First clue I’m human, when I overheard an old woman tell someone she showers while sitting on a stool, I shivered. Second clue, I used to wear Z. Cavariccis. First clue Justin Verlander is human was last night. He had the worst outing of his career with 2 2/3 IP and 8 ER. Verlander looked like Kate Upton, if Kate had Rosie O’Donnell’s head. Sorry, that’s a visual you won’t get out of your head for a long time. It’s like two girls, one shower stool. Can’t you just take a bath? Please tell me this isn’t old age…. Speaking of which (watch how I tie this loosely into fantasy baseball), Verlander is thirty years old and… Still lights out. This was one bad start, don’t panic. C’mere, let me massage your shoulders and… I just pick-pocketed you! You gotta be careful with that. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Don Kelly – 1-for-4 with his 1st homer. That’s LL Donkey to you.
Matt Cain – 6 1/3 IP, 6 ER, 10 baserunners, 6 Ks. 3rd…Or is it the fourth clue — maybe it’s the fifth clue… I don’t know, but there’s been a lot of clues lately that Cain is human. He looks downright Lincecrummy. It’s like the will of 20,000 sabermetricians are all channeling their energy to have Cain finally have an ERA above his xFIP. By the way, the energy of 20,000 sabermetricians is equal to a light bulb with acne. He’s throwing his slider a lot more this year, but his velocity looks close enough to years past, so I don’t think there’s an underlying injury. The only thing I can ascertain is he’s not locating with his fastball so he’s going to his slider more which is making it less effective. Plus, his luck has gone the way of the doodie, or whatever that cliché is. He’s been able to get a tad lucky with homers allowed in the past and now that has reversed the other way. He should be better than he’s been with just some luck coming back to him. I would trade for him, but I wouldn’t pay a lot. Luckily, his owners prolly won’t ask for much.
Brandon Crawford – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs. I’d grab him since he’s hitting near .400 in the last week, but if you grab him and get an erection for longer than four hours, you should see a doctor immediately.
Marco Scutaro – 2-for-5, 1 run, hitting near .500 in the last week (can you tell the Giants were on the road?). I’d say Marco Scutaro is gonna be in this afternoon’s Buy, but he’s not. He’s here now, don’t make me come back here!
Todd Helton – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs with his 3rd homer. I went to look at his recent stats, saw his picture with his muffbeard and had to close my browser window. Sorry.
Wilin Rosario – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 8th homer. Unless something bad happens (which has all but assured something bad will happen by me saying this), Wilin’s a top three catcher this year and next. BTW, ESPN re-ranked their players yesterday, and they are much closer to how I ranked…In January! Which I actually wrote in December! What a joke.
Nolan Arenado – 1-for-4 and his 4th homer. I’m getting the sense from comments that people are getting antsy looking to drop Arenado. Three words: Summer in Coors, yo. Yo doesn’t count.
Hector Noesi – 4 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks. Fun Fact Alert! Noesi is what they used to call a pre-nose job Jon Niese.
Michael Morse – 2-for-3, 2 runs and his 10th homer. Beep boo boop.
Alexi Ogando – To the DL with biceps tendinitis. Rangers will go to Cory Burns for his roster spot and Josh Lindblom to replace him in the rotation. Or as the Rangers media guide lists them: Cory (bullpen stock) and Blom.
Yu Darvish – 8 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks. It would be cool if the only English he knew was, “Yu want some of this?” Granted, if you had to live with him that would get old.
Mitch Moreland– 2-for-4, 1 run, 2 RBIs. That’s not a hot schmotato. THIS IS A HOT SCHMOTATO!
David Murphy – 2-for-4, 1 run, hitting near .400 in the last week. See what I said about Arenado, but replace Coors with Arlington and change yo to homie.
David Price – Rays made it official today that he would hit the DL with a strained triceps. Ogando with his biceps, Price with his triceps, anyone think maybe the ceps wanna roll solo? Just thinking aloud here. Rays still haven’t announced Price’s replacement, but more people are speculating on Odorizzi today, after Archer’s start yesterday. Could go either way. Price is supposed to only miss three starts. Please, your deity of choice, let that be true.
Alex Cobb – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks. Big Biscuit just broke down Cobb and there’s none of those nasty husk hairs left on him.
Fernando Rodney – 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners. Whoa, he blew that one like Pete Rose had a gun to his head and $10,000 worth of autographs riding on the Red Sox. BTW, $10,000 worth of Rose autographs is about 10,000 autographs because of basic supply and demand. A blown save like this erases a lot of the goodwill Rodney accumulated from last year. I’d speculate on Joel Peralta immediately.
Ryan Roberts – 1-for-3 with his 3rd homer. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if the Rays announcer was joking when he said that Roberts tattooed the ball.
Francisco Liriano – 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 9 baserunners, 7 Ks. I can’t shake past feelings on Francisco Liriano. Not past past like more than four years ago, but for the past four years he’s been atrocious. He has a cumulative 5+ ERA since 2009. Then, I watched him yesterday as he kept the Brewers uncomfortable at the plate like they were Ethiopians with Ménière’s disease. He looked solid, but there’s no way I’m gonna tell you to pick him up (unless, of course, you ask me something like “Grey, your mustache is my morning, noon and night, who you got Liriano or Kevin Correia?”) If you want to ride the roller coaster for a while until the guy in front of you gets sick, I can understand it. It won’t be me with Liriano.
Juan Pierre – 1-for-5 and Pierre with his Juan bomb! Great timing for his new HBO film. A gracious fan retrieved the home run ball and returned it to Pierre. Here’s him posing with it.
Jose Fernandez – 7 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks. Jo-Fer is doing about as well as can be expected considering the team he plays for and how the Marlins are using kid gloves with his pitch counts. Dusty Baker, “Kid gloves are for baby goats!”
Steve Cishek – 1 2/3 IP, 3 ER. Unlike Rodney above, Cishek is on a team that doesn’t have much hope so there’s really no reason to speculate on other relievers here. Yes, that’s sad.
Mat Latos – 8 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks. Should’ve got the win, but he made the mistake of going into the ninth in a 2-1 game with only 85 pitches thrown. Dusty sharpens his toothpick on such fools.
Jay Bruce – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs, hitting near .400 in the last week with two homers. Looks like he’s finally coming out of his early season slump. Maybe he could bring Todd Frazier with him.
Joel Hanrahan – Had Tommy John surgery. Dr. James Andrews was overheard saying, “I call this Mercedes my G-Wagononononononon.”
Felix Doubront – 5 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 7 Ks. His Ks are so tantalizing… So hard to resist… Must find strength… Or drink heavily to forget…
Dellin Betances – Yankees promoted him for bullpen depth. If he were promoted three years ago, he would’ve arrived with a whole lot of hype and would only now be flaming out in the majors. You know, like Hughes and Joba.
Derek Jeter – Close to having his walking boot removed. That’ll be a fun addition to a girl’s gift basket who just won’t leave him alone.
Andy Pettitte – Left start yesterday with tightness in his trapezius. Wasn’t the same thing Joba was bouncing on when he got hurt?
Curtis Granderson – 3-for-4, 1 run and his first steal, hitting .364 since his return. That won’t continue, I know this much is true, huh huh huh hu-uh huh, Spandau Ballet.
Aaron Harang – Was scratched due to a stiff back. I would not wanna be the one scratching his back.
Jonny Venters – Had his 2nd Tommy John surgery. Hope he got his card stamped.
Josh Hamilton – 1-for-4, 1 run. A lot of Ham has gone bad this year, J-Ham, Willingham, Hamels. They should’ve cured it.
Albert Pujols – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 7th homer. You’re gonna look up in late-June and Pujols will have 15 homers, hitting .280 and you’ll be like, “Well, he’s not Goldschmidt, but he’s still pretty good.”
Ricky Romero – Gave up six walks in his Triple-A start. RR might want to stop being so sloppy with his cursive R’s.
Roy Halladay – Had surgery and will now rest for two months. He hopes to be back by the end of the year. You put his hopes in a flour tortilla and you got a burpritto.
Bryce Harper – 1-for-4 and his 11th homer as he returned to the lineup. After the home run ball cleared the fences, the ball let out a sigh of relief.
Adam LaRoche – 1-for-3 with his 5th homer, this one in Petco. Just yesterday, I said he was about to catch fire. Can’t make that up. Okay, you can, but it would be pretty easy to check.
Stephen Strasburg – 8 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks. Can’t Selig realign the Nationals to the NL West? Washington D.C. is the District of Coronado. C’mon!
Carlos Beltran – 3-for-4, 1 RBI vs. the guy whose nose job he paid for. Maybe it was all a ploy so there wouldn’t be any funky shadows on the field.
Jon Niese – 7 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks. I’d like to punch him repeatedly in his newfangled nose until it’s worse than his oldfangled one. If I had a nickel every time I used the word oldfangled, I’d take that nickel and buy Niese with it. I didn’t see the game because I was out at lunch with Cougar and Mother Cougar, but I have to believe balls were hit at people since he didn’t have any Ks. He gets the Reds next and I look forward to watching him get rocked.
Bobby Parnell – Got his fourth save yesterday, which is worse than Veras, Heath Bell and Cishek. He also has 16 Ks in 17 1/3 IP, 4 wins and a 1.04 ERA/0.75 WHIP. That’s a valuable closer in every league; SAGNOF is coming, as said by Lord Donkeycorn and the Warden of the Bullpen.
Daniel Murphy – 4-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI and 10 for his last 16. He’s not in this afternoon’s Buy/Sell because, brucely, I don’t really like him, but that’s not why. He’s owned in more than 50% of leagues to even warrant it. So I get to point him out here and aren’t obligated to there. I make the rules here, Buckaroo Banzai, and is anybody out there not having a good time?
Ike Davis – 0-for-5 with 4 Ks. That translates to 3-for-4 with 2 homers if he were standing in the batter’s box. I wonder if his standing five feet too far from the plate translates to other aspects of his life. Like he rides a motorcycle to the stadium, but sits in its sidecar and his wife tows him. Or he gets an aisle seat on the plane and sits in the aisle. Or he showers while standing in the toilet.
