Lance McCullers‘s middle name is Inconsistent. It’s Irish. It was O’Inconsistent, but assimilation through Doc Ellis Island softened the edges. There’s some pitchers I love. That’s it. Just love them. Trevor Bauer, you seem like a total douche, but welcome to my teams! There’s a few pitchers I hate. Good luck getting on any of my teams aging pitcher who doesn’t throw strikeouts. Yo, have fun, Jon Lester, but not here, homey. Finally, there’s pitchers I go back and forth on. Do I love, hate or something else…indifference? This year was indifference for Lance McCullers (6 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.24), due to coming off Tommy John surgery. For 2021, it’s going to be hard to figure out what to expect from him. Will I love, hate or…indifference? McCullers-Cullers-Cullers’s velocity returned, but his Ks have been kinda flat. He’s not getting a ton of guys to chase outside the zone, and hitters are making contact. The zone numbers are pretty average, but he’s also battled back from major surgery, and may not yet be at 100%. Do you really hold against a guy a goofy six weeks of stats with his stuff? Maybe, but if you’re holding anything against a guy to love to hate, then that sounds more just like love and you don’t know how to show it. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Evan White – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 7th homer. This guy is such a bore to own I’m about to start calling him Evanescence White Bread.
Marco Gonzales – 8 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.06. Streamonator hates his next start, but his opponent, the A’s, will be in playoff mode and I could see streaming Marco.
Sonny Gray – Will have no limitations when he returns to the rotation today. The Brewers might have something to say about that. Wow, such a cocky attitude on this Gray guy. Can you imagine how dumb-confident he’d be if he had a full, luxurious head of hair?
Luis Castillo – 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.86. Do people realize how good Castillo’s been this season? Actually, are we calling this a season? Okay, if we are, Castillo’s been great, and underappreciated, methinks, I say like a leprechaun.
Mike Moustakas – 2-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 6th homer, hitting .218. Moistasskiss!
Curt Casali – 1-for-3 and his 6th homer. Psycho Killer, Curt Casali! (I want to get to the point where I just have one exclamatory statement to make for every hitter.)
Eugenio Suarez – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .203. Okay, not saying it’s gonna happen, but Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray and Bauer in the playoffs? The Reds could surprise people.
Jedd Gyorko – 1-for-3 and his 9th homer, hitting .274. Having a great Gyorko season. Not a great season by non-Gyorkos, or even young Gyorkos. But for present-day Gyorko on a “Good for Gyorko or not good for Gyorko” scale, he’s been a good Gyorko. Qualifying Gyorkos is very important.
Ken Giles – Will have Tommy John surgery. If the Jays had me as their Common Sense Specialist, Giles would’ve had Tommy John surgery last June when he first had forearm issues. Every major league team is you in college when you would put water in your shampoo bottle to get one last drop out of it, only the shampoo bottles are pitchers, and the owners of the shampoo bottles are billionaires.
Randal Grichuk – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 10th homer. Hot schmotato alert! Yes, immediately! Grab him!
Alejandro Kirk – 4-for-4, 3 runs and his 1st homer. Congrats to his owners! All .000000001% of them! Now you can lose him by doing The Alejandrop before Kirk Shatners on your team.
Dexter Fowler – 1-for-4 as he was activated from the IL. On one hand, Fowler only has one week left in the season. On the other hand, the Cards still have 25 games left. On a third hand that is a mitten on an elk’s antler, I’d grab every Cardinals player, due to all their games left.
Giovanny Gallegos – 2/3 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 4.50 as he was activated from the IL. You can’t spell SAGNOF without Giovanny Gallefos!
Jorge Soler – 1-for-3, 1 RBI as he was activated from the IL. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “Who wants to see my Challenger explosion Zoom background?”
Miguel Rojas – 1-for-2, 1 run, 2 steals (4, 5), hitting .343. Why isn’t he leading off!? Seriously! It’s driving me crazy! The treatment of Rojas is making me red.
Eloy Jimenez – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, hitting .297. Next year Eloy is a top ____ overall player? 15? 20? Do I hear 25? 30?
Dane Dunning – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 3.19 vs. Aaron Civale – 6 IP, 4 ER, 11 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.99. Both guys have one more start on the Streamonator, but if I’m being honest, why would either throw more than maybe an inning or two. I’d skip ’em like any rock at any lake. By the by, everyone skips rocks at a lake, right? Always, right? So how are there still rocks left? Who’s refilling the rocks? Who! I demand answers!
Jose Ramirez – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 16th homer. You could split Jo-Jo-Ram’s fantasy value in half and still have more than Lindor. Math!
Carlos Santana – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer, hitting .194. Carlos needs LoJack.
Michael Conforto – Out with a hammy. That reminds me, whatever happened to Puig?
Jacob deGrom – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 14 Ks, ERA at 2.14. Oh em gee, so fun! He’s playing charades! Okay, wait, wait! I can guess it! A 14-K strikeout game at the end of September…A playoff-clincher 20th win?! No? Okay, okay, oh, the Mets in a 60-game season, right! A playoff-eliminating loss? I got it? Yes!
Nate Lowe – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 4th homer, hitting .260, hitting .315 in the last week and hasn’t homered in a handful of games, and I’m trying to find hot schmotatoes here!
Kyle Gibson – 4 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 5.87. HAHAHAHAHAHA–Breathe, Grey, breathe! Goddamn it, we’re losing Grey! I’m him, and I’m talking in third person! Kyle Gibson hates me so much! Last start, a complete game shutout in Houston on my bench; this start an absolute drubbing against one of two teams not making the playoffs.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa – 2-for-4 and his 3rd homer, hitting .295. Israel Diner-Falafel could be a light schmotato, but he hasn’t really strung together many great games in a row all year.
Dylan Bundy – 5 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.29. I’ll be honest with you, unlike the decade of lies, I’m not a huge fan of Bundy. I’ll dig in this offseason, and maybe convince myself otherwise, but I’m presupposed to hate.
Mike Mayers – 2 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 1.67, and got his 1st save. Mike Mayers with the save, and, coincidentally, trying to get saves on the Angels has been a horror show.
Jared Walsh – 1-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 8th homer, hitting .312. Crazy to think the Angels had Walsh in Triple-A for two seasons. What’s that, he must not have been good in Triple-A? Contraire mon frere! He hit 36 homers and .325 last year in Triple-A. You forgot the Angels invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a motorized scooter to get the 87-year-old Pujols around the bases, and he was blocking Walsh.
JT Brubaker – 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 4.46. Unlike his opponent, Jon Lester, who pitched well but likely won’t go again due to the playoffs, Brubaker could throw again, and gets the Indians. The Streamonator hates it, but it doesn’t yet know the lineup, which will likely be all filler.
Cole Hamels – Hit the IL with “Why didn’t I just opt out?”
Kris Bryant – Left yesterday’s game tweaking his oblique. Funny, I tweaked my scrolly finger trying to find Kris Bryant on the Player Rater.
Jose Quintana – Will be activated for today’s start vs. the Pirates. Should be interesting to see the movable object meets the stoppable force.
Nolan Arenado – Hit the IL with an injured shoulder, and is done for the year. This year Torenado just passed wind. He is going to be one of the hardest guys to rank next year. Podcaster Ralph and I did a way-too-early top 25 for 2021 on today’s pod, and I wouldn’t say it’s by any means a set-in-stone top 25 for 2021, but Arenado? Well, let’s just say there were guys taken before him.
German Marquez – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.10. Like he can’t go back to his home country, I don’t think I can ever go back in on Nazi in Exile. Coors can play like Crayola Canyon for five years straight and I may never go back in on a Rockies starter.
Kevin Pillar – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 6th homer, hitting .410 in the last week. Hot schmotato alert!
Alex Dickerson – 3-for-4 and his 9th homer, hitting .290, as he hit leadoff. The new father hit a dong in his first game back from paternity leave, because the alternative means another baby, eventual college tuition and Gerber’s pitching for the Mariners, and how much does that cost? So much adulting, I can’t even.
Johnny Cueto – 4 1/3 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 5.53. Here’s the metaphor for how this start felt: Cueto was Cueto and my fantasy teams were Jason LaRue.
Justin Smoak – Designated for assignment after getting six at-bats with the Giants. Was an insensitive move to begin with for San Francisco to go out and get a guy named Smoak. Who are they signing next, Tommy Housingcrisis?
