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As the old expression goes, you can count on three things in life, death, taxes, and Mets pitchers ruining your week/month/season with an injury of some sort. This is a slight update on the late 80’s iteration of this expression, death, taxes, and Mets pitchers at a snowstorm. If you’re a Noah Syndergaard owner you might want to hit up Doc’s medicine man, because the mighty righty was skipped in the rotation due to a sore bicep. Apparently curls are for the girls, and the DL too. Seriously how does Bartolo stay healthy eating like Kristie Alley on a bender, while Thor spends his free time living like Schwarzenegger in the beginning of Twins? Nothing makes sense, I’m writing the Notes! Riddle me this, Does that mean Colon was birthed from his poop? Or is it the other way around. Yes, I was an odd child. As for Thor, and his right arm, he’s headed for an MRI today. After first experiencing pain between bullpen sessions, and playing catch. He said he “felt great” playing catch, two things, “who doesn’t feel great playing catch?” and as far as I know “felt great” doesn’t mean I couldn’t lift my arm above my shoulder. But Syndergaard is from Texas and a Viking, so he may speak a different language. Oh, yeah, that’s not a joke. He actually said I “felt great playing catch”, but his bicep “stiffens up when it gets cold”. Funny, mine does the opposite when it gets cold. The worst part, is that gem of a comment was followed with “I couldn’t really lift my arm above my shoulder at that point”. However, the Mets and Terry Collins assure us that Thor isn’t hurt. In fact, he showed up to the park ready to pitch! But old cautious Terry pulled the plug, because as he so eloquently put it, “when you are talking about anything that runs into the shoulder to where he changes his delivery and other things happen.” Damn, the man has the vocabulary of Sling Blade! Not going to lie, I’m intrigued about these “other things” happening in Syndergaard’s bicep. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

 

Matt Harvey – 4.1 IP, 6 ER, 5 BB, 5 H, 1K.  Stepped in and started for Thor, congratulations if you were busy at work yesterday and didn’t put Harvey into your lineup. Sometimes being a bad manager works in your favor. I wish I wrote a Schmohawk post about this guy. Sorry, was looking at my What Would Grey Say bracelet he sent when I said I’d cover the post today. Seriously though, the fastball velocity is down 2 MPH this year, and he struggled to hit 93 much of this game, after hitting 95-96 in the first.

Neil Walker – 3-for -4, 2 runs, 1 RBI, hitting .227. Nice of Neil to show up on a short schedule day, maybe he’ll become my middle infidel Colby Rasmus? Then again Walker, doesn’t look like a demonic Amish serial killer.

Yoenis Cespedes – 1-for-2, Pulled up lame running the bases, and exited the game in the bottom of the fourth, a DL stint is expeced. The injury might have happened during BP yesterday, really ugly grimace after the swing if you can find the video. What you thought he wouldn’t miss 20-30 games this year?

Kurt Suzuki – 1-for-3, 2 runs, HR, 3 RBIs. You see the Braves score 7 runs, go to check what Freddie Freeman ( 1 for 4, 1 RBI, 1 run), Matt Kemp ( 0 for 4), and Ender Inciarte (1 for 5, 1 run, 2 steals) did, and see Kurt Suzuki was the star of the game. Not quite a ticker tease, but it’s close.

Daniel Murphy – 3-for-6, 3 runs, HR, 3 RBIs. Quick, Murphy get hurt, so Grey can beat his chest about how you’re a schmohawk for the next 10 months.

Adam Eaton – 2-for-4, 3 runs, HR, 2 RBIs, hitting .291, and hitting leadoff. I know I’m certainly not the first to say this, but I think we’re in the midst of what’s sure to be Eaton’s finest season. Maybe we’ll finally forget about that pitcher from the Phillies. Which one? Exactly…

Trea Turner – 3-for-6, 2 runs, 2 RBIs. Treat Urner in Coors is like needles to the vein, burners to the brain, suicide chess, playing suicide king. We call that a say goodnight.

Bryce Harper – 1-for-5, 2 runs, HR, 3 RBIs, hitting .418. Every other year the “Harper is better than Trout” people have their day. Enjoy your year Harper Truthers.

Jayson Werth – 2-for-3, 3 runs, 1 steal, hitting .283. You think he’s ever tried to trick one of the Duck Dynasty guys’ hot wives into bed?

Gio Gonzalez – 6.2 IP, 2 ER, 5 K, 3 BB, 7 H, ERA at 1.62. Sometimes you own Matt Harvey, and you wish you had a time machine so you could trade him. Other times you wish you had a time machine so you could stream Gio Gonzalez at Coors. Yes, all of my time machine plans involve fantasy baseball.

Antonio Senzatela – 6 IP, 4 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, ERA up to 2.81. The Regression Fairies have seen every Madonna tour, eat Ethiopian food every Thursday, and will rip your guts out. Remember W.W.G.S!

Trevor Story – 0-for-3, 1 run, 1 BB. If I needed walks I would have drafted Jackie Bradley Jr. in the 2nd round.

Charlie Blackmon – 3-for-5, 2 RBIs, hitting .304. Am I the only one who feels like Blackmon’s trade value is always lower than his draft day value, and there’s no reason why? I’d say it’s my leagues, but I’m literally in every league. All of them.

Nolan Arenado – 1-for-5, HR. Thank god I finished raking these leaves, my hands were starting to blister. OHHHHH NOOOO Torenado!!!!!

Jeremy Hellickson – 6 IP, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 7 H, ERA at 1.80. He’s really nothing more than a streamer in RCL type formats, but if you’re in a deep league, or a head to head league, then Hellickson has been an absolute steal for his owner. He’s such a bore though, right?

Kyle Seager – 2-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI. As he returned from a few games off. Not a ton of offense to speak about in this game as the World’s Second Greatest Player Taylor Motter went (o for 3), Robinson Cano (0 for 4), and Jean Segura, and Nelson Cruz went (1 for 4).

Tyler Collins – 3-for-3, 1 run. Not anything more than a batty call in 12 teamers, but as our deep league expert Laura Holt told you Collins caught a body bout a week agooooooo!

Justin Verlander – 7 IP, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K’s, 5 H, ERA down to 4.60. Wow this guy gets f’ed out of more W’s than anybody.

Hisashi Iwakuma – 5.2 IP, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 3 H. Hey, he’s got a lower ERA than Verlander right now. I’m still not trusting him outside 16+ team leagues, and AL only.

Masahiro Tanaka – CG, 3 H, 0 BB, 3 K’s, and the win. Is there anyone in baseball that hits their target more than Tanaka? I’m not sure Austin Romaine reached for a single pitch last night, Tanaka was spotting dimes, and eating onions as he went the distance. One of the more economical performances you’ll see, as he finished off the Sawx in 97 pitches. Writing Sox like that gives me douche chills.

Chris Sale – 8 IP, 2 ER, 0 BB, 10 K’s, 8 H, ERA at 1.19. Neither starter walked a batter in this game, which is the most amazing thing to happen to the Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry since Babe Ruth. Let me say this one thing on Sale, as an extremely biased observer of Red Sox games. He’s the truth! Not that you didn’t already know this, but he’s duuuurty. Let me finish this up, I gotta run to the packie. Sale stayed in an inning too long, coming out for the ninth, and giving up a couple of runs (1 ER).

Matt Holliday – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs. Holliday hit the ball hard, pulling a couple of balls to left field. Was thrown out by the World’s Greatest Player, Andrew Benintendi (0 for 4, hitting .329), as he tried to stretch a single into a double.

Corey Seager – 1-for-3, HR, 2 walks, hitting .318. Homered in back to back games against the Giants. Serious question, in any format would you rather have Correa? I don’t think I would, but maybe you like torturing yourself.

Matt Moore – 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 BB, 8 K’s 2 H, ERA at 4.80. Moore is going to have these mirage games all season, You’ll buy into his next start and he’ll give up 5 ernies. Though this was a home start, and there’s no park kinder to lefties, so maybe you stream him in his home starts. Are mediocre lefties in AT&T the new Hodgepadre?

Julio Urias – 5.2 IP, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, 4 H, threw 90 pitches in his first MLB start of the season. I like Urias in 5×5, but he could be infuriating in quality start leagues. 4 walks isn’t great, but one was intentional, and he’s 20 years old making his first start of the season.

Matt Carpenter – (doubleheader) 2-for-8, Grand slam, 6 RBIs, 1 Run, hitting .238. What a great day to own Cardinals hitters. Short schedule day, double header, and you score 8 in the first game and 6 in the second. Carpenter hit a walk off grand slam in the first game. He went o for 3 in the night game. Here’s the catch, he’s been so bad he doubled his RBI total yesterday.

Dexter Fowler – (doubleheader) 5-for-9, 4 runs, 1 RBI, HR, average up to .224. Outside of the two homer game this was the second time you were happy you drafted Dexter Fowler.

Greg Garcia – 3-for-3 1 run, 1 BB, starting the second game. I own him in an NL only, as my bench bat, and the only way he’d ever play is on a short schedule day, or a doubleheader. Yah me!

Randal Grichuk – (doubleheader) 3-for-6, 3 runs, 3 RBIs, HR. Be honest, this was the first time you were glad you owned Grichuk?

Marwin Gonzalez – 2-for-3, HR, 1 run, 1 RBI. Pretty much everyone else in the Astros lineup went 1 for 4 (Carlos Correa, Nori Aoki, Alex Bregman, Brian McCann, Evan Gattis) last night.

Corey Kluber – 7 IP, 3 ER, 4 BB, 10 K, 8 H, ERA at 4.19. I’d like to tell you that Kluber is just getting unlucky with his ERA, but he’s not. Going into last night’s game his LOB was 70.8%, and his BABIP against was a lucky .261. Ratio murder aside, the K’s were tasty yesterday, and against a team that rarely strikes out vs RHP (19.2% as a team).

Francisco Lindor – 1-for-4, HR, 2 RBIs, 1 run. All of the Indians runs in this game came via the long ball as Edwin Encarnacion ( 1 for 3, 1 RBI, 1 run), and Abraham Almonte (1 for 3) went deep. Another question, Lindor or Correa, no matter the format, who you got?

Kendall Graveman – 6 IP, 2 ER, 0 BB, 4 K’s, 6 H, ERA at 2.25. He continues to throw almost exclusively sinkers, but it’s working. Somewhere there’s a guy who drafted all hitters in the first 18 rounds, and he has the best pitching staff in the world.

Bud Norris – 1 IP, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, Save. Okay, so it’s Bud Norris, until it isn’t. If you grabbed Norris after Blake Parker was picked up last weekend, you lucked out. You’re probably the same guy who forgot to put Harvey in today. Lucky bastard!!

Yasmany Tomas – 2-for-4, HR, 2 RBIs, 1 run, hitting .308. Salami Tom!!!!

Taijuan Walker – 8 IP, 2 ER, 0 BB, 11 K’s, 4 H, ERA down to 3.94. This was the third time in his career he had double digit K’s, and one short of his single game best. Walker’s tweak to his setup, and delivery still have me guardedly optimistic, I don’t own him in any non-head to head 12 teamers though.

J.J. Hoover – 1 IP, 0 ER, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 K. Wasn’t a save situation, but it was clean inning, and after Fernando Rodney’s blowup, Hoover needs to be owned all over. BTW I have no idea if he’ll get the closer’s gig or be in Grey’s buy column this afternoon, but he should be in both.

Grey will be back this afternoon with his normal buy column!