Felix Hernandez was scratched from his Wednesday start with an oblique strain. Guys and four girl readers, you can’t be too precious with your guys. That whole credo “dance with the one who brought you” is real cavalier. You’re a real gentleman as you lounge about in sweat pants while your woman cooks you dinner. It’s honorable. Remind me to submit you to the Reader’s Digest Five Humans That Make A Difference contest. It’s also silly for fantasy baseball. Save your loyalty for your kids when they ask you, “Daddy, do you like me more than your automobile?” Or, “Daddy, how come you were hugging the mail lady for ten minutes with your hands on her butt?” Forget your loyalty for your starting pitchers (or hitters). Felix could throw this weekend to see if he can start again this year. If you’re strapped for space, I’d absolutely look elsewhere. What’s the worst thing that happens? You miss two starts from him? His last starts weren’t even great. You could find better starts off of waivers. Look at me having faith in you! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Bryce Harper – Diagnosed with hip inflammation. The Nationals thought it was more of an issue, but the doctors put a stethoscope up to his hips and heard Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.” Here’s a thought, what if hips don’t lie, but Shakira lies? That’ll mess up your brain if you think about it too long. The Nats are playing for a Wild Card supposedly, but they really have no chance. Harper could return, but how he’s actually going to play is a whole nudder nest of horns.
Gio Gonzalez – 9 IP, 3 baserunners (1 hit), 8 Ks. Could’ve got the lede today, but he’s had two previous ledes this year and I didn’t feel like giving him another one. “Ooh, my name is Gio and I’m good on short schedule days so I can get a Razzball lede.” I’m onto your tricks, Nat-Gio!
Wilson Ramos – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 12th homer (in 62 games). I’ll make an over-the-internet bet with you for five fake dollars that Ramos is touted by every ‘pert next year on the interwebs that Al Gore created. It won’t be without reason either, because I’ve seen four or five of his homers now and they are bombs to all different parts of the field.
Denard Span – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 4th homer. He’s now hit in 20 straight games, which is a NL record if all records burned in a fire 21 days ago. Span is only owned in 25% of ESPN leagues, but 87% of ESPN owners are now playing fantasy football and 13% percent of ESPN owners can’t find their teams through endless browser windows of porn, so Span’s actually owned in 145% of leagues. Good luck picking him up!
Ryan Zimmerman – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 21st homer and 6th homer in the last week. The only surprising thing going on here is I didn’t just drop him from any leagues the day before he got hot.
Ike Davis – ESPN reported that the Mets are not considering non-tendering Ike Davis. Things could change when someone explains to them what non-tendering means. “I’m Fred Wilpon and I’m here to see Bernie Madoff. I need to know what this non-tendering thing is. He owes me some free advice!”
Bobby Parnell – Will undergo season-ending neck surgery. He’s hoping to rebound from this herniated disk for next year. Then that disk would be a really slow boomerang.
Carlos Torres – 4 IP, 6 ER. The Regression Fairies spent Sunday writing a love letter to Kevin Sorbo; on Monday, they spewed all over Torres’s ratios.
Ubaldo Jimenez – 7 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 10 Ks. Now has 10 Ks in three of the last four games and more Ks than innings pitched this year. Boing! His WHIP is a mess (1.39), and he’s walking too many people on the year, but Ubaldo’s really figured out how to make a 91+ MPH fastball work for him. It looks like it’s from his reliance on the slider, up almost ten percent in usage from 2012, and his split-finger is up six percent in usage. If he can locate those pitches better and if they don’t put too much of a toll on his arm, he could be a sneaky back end fantasy starter next year. Did someone bet you that you couldn’t talk about Ubaldo for 250 words? Shut up, Random Italicized Voice.
Yan Gomes – 1-for-3 and his 10th homer. Is there any Gomes in existence that knows how to spell John? Yanny is hitting over .500 in the last week and has two homers in the last eight games. Oh, and he has catcher eligibility. Giddy up, hot schmotato!
Asdrubal Cabrera – 1-for-3 and his 11th homer, and his 2nd long ball in the last three games. For the better part of the year, he’s looked like the light-hitting middle infielder that I always suspected he was, but he could be turning on a Septacular finish.
Ervin Santana – 7 IP, 3 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks vs. the Indians. For the Royals-Indians games, they should do a small pox giveaway.
Alex Gordon – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (18) and legs (10) as he hit leadoff. Gordon’s not exactly tearing up the world with his OBP (.330), so there’s no reason I can figure out why he’s hitting leadoff other than they have no one else to do it. That’s also how they decide on surgeons in rural areas, and why you don’t get choppered into rural areas for surgery.
CC Sabathia – 7 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, to lower his ERA to 4.82. Member when I told you to not draft him this year? You’re welcome. This isn’t just an off year. He has been unlucky, but his K-rate is off and he now looks like he’d need to be lucky to back into 15 wins and a 3.75 ERA next year, and nothing close to elite. Oh, and when CC backs into something, there is a beeping sound.
Alex Rodriguez – 2-for-4 and his 5th homer. I grabbed him for the batty call here, and might hold him for a few more days because I could use power and Miguel Gonzalez, Feldman and Chen are next up on the ledger, or The Star Ledger since we’re talking about the Yanks. How did I get that info? Tutorial time! I looked at the Hitter-Tron and typed Alex Rodriguez in the empty box above the names. Voila, snitches!
Chris Tillman – 7 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 9 Ks, lowering his ERA to 3.66. Here’s one to wrap your noodle around for next year: Tillman or Sabathia? It’s actually not close. Tillman easily.
Howie Kendrick – Will be activated from the DL, but isn’t expected to start for a few more days. I can’t wait for the notice, “You cannot pick up a player because you have an active player on your DL.”
Kole Calhoun – 3-for-4, 1 RBI. It’s the hot dog man! The Hot Dog Man is hitting near .350 in the last week and has solid speed and power. I’m beginning to think he should be my September Desmond Jennings, because Jennings checked out about six weeks ago.
Pedro Florimon – 2-for-3, 1 run and his 14th steal. The definition of a short schedule day is a day when you write a blurb about Pedro Florimon. Pedro Florimon, “That’s cold, man. I got speed, and my last name means shoes in Jamaican.”
Josmil Pinto – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI, hitting .565 since his call-up and hit in the two hole yesterday. Definitely worth a look in AL-Only and two catcher leagues until Mauer returns and I doubt Mauer returns, so there’s that.
Gerrit Cole – 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks. Whoa, that gives me tingles in my nethers for next year. Hard to really be that against him either way, since he has a 3.48 ERA and 1.16 WHIP on the year. That’s as a 23-year-old in his rookie year. For a silly, doesn’t-make-any-sense comparison, Kershaw had a 4.26 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in his rookie year in a similar amount of innings (~100 IP).
Elvis Andrus – 0-for-3 and 2 steals (38, 39). I won’t embarrass anyone by pointing to comments made in June about how Andrus isn’t running this year. Besides, those comments might of been from me. Moving on!
Max Scherzer – 4 IP, 4 ER, raising his ERA to 3.01 and moving his record to 19-3. He might be losing himself the Cy Young in September, which is much more interesting to talk about when there’s no actual baseball going on. Watch out, Keith Law’s got a 12,000 word treatise on why he voted for Chris Sale! “Pardon this caesura, my magniloquence reveals a persnickety to my Sale vote that only a Rhodes Scholar or a true ass can understand.”
Chris Sale – 8 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, lowering his ERA to 2.90. That is some prime time magniloquence right there, baby!
Dayan Viciedo – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. Yesterday, I told you he was a hot schmotato. Today, I tell you what I said yesterday. Tomorrow, Egypt!
Travis Wood – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks. The Stream-o-Nator is marginally okay with his next start vs. the Pirates, but I wouldn’t go near it. I think there’s more risk than SON is letting on. Or as a Connect Four player would say, very sneaky, SON.
Kevin Gregg – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 31st save, lowering his ERA to 3.00. I only talk about closers when there’s problems. When they might lose the job. There’s nothing like that going on with Gregg. I just wanted to say HOLY SHIZZBALLS HE HAS 31 SAVES AND A 3.00 ERA. No, my keyboard’s shift key isn’t sticky.
Domonic Brown – Will resume baseball activities today. Brown said, “I look forward to spitting and adjusting my protective cup again. It’s been too long.” I still don’t see Brown making much of an impact the rest of this year.
Jhoulys Chacin – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks in San Fran. Was a bit surprised to see him available for me to stream him here. If you don’t know why I was surprised, you don’t know Chacin has a 3.09 ERA and San Francisco is the worst home offense, only better than the Mess in Metco.
Tim Lincecum – 8 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks. Take what I said about the Giants offense at home and read it in the mirror for the Rockies offense on the road.
Brandon Belt – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs. Have I mentioned he’s hot? 18 times in the last 17 days? Yeah, just about. Oh, and now he’s hitting third. Yup.
Juan Uribe – 4-for-4, 3 runs, 4 RBIs and 3 homers, after hitting 3 homers in his previous 54 games combined. As is customary after a player hits three homers in a game, Uribe received a phone call from Mark Whiten for him to say, “I’m still number one!”
Andre Ethier – 1-for-4 and his 12th homer, and third homer in the last 11 days. Granted, just about every Dodgers player hit a homer yesterday (Hanley, A-Gon, Rick Monday). Ethier was 0-for-12 entering the game, and I’d want to see more before flipping a coin on Ethier or someone else.
Ricky Nolasco – 6 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, lowering his ERA to 3.14. Rudy grabbed Nolasco to stream him before I had a chance, but I’m still beating Rudy in our league. *puffs onto knuckles, rubs knuckles on shirt*
Taijuan Walker – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks. I want to bake a giant cake around myself, have my Cougar wheel me into the Mariners’ locker room, jump out of said cake and tell Taijuan, “I wanna draft you next year!” Then give him my ceremonial “I’m excited to draft you next year” sash.
Danny Farquhar – 1/3 IP, 4 ER. You last night, “Today was a good day for my fantasy team. It’s late now, I’m going to watch some porn and go to sleep. ” You this morning, “What happened?! While I was Farq’ing myself, he was Farq’ing me!”
Jarred Cosart – 5 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners (6 BBs), 3 Ks. That I’m not excited about. All those BBs and someone’s going to shoot out their eye.
Christian Bethancourt – Yuniesky Betancourt’s brother from a mother with a lisp was called up to back up McCann. Bethancourt is way too raw (22 years old) to make any impact this year, but he could be the starting Braves catcher next year and he hit 12 homers in Triple-A with a .277 average, so make note in dynasty leagues.
Evan Gattis – 1-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs. I really like the way he swings so aggressively on every pitch. I haven’t seen someone swing a bat with such relish since Joe Clark.
Giancarlo Stanton – Out again with a sore foot and ankle. If he wants to get better, I need to touch his sore, pointy spots.
Chris Coghlan – 4-for-4 with four singles. Someone’s ready for the strip club!
