Zach Plesac was on the attack again Friday night holding the New York Yankees to just two earned runs on six hits in seven innings, he walked one and struck out five for his first career win. All this coming after another seven inning one-run gem last week in Chicago where he struck out seven. I’ve now learned to have blind faith in whatever young starting pitching prospect Cleveland brings up. Zach is now rocking a 1.86 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and a 14/3 K/BB through his first three starts, two of which came against fairly potent lineups (Boston and NY). Yep, I’ve seen all I need to see here. Where do I sign? I want to own the next Bieber/Clevinger before anyone else gets wind of this. Fun fact! Zach’s uncle Dan also won his first start against the Yankees in 1986 and even lost his first against White Sox! How cool is tha-ZZZZ. I mean, way cool! In nine starts in AA/AAA this year, Plesac was 4-1 with a 1.41 ERA, 0.78 WHIP and 56/7 K/BB! Uhh, yes please! Batters hit just .185 against him. So this isn’t exactly coming from nowhere. Sure, he has a bit of a limited arsenal which could catch up to him his second time through the league, but for now it’s all hands on deck. Uncle Dan gives him his full endorsement! He gets the weak Cincinnati Reds line up next week and I’d own him wherever I needed starting pitching help.
Here’s what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Didi Gregorius – 2-for-4. Didi is back from TJ surgery! And actually surprisingly under owned for a player that’s a lock to bat in the middle of the Yankees line up. You don’t need to be a rocket surgeon to know that’s auto-matic counting stats, my over-the-internet-friends and one real life human friend who’s breathing very heavily while reading this over my shoulder.
Carlos Santana – 1-for-2, HR (12). Smooth Santana! Sing it again, Rob Thomas! Now stop! Carloses’s slashing .286/.405/.518 with 12 homers, which is probably a lot better than you thought he was doing, right? Me too!
Domingo German – 6.0 IP, 6 hits, 4 ER, BB, 6 K, 2nd loss. The Regression Fairies have arrived in full force for pride weekend and unfortunately for all of us, anyone is welcome to participate. That’s what all-inclusion is!
Aaron Hicks – 1-for-4, HR (4). Who needs Judge and Stanton when you got Hicks and Frazier!? Don’t answer that. I do. I really do. Please come back soon.
Cole Hamels – 8.0 IP, 3 hits, 0 ER, BB, 10 K, 5th win. The 10 Ks were a season high and he’s now pitched 15 straight scoreless innings albeit all versus the Cardinals. If only he could play St. Louis ever week. He gets the Rox at Coors next week which is a big welp, meep, gulp and an uh-oh but let’s hope Cole is up to the task.
Mike Soraka – 8.0 IP, 3 hits, ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 7th win. He was a SELL! Wait what? Well, he’s got a 2.18 ERA and 0.87 WHIP with a 16/3 K/BB over his past three starts and leads the league with a 1.38 ERA. He’s awesome, but maybeeee not this awesome. If you can sell him high as an Ace now’s as good a chance as any.
Ronald Acuña – 3-for-5, HR (13), 3 RBI. Alt-164 is wearing out my hot keys! If I make a hot-key for alt-164 is it still a hot key! I don’t know!
Freddie Freeman – 2-for-3, HR (17), 3 RBI. Ol’ reliable. Sometimes I just watch the sun set as I casually sip my canned Pinot enjoying the warm summer night and thank the Gods I own Freddie Freeman.
Yonny Chirinos – 8.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 7th win. Yonny Be Good! So good! So good! Chirinos was perfect through the first five innings. He loaded the bases in the sixth but was able to escape unscathed. Dominant performance versus a tough Boston line up got my eyebrow raised Dwayne Johnson. Likely was on his way to a shut out but his pitch count got the better of him. The stats don’t tell the full story, Yonny was masterful, mixing his split-finger and high 90s fastball throughout. He was so close to being your lede, folks. It’s funny (probably not that funny), we poo poo’d the Rays pitching all last year and this year they’ve given up one or less run in 21 games this year! Chirinos strikeouts may be meh but his 2.87 ERA and 0.90 WHIP are among tops in the leagues. He gets the A’s next week, and Yonny he needs to be owned everywhere at this point.
Rick Porcello – 6.0 IP, 8 hits, 4 ER, BB, 4 K, 6th loss. He’s 4-6 which I think has been pretty indicative of the Red Sox starting pitching staff this season. They have either been great or not-so-much, unless you’re Chris Sale. He gets his own asterisk.
Kevin Kiermaier – 3-for-4, HR (7), 4 RBI. Kiermaier has been doing work over the past two weeks with 7 runs, 2 homers, 7 RBI, 4 steals and batting close to .300. More like this? Kk!
David Peralta – 3-for-4, HR (8). Now back to back multi hit games since returning from the IL and Peralta is always solid when he’s not injured which, to be fair, is often.
Kevin Cron – 1-for-4, 3-run HR (1). Cron Air! His first career jack. Now if he can just keeping hitting dingers he might be able to stay up when Jake Lamb returns in the few weeks.
Merill Kelly – 7.0 IP, 3 hits, ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 6th win. His second win in a row. He didn’t look nearly as dominant as he did when he struck out 10 Mets last week but this seems more in line with what we can expect from Kelly. Which is a lot of zzz, some meh and perhaps a yawn sprinkled in.
Zach Eflin – 6.1 IP, 4 hits, 1 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 6th win. Zach is rocking a 2.88 ERA, 1.19 WHIP and 57/18 K/BB this year. That’s pretty Eflin good!
Jay Bruce – 1-for-3, HR (18). Bruuuuuce! His fourth home run with his new team. That’s in four games, folks. So Jay loves playing in Philly? Who knew. Must be the whiz. Maybe he just likes making Bryce Harper look bad.
Joey Votto – 2-for-4, HR (5). Joey saw what a great time his ol’ pal Jay Bruce was having and had to get in on the action. Seriously though, 5 homers and 12 RBI. PATHETIC. Maybe a change of scenery for Joey ain’t such a bad idea.
David Dahl – 2-for-4, HR (6). Charlie Blackmon is set to return this weekend but for the sake of my fantasy team I pray Dahl and Ramiel Tapia (2-for-5, run, RBI, SB (2)) are here to stay.
Daniel Murphy – 2-for-4, HR (5). He’s hitting .450 with 2 homers in the past week! You didn’t drop him, did you???
Jacob deGrom – 6.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, BB, 10 K, 3rd loss. Such a classic deGrom loss. Reminds me of his Cy Young year.
Wade Davis – 1.0, 2 hits, 0 ER, K. Davis returned to pitch a shaky ninth in a non-save sitch, but I guess that’s to be expected in his first outing back. Scott Oberg pitched a clean 8th and is likely to stay setting up Davis. It was a fun ride while it lasted, but it’s probably save to drop your Obergs now.
Michael Conforto – 2-for-4, HR (12). Two dingers and a steal in the past week! The hipster’s favorite player doesn’t care if you own him or not. He credits his recent hot streak to the new secret Juicery he found that’s disguised as a pop-up sneaker shop. They don’t actually sell sneakers or juice–that’s the secret! How cool is that! So meta.
Michael Pineda – 5.0 IP, 8 hits, 3 ER, 3 K. I was holding my breath for this start and it went a heck of a lot better than I thought. I guess the Twinkies really can do no wrong this year. Pineda will burn you, as he is wont to do, but he could be worth a look on the Minnesota win train and would get Seattle next week.
Matthew Boyd – 7.0 IP, 9 hits, 3 ER, 8 K. Boy oh Boyd! Part of me wants him to get a season ending injury just so I have a chance at drafting him next year. Check out that 3.08 ERA and 1.04 WHIP. Niiiice. But it’s the 105/15 K/BB that makes me want to hang his pictures up in my locker. *swoon*
Mitch Garver – 3-for-4, HR (10), 3 RBI. He’s slashing .320/.405/.701 with 10 dingers. When did this guy become a top 3 catcher? I feel like it happened over night.
C.J. Cron – 2-for-4, 2 runs, HR (14). Nelson Cruz also homered (9) and Marwin Gonzalez had four hits because I guess this is what the Twins do now?
Lance Lynn – 6.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, BB, 8 K. I am very impressed with the Rangers this year. They’re probably going to unload Lance Lynn and Mike Minor to some poor hapless team in need of starting pitching help at the deadline and oh man is Texas gonna fleece ’em good! Lynn’s got six straight quality starts with a 49/7 K/BB in that stretch so maybe I’m the one who’s being fleeced?
Marcus Semien – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 2 HR (9), 4 RBI. One of those bombs was the go-ahead homer in the ninth, which isn’t fantasy relevant but it is pretty cool for Marcus.
Jose Leclerc – 1.0 IP, 2 hits, 2 ER. BUY. What happened to easing the guy back into the closer role. He gets low leverage situations for weeks now and then you just throw him into the fire in what isn’t even a save opportunity. Damn right I’m upset! Hopefully this doesn’t back track his chance at reclaiming the closer role, but it certainly doesn’t help.
Chance Sisco – 1-for-5, HR (1). Going to have to keep doing that if you want to unseat the legendary Pedro Severino!
Josh Reddick – 2-for-5, HR (7), SB (3). He’s slashing .310/.351/.462 with 7 homers, 28 runs and 22 RBI. That’s fine and all but what would those numbers look like if he were say…Kyle Tucker or Yordan Alvarez?
Gerrit Cole – 7.0 IP, 4 hits, ER, 14 K. Leads the league in strikeouts. Obviously, with 13 more than the closest player, Scherzer. I know I swoon at a lot of Ks but a 130/20 K/BB (! ! !) and it’s early June. There’s only so many time I can write Mr. Gerrit Cole-Pants on my notebook.
Brandon Woodruff – 6.0 IP, 4 hits, 3 ER, BB, 10 K, 8th win. Rebounded strong after a rough start in Pittsburgh last week. This seems to be Woodruff’s MO. He’s gonna burn you every fourth start but outside of that he’s like Ace material.
Christian Yelich – 3-for-4, SB (14). Braun and Thames both homered but Christian gets the blurb because I like him more.
Travis Shaw – 1-for-3, 2 runs, RBI, 2 BB. I want to take this time to say I’m sorry for recommending Keston Hiura last week, only for him to get sent down two days later, but if you did pick him up on my advice at least you got two homers out of him before he was sent down, right? What! I said I was sorry!
Kevin Newman – 1-for-4, HR (2). BUY. Oh, hello…Newman. Goodbye, baseball!
Bryan Reynolds – 2-for-4, 2 RBI. Another BUY and Bry-Rey keeps hitting. He’s hitting close to .400 over the past week and is available almost everywhere! Do you need me to beg you to pick him up? That seems unnecessary.
Adalberto Mondesi – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBI, SB (23). I don’t own him anywhere, colon forward slash, because I refused to draft him in the second round, but I definitely wish I did.
Andrew Heaney – 5.2 IP, 6 hits, 5 ER, 2 BB, 10 K. I look at his 5.40 ERA, then his 0.96 WHIP, then I drool over his 28/3 K/BB and I think to myself, if you told me he’d give up 5 ER and strike out 10 I probably would have started him anyway.
Drew Pomeranz – 5.0 IP, 3 hits, 0 ER, BB, 7 K. You my boi, Dwew! You and your 7.16 ERA basically outpitched Kershaw (well, not really). The impressive and extremely surprising start from Pom probably buys him another few weeks in the starting rotation. Pick him up if you hate yourself.
Clayton Kershaw – 7.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 ER, BB, 4 K, 1st loss. Kersh has been about as solid as they come: 3.14 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 59/10 K/BB. They aren’t eye-popping stats and you definitely drafted him too high but he looks just fine. #ratherHaveRyu
Fernando Tatis, Jr. – 3-for-4, 2 runs, HR (7), 2 RBI, SB (7). Tatttttiiiiiiiiiiiis! FTJ FTW! This is how you return from the IL. The slam & legs is served in a fish taco in San Diego with a warm fish soup/broth that I don’t know what it is but oh man is it good. Can you imagine how exciting this team would be if they didn’t sign Machado and it was the Franmil Reyes, Luis Urias, Fernando Tatis show? Ehh, probably just as exciting. I’m saying the kiddos are making Manny look bad.
Domingo Santana – 2-for-5, 2 HR (13). Sunday Santana also does Fridays! You can book him on the Fyre app. Oh wait.
Mitch Haniger – Underwent surgery last night on a ruptured testicle. Will he ever cum back? Seriously though. How embarrassing! Tell the world why don’t you twitter. I know full injury disclosure is in the best interest of MLB and certainly fantasy owners, but damn, maybe TMI in this case? This is like Sansa telling the entire council of Westeros Bran’s junk don’t work. Can’t they just call it an undisclosed groin injury aka the Hyun-Jin Ryu?
Thanks for reading! Questions? Problems? Complaints to management? Advice, small gifts or large bribes? Please leave it in the comments below. Join us next Saturday for another Friday recap as fantasy baseball continues next week, all week long!
