Since Luke Keaschall (2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 1st homer) has been out for most of the season, let’s do a refresher. If you’re in the south, his name is Keasch’all. In the north, it’s “Pop.” In Minnesota, it’s Minne-Soda. In the Mid-Atlantic, it’s Soder. In Philly, it’s Darin Ruf. In Jersey, it’s Darin Roof. Keaschall was in the top 75 prospects by Itch. In his 1st stash list of the year, Itch said, “Minnesota has been playing Edouard Julien at second base, and he’s been fine so far, but Keaschall gives them a right-handed option who strikes out quite a bit less than Julien. He’s typically been under 20 percent throughout his pro career, whereas Julien lives in the 30 percent neighborhood. Keaschall is slashing .291/.415/.419 with a 19.5 percent strikeout rate through ten games. Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis are complicating factors, but Keaschall’s bat can clear its own path, and put Grey under the path.” C’mon, man! So, that was from months ago, but he’s been hurt and out a while, so nothing’s changed. Keaschall is interesting, 15/23/.303 last year; Baldelli has to platoon every gee-dee guy, but that’s less of a problem after trading everyone. I’d give Luke a chance, sch’all. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Trevor Larnach – 2-for-4, and his 15th homer, and 2nd homer in two games. Watch out for the surging Twins! They’re Geminis, the astrological sign represented by Kent Hrbek and who find inner strength after the front office quits.
Justin Topa – 1 IP, 0 ER, and his 1st save, ERA at 3.86. Okay, can’t blame Baldelli for that one fully. In the 8th, Cole Sands (1 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 4.22) entered, and, through an hourglass, Sands’s time as a closer drifted away. Still think Twins’ closer is likely “whoever is standing closest to the pen phone.”
Zebby Matthews – 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.17. He’s now alternating good start and bad start, so his next one will be awful, that’s according to the Streamonator too.
Chris Paddack – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.91. He faced his old team the Twins who were like, “You’re not fooling us, we know you suck.”
Jake Bird – Optioned to the minors. Aaron Boone, “Can’t fire me, I’m playing the guys you acquired!” Cashman, “Damn it, Boonie, you’re so passive aggressive! Fine, I’ll make it so you can’t use him!”
Devin Williams – 2/3 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 5.44. Cashman’s gonna have to option Williams too. Literally everyone in their pen is better than Devin. I’d use Weaver, but Doval’s there, ya know. They have Bednar too. Keep going to Devin seems a tad bit stupid.
Aaron Judge – 0-for-3 as he was activated from the IL. He was supposed to be on the IL longer, but the Yankees were a 100-loss team without him, so tough it out, big man!
Nathan Eovaldi – 8 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.38, last six starts 6-0, 0.47 ERA. You have to admit he’s good. No one says it ever, except me, but now you also have to admit it. C’mon, stop being Little Baby Poor Sport and thinking about how I told y0u to draft Pfaadt and instead admit how good Eovaldi is.
Phil Maton – 1 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 2.18 and his 3rd save. Not sure if Bochy’s figured out yet that Maton should be his closer, but it’ll be soon and Garcia’s gonna be working the 7th.
Daulton Varsho – 3-for-5, 6 RBIs and his 10th and 11th homer, and 2nd and 3rd homer in two games. Just start whoever is in Coors in August. Please. Do you need me to go through them all? Addison Barger (1-for-5) hit his 17th homer; Nathan Lukes (2-for-4, 2 runs) hit his 10th homer, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) hit 17th homer.
Jose Altuve – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 19th homer. Short stuff go boom! (Also what I say when going number two.)
Yainer Diaz – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 16th homer, hitting .255, 2nd homer in week. Where is Yordan? I have a milk carton with his face from April. Does anyone know?
Jakob Marsee – 2-for-2, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. His thing is speed, but you’ll take some power and like it! Or not, maybe you’re a sicko.
Mike Burrows – 4 2/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 4.45. Burrows really dug himself a hole! [holds hand out for high-five and thousands of suns rise and set without anyone meeting his hand]
Willy Adames – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer. Not a bad year for Adames if he were injured for half the year and didn’t want to play the rest of the year. That he was healthy and supposedly wanting to play is concerning.
Logan Webb – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 hits, zero walks, 10 Ks, ERA at 3.24. 6th game with 10+ K this season, only Tarik Skubal has more. Webb gem!
Jerar Encarnacion – 1-for-5 and his 1st homer. He has arrived! At the Apollo! Big Daddy Encarnacion! When you open Jerar’s minor league page, you get a pinwheel that your web page is taking longer than normal to load. He’s been in the minors since 2016! This year, at 27, he went 4/1/.342 in the minors. He better hit well there; he’s seen every minor league pitcher 50 times. He’s got big power, and nothing else.
Christian Koss – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer. He tripped rounding the bases, because Chris Koss was wearing his uniform backwards.
Ryan Bergert – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.83. Meh, not more than a monocle, but I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t a little intrigued by Royals’ starters, and Bergert, in particular.
Eli White – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer, and 3rd homer in a week. Fine! Hot schmotato!
Joey Wentz – 5 1/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.34. Not sure who’s telling people to pick up Wentz, but I got a lot of questions about him yesterday, and now they will go from where they Wentz.
Freddy Peralta – 5 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.03. If we can get out of this season with FreddyKBB not turning into a pumpkin and saving all his regression for the playoffs, we will be living right.
Clay Holmes – 5 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.46 vs. Logan Allen – 5 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.04. This matchup was billed as, “Why can’t MacKenzie Gore just be a normal kind of meh like these guys?”
Jose Soriano – 4 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 4.01. The cost of doing business with the Angels.
Jo Adell – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 23rd homer, 2nd homer in two games, hitting .230. He’s so close to hitting .240 and if he gets to 30 homers, that’ll be an official breakout. If he gets to 29 homers and .239? It seems so different, right?
Brandon Lowe – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer. The countdown to his next IL stint begins now.
Lenyn Sosa – 1-for-4 and his 12th homer, 3rd homer in a week. Hurry up and grab Lenyn, and quit ya Stalin.
Colson Montgomery – 1-for-4 and his 8th homer, and 8th homer since the break. Colson Montgomery being the best hitter of the 2nd half. Just as we all drew it up.
Luis Robert Jr. – 1-for-4 and his 12th homer, and his 100th career homer. Or 400th homer if he was on any other team. ReinsdorfAnon.
Bryan Woo – 7 IP, 1 ER, 2 hits, zero walks, 9 Ks, ERA at 3.02. That’s a Woo.
Eugenio Suarez – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (37) and legs (2), and 1st homer on the M’s. Glad it happened because I was starting to get a little nervous that T-Mobile was in his head like they talk about on some the CIA Is Listening forums.
Josh Naylor – 2-for-3, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (13) and double legs (18, 19). Have any of you seen Naylor? He looks like he has negative three steal speed. Like he should not even lead off first for fear he can get back two feet.
Teoscar Hernandez – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 17th and 18th homer. Sonavabench! Finally, I removed him from my fantasy lineup and–Wait, is that why he homered? Am I controlling this?
Max Muncy – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 4 RBIs and his 14th and 15th homer. …and we go back in! Yes, I was telling people to forget him, but if he’s back and hitting still, then by all means, get back in. On a side note, Muncy should be doing commercials for Warby Parker. He’s a reverse Superman. He puts on eyeglasses and starts powering up.
Emmet Sheehan – 5 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.00. This was an easy stream, and Sheehan does have ace stuff. Will be interesting to see how he looks in his next start, but Streamonator likes it.
Willson Contreras – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 16th homer. Not bad for a catcher who’s not a catcher, of which the Cards have many. Okay, two, but that’s still two too many.
Shota Imanaga – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 3 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.12. Nice to see him stop the bleeding of his last two starts of regression, and bear down like a good Cubbie.
Matt Shaw – 1-for-3 and his 7th homer, hitting .222 and in the nine hole. At least we’re not trying to make Justin Turner a thing still.
Nick Lodolo – Hit the IL with a blister. Too bad he’s not on the Astros, because they’re team sponsor is Oxy. I think that’s a skin cream, I don’t know actually.
Zack Littell – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.46. If you started him in Wrigley, I think you might have bigger pants grapes than brains, but, I salute your Fruit of the Looms.
Spencer Steer – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 13th homer. That was hit first hit in August. He had three homers and a .211 average in July in 76 ABs, two homers and .270 in May and two homers and .188 in April. What’s the opposite of cherrypicking when you purposely omit the one good month of June?
Max Kepler – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 12th homer. Sadly, the Phils have too many outfielder options so Max won’t get consistent playing time. Exhibit B: Brandon Marsh (2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) hit his 6th homer, and he’s been scalding hot (homering three times in his last eight games), but he’s not playing every day either.
Taijuan Walker – 6 IP, 0 ER, 4 hits, zero walks, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.53. I just gritted my teeth like Lisa Simpson seeing Walker do better than Gore. Streamonator hates Walker’s next, and I don’t trust it, but teeth are still grittin’.
JP Sears – Optioned to the minors. That’s kinda illuminating, huh? It must’ve been like, “Yeah, we’ll give you Mason Miller for your future Tatis. That Tatis Jr. Jr. guy that everyone loves.” Padres, “Okay, cool.” A’s, “But…You also have to take Sears.” “The department store?”
Yu Darvish – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 6.51. It’s nice that you want him to be better than he’s been, but unless your league is very deep, stop wanting and start looking elsewhere.
Xander Bogaerts – 1-for-4 and a slam (8) and legs (17), hitting .267. The one guy the Red Sox gave up on that I agree with. Congrats!
Ryne Nelson – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.20. Wonder if I get very excited for Nelson for next year if he’ll then pitch as well as Pfaadt did this year.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 13th and 14th homer. One of those Lou-Gu-Ju homers was off Mason Miller, off the fastest recorded pitch (104 MPH), which is just funny to me. It was 104 MPH in and 107.1 MPH out. Nutty.
Cade Cavalli – Will be called up on Wednesday. I saw that news, and how he was a 1st rounder. That’s the first thing I see, right? Then I go to see a guy’s stats, and holy crap–So he’s struggled a bit. Wish him luck, wouldn’t pick him up in an NL-Only league.
MacKenzie Gore – 3 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 4.12. Quite the month of July into August he’s had. So, what, he’s, like, tipping his pitches? I hate how bad he became. Any hoo! He was droppable after his last start, this didn’t change that.
JJ Bleday – 4-for-6, 2 runs, 6 RBIs and his 10th homer, and 2nd homer in two games. Hot schmotato alert!
Darell Hernaiz – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Hernaiz reminds me where Cougs goes to get a manicure. It’s called Her Nails. No relation, I imagine.
Shea Langeliers – 5-for-6, 4 runs, and his 20th, 21st and 22nd homer. Langeliers! Sia’s Chandeliers! Hanging from the Bangeliers! Dracula’s got Fangeliers! Was watching Sean Penn and Robert Duvall the other night in Colors, watch out for those Gangeliers! Was there an all-terrain vehicle called a Rangeliers? Think it was Ford. Any hoo! Nice game from Langeliers, but you either have him and know him or he’s a catcher and don’t care. Are there more worthwhile catchers than 1st basemen? No, but it’s closer than maybe you’d think. Astronauts drink Tangeliers! What you call those earrings, Dangeliers?! I could go on for hours.
