Happy Father’s Day to all but five of our readers. I am not a father, but I have a dog I ignore most of the time, then play catch with after my wife tells me to, so, technically, I am a father too. For Father’s Day, I went to see the Tupac movie, and to misquote him, “Back for a check, all respect to those who broke their neck to keep this movie in check, cause oh they made some mistakes with this movie majorly, damn, why does Jada keep paging me?” I should’ve taken Cougs to see Wonder Woman, but I was afraid it would empower her. One last note on Pop’s Day, MLB has pink bats for Mother’s Day, so they should have penis-shaped bats for Father’s Day. Yesterday, Jimmy Nelson looked like he should be getting dogged by Jada Pinkett for keeping it too real — 9 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 3.39. His peripherals are right there to match — 9 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 3.52 xFIP with the velocity to back it up, and, if you throw out April, his ERA would be near 2.50 with an xFIP to match. The major change — excuse me, not change — the curve is his major key. Hat tip to Lance and his Jimmy Nelson fantasy. The crux of that is you should own Nelson and stop cruxifying him, and the crux of this is I don’t know how to spell crucify. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Manny Pina – 2-for-4 and his 4th homer, and 2nd homer in the last three games. “If you like Manny Pina, and getting caught in the rain… If you’re not into YoGa, and Lorenzo Cain…” I sung that aloud and my dog started howling like it had a splinter in its paw. Not cool, Ted!
Manuel Margot – Ready for his rehab assignment. He should show up in a giant Ikea manual folded into a car with an M & R painted on the doors, so people say, “Look at that Manuel M-ar-go.”
Dinelson Lamet – 6 IP, 3 ER, 4 baserunners, 12 Ks, ERA at 7.50. I did a legit cackle when I saw his ERA. His ERA is so banged up he should call himself LaMets.
Madison Bumgarner – Threw 40 pitches during a simulated game. Good news if you own him. Great news if you managed to get him in a league where simulated games count.
Brandon Crawford – 3-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 6th homer, and 2nd homer in the Coors series. We’ll see if BC is more BC when he goes AC. AC is After Coors, not Atlantic City or Anthony Clark.
Trevor Story – 2-for-4 and his 10th homer, and his 2nd homer this weekend. So, what you’re saying, if I understand correctly, Trevor Story didn’t retire in March?
Nolan Arenado – 4-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 15th homer, as he hit for the cycle with the walk-off homer. Melancon is on for the save, and Arenado isn’t up for, like, five batters, so I think I’m safe bringing out my origami zoo to play with–NOOOOOOOOO!!! Torenado cyclone!!!
James Shields – 5 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.42, as he was activated from his first ever DL stint. “Your Shields are not strong enough to protect you,” says 2017’s Disabled List.
Russell Martin – 1-for-2, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, hitting .225. On one hand, he’s not good. On the other hand, there’s only two good catchers in the majors. On a third hand, that is a mitten filled with tissue paper, if a catcher is hitting, then he’s worth owning.
Kendrys Morales – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer, hitting .257. Morales has become the utility man’s Kyle Seager. Hits .260, give or take five points, 25 homers, give or take two homers, and 90 RBIs, give or take ten RBIs. Like clockwork, if there was a clock that measured HRs, RBIs and average.
J.A. Happ – 6 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.26, but 2nd start in a row that was solid. After his last start, I told people to grab him. Second verse, same as the first.
Mike Trout – Resumed swinging a bat. The bat he swung was delivered to him by a family of unicorns and it was magical. Nothing else would do for Trout.
Alex Meyer – 6 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.52. Fun Fact! The Tootsie Roll Pop owl’s real name is Alex, but it’s spelled Alicks. Less fun fact, I told you to Buy him on Friday, because the Stream-o-Nator loves itself some Angels starters at home, except it didn’t really love Jesus Christopher Ramirez (3 IP, 5 ER), and, boy, it burned me yesterday not listening.
Matt Shoemaker – Out with forearm tightness. Hard to say if this is real forearm tightness, which means his career is over, or this is forearm tightness that sends him to the DL for one start. Like a fireman, I’ll go for the latter.
Andrelton Simmons – 2-for-3, 1 RBI and his 11th and 12th steal, hitting .278. On our Player Rater, Andrelton has moved into the top 100 overall, and above Lindor and about as valuable as Bogaerts. Yup.
Adam Wainwright – 1 2/3 IP, 9 ER. “When a stream in fantasy baseball takes a deadly turn,” walking into frame is Keith Morrison from Dateline. “Hello, I’m Keith Morrison, and I’m here to talk about a bucolic stream in the midst of an otherwise calm weekend of baseball.”
Lance Lynn – 4 2/3 IP, 7 ER, ERA up to 3.33. The Regression Fairies have a rainbow romper, they spent time with their dad yesterday who is an older, unrelated man who lives in their building they call Dad, and they will defecate on your pitchers’ ratios.
Stephen Piscotty – 2-for-4 and two homers (5, 6), hitting .250. Piscotty knows Ubaldo! Piscotty knows Ubaldo!
Dexter Fowler – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer, and his 4th straight game with a home run. Between Matt Davidson and Dexter Fowler, who needs Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Gonzalez?! *one sad man raises his hand* Um, I do.
Mark Trumbo – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 10th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games. He’s so overdue for a hot streak he’s going to give birth to a 18-pound power binge.
Welington Castillo – 2-for-4 and his 7th homer, and his 3rd homer this week. The tie-in Fox is doing with Welington and Hell’s Kitchen is crazy. Can’t wait for Altuve/shrimp francese week.
Trey Mancini – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 12th homer, and, like, 37th homer in the last week. Hot schmotato alert!
Masahiro Tanaka – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 6.34. They’ve even stopped watching Tanaka in Japan, except for in the Roppongi district at an S&M bar called, “Benihaha You Suck.”
Didi Gregorius – 2-for-4 and his 7th homer, hitting .330. Speaking of which (not really), Notorious B.I.G. in the Tupac movie was laughably bad. Biggie showed up at the hospital to see how Tupac was doing because they were friends, and Tupac saw heavily medicated flashes of Biggie trying to kill him, so Tupac started hating him. You only think I’m joking.
Aroldis Chapman – 1 IP, 0 ER as he was activated from the DL. Those rejoicing he’s back on the field: his owners and women he may have tied up to a bedpost if he had nothing else to do.
Sean Doolittle – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 3rd save and 2nd save in as many games, ERA at 2.31. After the game, Doolittle said, “I’ll do anything to help the A’s win,” which then got immediately beamed to other clubs looking for closers. Casilla might’ve been unavailable after taking a foul in the dugout, or Doolittle might be in a committee with him to raise his trade value.
Kenta Maeda – 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.70. This is mildly amusing to me — Maedaly amusing? Besides Kershaw and Kenley, the Dodgers have 18 pitchers who can throw between 3 and 5 innings.
Justin Turner – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer. Three homers? Not bad…for seven innings of Scooter Gennett!
Logan Forsythe – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Or four innings of Scooter Gennett.
Scooter Gennett – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 8th homer. Or 18 innings of Scooter Gennett. Okay, done with that now.
Lance McCullers – Resumed throwing this weekend. So many sexy people resuming stuff makes me want to sign up for LinkedIn and resume something myself.
George Springer – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 19th homer, hitting .282. On our Player Rater, he’s just about at the top 20 overall, by Miguel Sano and Elvis Andrus. Okay. so it’s been a weird year so far.
Xander Bogaerts – 3-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 3rd and 4th homers. Or nine innings of Scooter. All right, really done now!
Adam Duvall – 2-for-4, and his 16th homer, hitting .275. We’re now 69 games into the season — rawr! — and I can’t wait for the 82nd game. Know why? Easy prorating!
Eugenio Suarez – 1-for-4 and his 11th homer. When you hear his last name, do you also think of a country bumpkin on America’s Next Top Model talking about a soiree, but she says instead, “Tyra’s gonna throw us a Suarez?” No? Hmm, maybe it’s just me.
Zack Godley – 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 8 Ks on Saturday, ERA at 2.34. Godley earned his rest yesterday.
Paul Goldschmidt – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer, hitting .324. Au Shizz!
Chris Owings – 1-for-4 and his 8th homer, hitting .292. Please let him get to 17 HRs while hitting .280. It’s a prayer for Owings, and I mean it.
Jerad Eickhoff – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 4.81. Real question: does any starter who was in a rotation to start the year have an ERA under 4?
Ben Lively – 6 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.33, which comes after a Quality Start in Fenway. I guess what I’m saying is I benched him incorrectly in my weekly league instead of Samardzija in Coors and now I will start Lively and it will all go to hell.
Aaron Altherr – 2-for-4 and his 12th homer, three homers in the last week, while hitting under .200. Power, speed or average — it’s an Altherr or game.
Seth Lugo – 6 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.63. Ugle is the noun form of ugly, and you can’t spell Seth Lugo without ugle, which is what his peripherals are. That all totally tracked.
Jacob deGrom – 8 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.94, and he pitchslapped Joe Ross. Back-to-back dazzlers from deGrom, and I just gave you my deGrom fantasy last week after his first dazzler.
T.J. Rivera – 4-for-4, 1 run. These were his first hits in days, so saying schmotato might be premature, and no one wants a premature schmotatulation.
Enny Romero – Recorded his 2nd save on Saturday. The Nationals’ closer shituation is as follows: if a pitcher gets a save, he becomes the closer until they trade for someone. It can also be illustrated by this visualization: Dusty scratches his head with his toothpick, lifts his arm to the bullpen, everyone in the bullpen looks at each other, someone rolls a ball to the bullpen mound and the first reliever brave enough to pick up said ball is the closer.
Trea Turner – 1-for-3 and four steals (22, 23, 24, 25, 26). Wait that’s five, okay, scratch out the 22; I don’t want to rewrite this entire post on my Smith-Corona.
Joe Ross – 6 IP, 2 ER, 10 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.98. About as meh as a start can be, or if you’re reading at UMass, Mehcus Canby. The Stream-o-Nator does like his next start, and I could see a stream.
Jose Urena – 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.64 vs. Mike Foltynewicz – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.26. This was a matchup billed as, “Why the hell do I have Verlander on my team when these two schmohawks are on waivers in my league?”
Marcell Ozuna – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and 18th homer, hitting .324. OZUNA loving this breakout. OZUNA previously only played Super Breakout on Atari 2600.
Jaime Garcia – 5 2/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.59. The Stream-o-Nator had this game as a negative for Garcia, but I owned him for three solid starts in a row and…Ugh, like Baby Jessica, I went to the well one too many times.
Felix Hernandez – Will return on Friday. If he comes back with 2009 Felix, then I care.
Jean Segura – Will begin a rehab assignment in Tacoma today. Fun fact! People from Tacoma are known as Tacomatose. “For the best hiking, follow the smell of rotten eggs, it’s enough to awaken the most Tacomatose people.”
Danny Valencia – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, and hitting about one-something over the last week, so maybe this is the start of something, but something could be nothing. The preceding sentence was written by someone too lazy to Google synonyms for something.
Yu Darvish – 5 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.35. Like you always wanted your dad to say, I still believe in Yu.
Edwin Encarnacion – 3-for-4, 5 RBIs and his 15th and 16th homer. Get your hands in! The Buy Low Window is shutting!
Jacob Faria – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 1.37 thru three starts. To use his opponents name to express astonishment, holy buckin Buck Farmer, you’ve got to be buckin kidding me? I’d grab Faria in every league until further notice. Yes, even that league. Yes, yours too.
Logan Morrison – 2-for-4, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and his 20th and 21st homer. The funniest thing that’s not funny, people are still asking me if they should pick up Morrison. Back to you, I ask, why should you not pick him up?
Steven Souza – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 13th homer, hitting .265. I drafted Souza in one league, and haven’t dropped him all year (it’s a mixed league, so it means a bit more). When Souza’s been on the field, he’s been more than worth owning. Even more than Chris Owings, for what what is worth.
Ivan Nova – 7 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.91. Real talk: Nova or Arrieta? Is it even close?
Jameson Taillon – 5 IP, 4 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.38. Not a great start for your fantasy team, but he just beat cancer! Put your shizz into perspective!
Kris Bryant – Sat out two days this weekend because he’s struggling. Most people, “No one, and I mean no one, would bench Kris Bryant two days in a weekend due to struggling.” Joe Maddon, “Hold my craft beer!”
Jake Arrieta – 4 2/3 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 4.64. Real talk, Part 2: is Arrieta ownable in shallow leagues?
John Lackey – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.98. This was a start I like to call, “How good your fantasy team would look if Lackey pitched solidly more than once a month.”
Anthony Rizzo – 3-for-5, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer. *Googles how many homers Rickey Henderson had from the leadoff spot in his career to see if Rizzo can challenge him*
Ian Happ – 1-for-3 and his 8th homer, hitting .223. Which is good, great, adjective, but Cody Bellinger hit eight homers in one game, so Happ can eat the D.
Willson Contreras – 3-for-5, 3 RBIs. You see what happened at the Cubs game yesterday, right? Joe Maddon painted himself into a logic corner. Here’s how it played out. Joe Maddon’s internal monologue, “Woo-ee-ooh, I look just like Buddy Holly…Okay, I need to make the lineup card. Hmm, I have to bench Bryant, and Rizzo’s my leadoff hitter, so who do I bat third? I’d totally bat Zobrist third, even though he’s been terrible this year, but he’s injured. I could put Tommy La Stella third, but I’d might finally get committed. Maybe Heyward…But he’s more of a nine hole hitter, so I’ll have to bat Heyward cleanup. I know! I’ll bat Contreras third! Perfect! I don’t care what they say about us anyway, I don’t care bout that!”
