24. Next year, E! rides to the top with a 40/40 season! (Will only mention this is he does go 40/40 and someone reminds me. It’s up to you to remind me of good predictions and not bad ones.)

Eugenio Suarez – 1-for-4 and his 24th homer, hitting .209. Speaking of age (I was with Teoscar), Eugenio should retire after this season. He won’t (Teoscar too; neither will he). Instead, they’ll be awful for another two years.

Chase Burns – 3 IP, 0 ER, 0 hits, 1 walk, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.73. Don’t understand the point of pushing him to keep throwing, while dealing with a workload. Shut him down, and hope he can finish next year.

Logan Webb – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.10. Webb gem!

Michael McGreevy – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.92. This goes to something I was saying the other day about Kyle Harrison. People will look at McGreevy’s 4-ish ERA this offseason and be like, “Meh, nothing there to draft,” but real ones know that he had a 2.92 ERA at the break. If you rode him in the first half and Aaron Nola in the 2nd half, you’d be doing okay! (Any chance you could’ve known to do that? Very unlikely! But I am merely Cust kayin’.)

Alec Burleson – 1-for-5, 2 runs and his 22nd homer, Member what I was saying above about Riley Greene? Guess how many RBIs Burleson has. Ten more or less than Riley Greene? Any guesses? Actually, he has 40 more RBIs than Greene. Four zero. Forty. Like Billy Dee with a St. Ides.

Dylan Cease – 5 IP, 4 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.40. Pretty amazing that a legit contender for the Cy Young would be a 7.50 ERA pitcher in Bing Bong.

Kazuma Okamoto – 1-for-2 and his 29th homer. Feel like Okamoto should cause everyone to reevaluate how they project players coming from Japan, and I bet it doesn’t change anything.

Alejandro Kirk – 2-for-4 and his 9th homer, hitting .276. He was replaced late for running, but it was his running, and not all the running he was allowing, which was five steals (two from Gelof, and the next blurb).

Henry Bolte – 1-for-2, 3 runs and a slam (9) and triple legs (17, 18, 19). Be still my heart, did I just fall in love? Nature of the roundups is me looking at every pitcher and just figuring out if a hitter is hot or not, but, since it was a short schedule day, I looked at Bolte and he’s gonna end up with a 20/40/.300+ line when you combine his MLB and Triple-A numbers. He also just turned 23. Giddy [pause for noisemakers to get here from Amazon, realize I accidentally ordered noisemakers from the Amazon and not the website, waits an extra four weeks for them to arrive, blows a noisemaker] up!

Nick Pivetta – 5 IP, 0 ER, 2 hits, zero walks, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.43 (63 pitches) as he was activated from the IL. What I said for Joe Ryan goes for Pivetta, as well. Maybe they can be great, but maybe they’re just throwing to try to stretch themselves out. For starters coming off IL, it’s good practice to check to see what they did in their last rehab start. Pivetta looked great, but only threw 64 pitches. His velocity was down, but his command was excellent.

Dylan Crews – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 11th homer. Ya know, I was looking at his numbers recently to see if there’s any glimmer of a 2027 sleeper here, and homeboy is kinda glimmerless.

Moises Ballesteros – 3-for-4, and his 8th homer, 2nd homer in five games. This is the Moises who doesn’t urinate on his hands. Just to clarify.

Brayan Bello – 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.82. Asked the Streamonator about this start and it said, “Are you being sarcastic?” And I said no, and it said, “Are you dumb?” And I said no, and it said, “Sure.” Is the Streamonator big timing me?

Jarren Duran – 2-for-4 and his 20th homer. With two more steals, Duran might be able to achieve the worst 20/20 season ever. Somewhere, Mike Cameron’s filing a cease and desist.

Adley Rutschman – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 12th homer, 3rd homer in four games. First two were off the Orioles and this home run came off Grayson Rodriguez, who he used to catch. This feels all unfair. It’s like one ex-girlfriend meets another ex-girlfriend and they’re like, “Did he make you wear a Giancarlo Stanton jersey while whispering ‘matcha’ into his ear?” People are operating with an unfair amount of information.