Jhoulys Chacin was walking more yesterday than my grandfather on a treadmill behind a hot number (his words). Yo-leash’s line 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners (6 walks), 7 Ks. Am I worried that Chacin isn’t going to have a sub-3 ERA all year? Yeah, of course, I’m worried. What, am I delusional? Am I wearing wearing a pirate costume and dictating my blog posts to homeless people behind a Consumer Value Store? No, of course, I’m not. I’m behind a Walgreens. I do not wish to talk about Chacin’s eventual regression. Yes, I am not using contractions to show how serious I am. I own Yo-leash all over the place and…Ugh. We might be at his peak value. This is sorta like when I told you to sell Matt Joyce a week before he started washing his hands in the urinal and peeing in the sink. I don’t think Chacin will completely collapse but he’s more of a 3.50-3.75 ERA pitcher. Trust me, I wish he were going to be this good all year too. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Seth Smith – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs as The Lisper’s Nightmare hit his 7th and 8th home runs. He’s fine for a fifth outfielder in a deep league, but, man, owning him is the fantasy baseball equivalent to watching paint dry. Rub Wiggy’s head and get crazy hot for a week once in a while, would ya?
Madison Bumgarner – 1/3 IP, 8 ER. Eight scored so fast on this Bum even Ron Jeremy was amazed.
Eli Whiteside – 2-for-3 with his 2nd home run. In honor of the homer, Katz’s Deli is giving thirty cents off every stuffed derma purchase.
Alexi Casilla – 2-for-5 with his 2nd home run in as many games after hitting one home run in his previous 400+ at-bats. Give Jose Bautista back his bat!
Chad Billingsley – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks. Part of me thinks he pitched well so you put him back in your lineup for his next start only to have him crush your hopes again.
Zack Greinke – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 10 Ks. Member after his last start I said run out and buy him? Can you still? Rhetorical!
Jonathan Lucroy – 3-for-4 after hitting a home run on Monday. Ebb and flow of the season and it looks like he might be flowing again.
Wily Mo Pena – 1-for-4 with a home run. Short term power add. Or in leagues that count Pedro Serrano lookalikes.
Krispie Young – Hit his 15th home run yesterday. Haven’t talked much about Krispie this year, but he’s having another solid year. 15 homers, 8 steals and, even more encouraging, his average is up to .253. You’d take that from Krispie and like it.
Mike Moustakas – 0-for-4, average down to .219. Hosmer went 0-for-4, average down to .276. They’re rookies, ya’ll. Sometimes you get lightning, sometimes you get cloudy with a chance of crapballs.
Paul Konerko – 2-for-3 with his fifth homer in five games to bring his season total up to 21. He blew my expectations for him out of the water about a month ago and now he’s riding a magical dolphin around in the sky and beating up those expectations with its fin.
Carlos Pena – Now has homers in back-to-back games. Will homer at least three more times in the next week. You can put it on the boooooooard–Sorry, wrong side of Chicago.
Brett Wallace – 0 for his last 16, hasn’t hit over .300 in two months. Maybe the Astros can trade him back to the Jays…Or A’s…Or Cards.
Michael Young – 3-for-5 with his 4th home run. Hey, maybe his power might come around, but I think he’s still gonna top out around 12 homers and his name carries more value.
Brandon League – Gave up a few unearned runs and then was hit by a comebacker and limped out of the game. David Pauley, which sounds like a made up name, was then called on to close it out. He didn’t do so well, but he has recently been solid. Oh, who am I kidding? This is a mess if League’s not closing games. You can grab Pauley or Jamey Wright or Jamey Pauley, but only in the deepest of leagues where you really need saves.
Doug Fister – 8 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 3 Ks. I think he’s been in Smokey’s weekend 2 start pitcher post like 8 weeks in a row.
Roger Bernadina – 1-for-3 as he got to Fister in the two hole.
Brian Roberts – Won’t be back until after the All-Star Game. Can backdate that news to 2008.
Cory Luebke – Will join the Padres rotation. Luebke has a 9+ K-rate in middle relief, but I imagine that’ll come down to around a 7+ in the rotation. Still totally usable if nowhere else except in Petco. Wonder Twin powers in the form of…a Hodgepadre!
David Ortiz – 0-for-5 with a steal. How’d he get a 89 foot lead off of first?
J.J. Hardy – 2-for-5 with his 9th home run. Not sure if he gave the signal, but he’s unleashing hell, Maximus.
Javier Vazquez – 5 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 10 hits, 4 Ks. No earned runs, but he’s still fooling no one. I mean, he’s doing that age-old trick where you pull your thumb apart and five-year-olds are rolling their eyes at him.
Ervin Santana – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks and pulled after 76 pitches as the Sciosciapath decided to start managing his NL-style-baseball-that-is-usually-kept-at-bay-in-the-AL. Can imagine what a nightmare he’d be if he managed in the NL. He’d double switch every inning and run out of pitchers by the 7th. “NL’s where it’s at, hooooo-mees!” That’s Scioscia talking through his auto-tune app.
James McDonald – 4 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 11 baserunners, 3 Ks, now has an ERA of 4.86 and a WHIP of 1.62. I’ve seen peg boys put together better stretches.
Mike Minor – 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks. After the game, Minor’s bags were sent to the, um, minors.
Jonny Venters – Pitched a random insignficant inning yesterday. Not for nothing, which is my mom’s favorite expression, the Braves are ruining Venters’s arm. Every time Venters enters a game, Scott Proctor shudders.
Jason Bay – 3-for-3 with a home run and he just missed a 2nd one. I don’t think he’s suddenly rediscovered 2009, but he looked locked in yesterday. Worth a quick flyer to see if he can stay hot for a week or so.
Dillon Gee – 4 IP, 4 ER, 9 baserunners (6 walks), 1 K. Prior to this start, Gee looked like he was composed almost entirely of phat, but yesterday Gee looked like butter without the ‘er.’ Here’s a proper visual aid. The preceding sentence was for our one reader in India. Hey, Bhishma!
