When Verlander Pitches, My Staff Cries Out In Need Of Add Justin

I’m like Neo dodging bullets, only instead of bullets, it’s bad pitchers.  Bends in slo-mo and avoids Ed-Rod, twists to the right and avoids Trevor Bauer, twists left and sees Jalen Beeks…Well, I’d never own him, so…Then again, he has been pretty good as the Malcolm for the Rays.  Ya know, their Middle man.  Oh, crap, I’ve been shot!  *dies in slo-mo*  Beeeeeeeeeeks!  *clutches chest, searches for bullet wound, can’t find it* I thought I was shot.  Oh, noooooooo!!!  It’s worse than I thought!  It was my fantasy team that was shot!  You could’ve avoided this whole megillah for the last, oh, I don’t know, 12 years, minus two random years in the middle (not Malcolm) if you just owned Justin Verlander.  Yesterday, he took a no-hitter into the 7th inning, and went 8 IP, 1 ER, 1 hit, 1 walk, 12 Ks, ERA at 2.24, and on our Player Rater, he is the number one starter.  Barely as good as Tim Anderson, but, ya know, those are noogs for another day.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Yuli Gurriel – 2-for-4, and his 4th homer, hitting .269.  I told you he didn’t retire!  I’m talking to myself, because I thought he retired.  Call up, Yordan!

Jose Abreu – 1-for-3 and his 11th homer, hitting .261.  I’m old enough to remember when he was hitting .291.  If you’re not, you should be commended for reading this because you’re two-weeks-old.

Brendan Rodgers – Didn’t start yesterday for 2nd time in two games.  Us before every Rockies call-up, “I’m not falling for it this time!”  Us immediately after every Rockies call-up, “They wouldn’t call him up if they weren’t going to play him, right?”  Us a week later, “I fell for it again, didn’t I?”

German Marquez – 8 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.38.  What’s the German word for finding joy in German? *Googles*  Wow, there’s a giant rabbit hole about Proud Boys and Germany I didn’t need to go down.  We will say finding joy in German for German makes me a…Deutschfan!

Francisco Lindor – 1-for-5 and his 7th homer, hitting .286.  No point in continuing to point out how he’s doing vs. Jo-Ram, he dusted that young brother a long time ago, in 70 less at-bats.

Trevor Bauer – 6 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.95, and now three of four terrible starts, all home starts, which raised his ERA from 2.45 to almost 4.00.  As our frequent commenter, Frank Grimes, nicknamed him, until further notice he will now be known as Bauer the Broken.  I’m gonna let you warg out on my bench!

Carlos Santana – 1-for-2, and his 8th homer, hitting…Guess.  Go ahead.  To lead you astray, he hit .229 last year and his career average in 4700+ ABs is .248.  Okay, too slow, he’s hitting .290.

Jurickson Profar – 1-for-1 and his 7th homer, and 2nd homer in as many games, third homer this week, and has raised his average from .178 to its current (in)glorious .206 in five games.  Profar’s back, snitches!  Hope you got your order in at the Jurickson store.

Khris Davis – Left yesterday’s game, and he should be on the IL as of five days ago.  Crazy to think he wasn’t IL’d already if you saw him swing yesterday.  He was so off-balance that he looked like he just spun his nose on the bat handle 17 times.

Clint Frazier – 2-for-4, 5 RBIs and his 7th and 8th homer, hitting .268.  He’s been one bright spot of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo getting into a dispute with their healthcare provider. Not the only bright spot, I mean one of a few.  DJ LeMahieu (3-for-4, 2 runs) is hitting .325; Gio Urshela (1-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI) is hitting .336 and these guys have nothing to do with the outfield openings, but I sucked you into a blurb about Judge and Stanton and pulled the rug out from under you.  Suckas!  I don’t mind Frazier for fantasy, but it’s about streaming all hitters vs. Orioles instead of some great stock photo of mirepoix with just carrots thrown at this ginger.

Domingo German – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.60.  *gesticulates wildly at Domingo’s line in front of Just Awful Happ*  Any hoo!  Been in on German for a while, I’m a Deutschfan!

Jose Quintana  – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.30 vs. Zach Eflin – 6 IP, 1 ER, 10 baserunners (4 BBs), 2 Ks, ERA at 2.76.  I’d own both of these pitchers, but I’m nowhere near-stan enough on Eflin to fight off all the people asking to drop him.  Quintana is a hill I’ll die on until further notice when I might run for the hills.

Dee Gordon – Hit the IL with a wrist contusion that happened about seven days ago.  Once a week, someone should hire a skywriter to fly over MLB front offices spelling out, “IL stints are only ten days long, just IL the player that is day-to-day…” Then another biplane flies by being piloted by Liam Gallagher in WWII goggles spelling out, “…is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you…”

Roenis Elias – 2/3 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 3.70. *rips up Mariners closer lottery tickets and throws them out the window, walks outside and tapes the tickets together and they read, “Brandon Brennan”*  Hunh, cool.

Omar Narvaez – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer, hitting .301, and his 3rd homer in the last seven games.  Never Narvaez is having a sneaky top five catcher season.  Less sneaky now that I pointed it out.

Lance Lynn – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 4.67.  Turns out J.A. Happ wasn’t the old-as-Methuselah starter we were supposed to own, it was Mike Minor.  You thought I was gonna say Lance Lynn?  Nah, he’s not that good either.  Streamonator hates his next start, but I could see it going either way in Anaheim Which Is By No Means Los Angeles.

Shawn Kelley – 1 IP, 1 ER and his 3rd save, as he was activated from the IL. Don’t think he keeps the closer job with Leclerc pitching well, but put what I know of managers’ bullpen decisions into one hand and the key to a Taiwanese city where fake turds are made in the other hand, and at least one hand has something in it.

Eduardo Rodriguez – 5 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 5.43.  As I say about pitchers who have great ERAs but terrible peripherals and how you should just own them at this point, the opposite is true for Ed-Rod. You can’t keep running him out there with these results, no matter how much better he’s supposed to be.

Rowdy Tellez – 2-for-5, 5 RBIs and two homers (7, 8), hitting .248.  Done a lot of nothing recently, but a two-homer night can go a long way to a hot schmotato run.  I’d say a Rowdy Run, but that sounds like a Tough Mudder, and I don’t have any cross trainers.

Randal Grichuk – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 8th homer, hitting .243.  After he homered, he placed his bat down like a gentleman and explained to a group of 3rd graders why we celebrate Columbus Day.  Either way, Grichuk is the type to homer multiple times in a week, once he’s hit one.  This was his one.

Jackie Bradley Jr. – 2-for-4 and his 2nd homer, and 2nd homer in as many games.  That home run barely landed in the stands and I had already added JBJ in two mixed leagues. No one ever said I wasn’t a whore for homers.  Put the scarlet letters H-R on my dress and pinch my butt, Reverend Dimmesdale!

Rafael Devers – 2-for-3 and his 5th homer, hitting .320, and his 2nd homer in as many games.  There he is now, Rafael Deversdale!  Deverend Rafflesdael?  Okay, I’ll stop.  Devers must’ve been insulted by how I was saying he was a 15/25 hitter like some throwback David Peralta, and now he’s more of a 20/25 guy like vintage Aaron Hicks, but with a bad glove. Call him Err-on.

Mitch Moreland – 1-for-4 and his 13th homer, hitting .239.  Know what kind of season Moreland is having?  Stop talking and I’ll tell you!  He’s having one of those seasons where he’s never owned more than 50% in shallower leagues, but has a top 100 season.

Andrelton Simmons – Out with a Grade 3 ankle sprain, which indicates a tear, and Luis Rengifo will be the Angels’ shortstop for the rest of the year with Andrelton outta space for any fantasy team.

Mike Trout – 1-for-3 and his 11th homer.  Yeah, yeah, but what did Tommy La Stella do?!

Marwin Gonzalez – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .255.  Has hit in all but two games in May and a near-.370 average.  Still a full-on schmotato!  Though, I dropped him for JBJ in one league.  Oh well, I got one last homer — bombs voyage!

Luis Arraez – 2-for-4 and his 1st homer, hitting .583.  Not sure how he keeps playing, but a guy hitting .580+ should be able to find some eh-bees, sí?

Shaun Anderson – 5 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.60.  I’d start just about any Rice-ja-broni, which is all Anderson is, until further notice. Whose notice?  Mine!

Luke Jackson – 2/3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.38, as he blew his 4th save.  Mean’s while, Craig Kimbrel screamed at his remote control for ten minutes until he realized he had to change the batteries. Starting to look like it might be smart to pick up Sean Newcomb.

Eduardo Escobar – 1-for-4 and his 11th homer, hitting .274.  The best party school in Arizona is *checks notes* Edu.Escobar, because of *checks notes* how it does running down lines.

Matt Strahm – 6 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.06.  Strahm! Let the boys be boys!  He beat Zack Greinke (7 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.89) with the help of Eric Hosmer’s 7th homer (1-for-3, 2 RBIs).  As we know, Hosmerpfeffer Incorporated is making our Strahms come true.

Caleb Smith – 5 IP, 2 ER, 3 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.38 vs. Spencer Turnbull – 5 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.68.  Funny (not funny in the least) how if you look at just their ERAs, you get the impression they’re pretty close, but Smith is knocking on top 15 starter value, and Turnbull might not be a top 50 starter when shizz is all said and done.

Harold Ramirez – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 1st homer, hitting .263.  Sonavabench!  Don’t even ask why I own him, let alone have him benched.  I’m in some deep leagues, okay?! *stands on standing desk* Cougs, yell timber, I’m going over!

Sonny Gray – 6 IP, 0 ER, 9 baserunners (4 BBs), 9 Ks, ERA at 3.78.  I have it on good authority that when Gray saw that Yelich wasn’t playing, due to a sore back, he said, “It’s all coming up Sonny!”  For what it’s worth (and its worth is free for a trial period), the Streamonator likes Gray’s next start.

Zack Wheeler – 7 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.74 as he took on his nemesis, the Nats, who mollywhopped him all year.  On a side but related note, the Mets and Nats both seem like they don’t want to win any games.  It was like they were playing hot potato with the Win.

Pete Alonso – 1-for-3 and his 16th homer, hitting .260.  Terrific, wonderful, adjective, but can we pause for a half a second to recall how there was serious talk in March about keeping Alonso in the minors. He’s about the 20th best hitter in the NL and they were considering keeping him down!  I’m farting in Yordan Alvarez’s general direction.

Trea Turner – 2-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI and his 6th steal, hitting .297.  Only 54 more steals to 60!  *Homer Simpson receding into bushes GIF*

Erick Fedde – 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 1 K, ERA at 2.87.  In two leagues, I won Fedde this week in FAAB and so far he’s been better than Brendan Rodgers!  Got Fedde and acting petty!  Of course, Fedde’s garbage, but Streamonator liked his 2-start week.

Juan Soto – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, hitting .254.  Having a hot cola sounds terrible, but, in this case, a cold Soto has been much worse.  Get hot, Sexy Dr. Pepper!

Brian Dozier – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, hitting .207.  Brain, please don’t look at how crizzappy Dozier has been nearly as good as Juan Soto.  Don’t do it to me!

Clayton Kershaw – 6 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.33.  Start was made even better because I streamed his pseudo-opponent, the Rays’ Malcolm, Jalen Beeks (4 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.19).  Beeks made me want to trade places with someone who didn’t stream him.

Corey Seager – 2-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI and his 1st steal, hitting .235.  *holds finger to earbud* …I’m being told this is Corey Seager’s first mildly productive day for fantasy since 2017.

Julio Urias – Dodgers said they “reinstated Urias from administrative leave.” Short diatribe that you can tune out on if you like. Administrative leave sounds like when your accountant wore his pants on his head at the Christmas party and needed two weeks off to think about how he made Karen feel.  Urias is returning from an arrest over domestic battery.  That’s not administrative leave; that’s “You’re prolly a piece of shit but we’re gonna do like one side of your face and turn a blind eye for now so we avoid lawsuits.”  Woke Grey is the best Grey!