Rafael Is Turning Boston Into A Beacon Of Devers City

Between Cody Bellinger, Aaron Judge, Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi, Ozzie Albies, Amed Rosario, Rhys Hoskins and Yoan Moncada baseball is staying at a Renaissance Hotel.  “Is that a Cal Ripken mint rookie card under my pillow and a Beckett Baseball Card Guide in the side table?  What a great hotel!”  That’s me staying at a baseball-themed Renaissance Hotel.  Oh, and this is barely touching a majority of Ralph’s top 100 fantasy baseball prospects.  By the way, I Googled top 100 baseball rookies from the preseason, and Baseball America had Dansby Swanson, Josh Bell, Tyler Glasnow, Jharel Cotton, Jose De Leon, Robert Gsellman and Albert Almora in the top 10.  (Judge was 12th, Bellinger 19th and Ben Grieve 5th.  Okay, not Grieve, but you get the drift.)  Rookies are a crapshoot, but baseball ate some beans and is shooting crap!  (That sounded better in my head.)  Yesterday, Rafael Devers hit his 5th and 6th homers, coming in only his 16th game, as he hits .339.  He’s only 20 years old!!!  Triple exclamation marks due to sticky keyboard because of Giancarlo, my apologies.  If I had the time or motivation, I’d go back to the comments from people who said within three days of Devers’ call-up that he’s overmatched.  Yo, I think you might want to hold back your hot takes for a minute.  For 2018, Devers or Benintendi?  Okay, I’m gonna hold back my own hot takes, but you’re seriously considering the guy who’s only been up for two-plus weeks.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Andrew Benintendi – 1-for-5 and his 17th homer.  Halp and I welcome Endorphin Ralph on the podcast that’s coming today, and, while he’s on talking about him, Benintendi homers, and we have to send a rescue crew to Ralph’s place because so much of the blood rushes out of his head, for what EMT called a Benin-extendi.

Trevor Bauer – 6 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 4.75, but that number is slightly irrelevant since he’s been dealing over the last few starts.  Dating back to July 27th or four starts, his ERA is 1.88 in 28 2/3 IP with 33 Ks.  Nice nads on you if you started him yesterday in Fenway, but now it’s time for more of us to sack up, as they used to say on college campuses about Hackysack.

Edwin Encarnacion – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 25th and 26th homers, hitting .253.  Betting against Edwin to role a three-five on the home run pass line is a bad bet.  At some point, it’s going to happen, but right now you’re just guessing.

Nolan Arenado – 0-for-1.  Before the game, the Rockies said he would miss two to three starts with a sore hand, then he pinch-hit.  The news on his hand could be much worse.  Though, it could’ve also happened in a week the Rockies only had five road games and they were due to face five Scherzers.

Trevor Story – 1-for-2, hitting .222.  All foolsies aside, the Rockies thought it was better to pinch-hit a guy with a sore hand, then let Story hit.

Julio Teheran – 7 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.98 vs. Chad Bettis – 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 2 Ks in his first start of the year.  This start came in Coors and proves the adage, “While you plan for two terrible starts, the Fantasy Baseball Overlord laughs.”

Jeurys Familia – Will begin a rehab assignment today.  My guess is he’ll be back by middle of next week and closing by end of August.  If I remember correctly (I do), Familia didn’t take over for Addison Reed immediately when he returned from his suspension earlier in the year, and he wasn’t even injured at that time, so I’d continue to hold A.J. Ramos, until you see Familia get a save, i.e., Jeurys back, but the defense still may call Ramos to the stand for SAGNOF testimony.

Noah Syndergaard – Cleared to throw off mound.  Guess he’s back from Westeros.

Curtis Granderson – 1-for-4 and his 18th homer, and 2nd homer in the last two games, and third homer in the last five games, and this is your Curtisy reminder, he’s a hot schmotato.

Yoenis Cespedes – 1-for-3 and his 15th homer, hitting .276.  This is the Yo form of ‘it’s about time!’

Aaron Judge – 1-for-3 and his 36th homer, hitting .289.  Five over-the-internet dollars says he ends the year with a batting average under .265.  Will Cody Bellinger beat him in average though, that’s the real question (that I’m asking myself as I comb my mustache).

Gary Sanchez – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer.  There was about a ten-day window where people were like, “Willson Contreras is gonna be the top catcher this year!  Gary Sanchez ain’t shizz!  I don’t own either so I don’t even know why I’m so excited about this!  Like, literally, screaming!!!”

Aaron Hicks – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 12th homer, and his 2nd homer since his return from the DL.  A) I should’ve pushed more people to grab him when he returned.  B) He’s doing exactly what Michael Brantley was doing in forty less games.  C) There’s no C.  I tried to pick him up in multiple leagues, and you should do the same.

Jake Junis – 6 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 4.50.  Just as it’s hard to call him anything but his full name, it’s also hard to envision Jake Junis being anything but an innings eater who you can check the Stream-o-Nator for matchups.

Jharel Cotton – 6 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 5.92.  That Semien (2-for-4, 1 run) is always covering for Cotton, frankly, socks!

Johnny Cueto – Will throw off the mound this week.  “Hey, that mound is my home!” exclaimed an ant.

Giancarlo Stanton – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 250th homer.  Not in this game, though, with how Giancarlo’s been hitting, you can never be too sure.  He hit his 250th homer in his 941st game.  It took Aaron 1150 games, and Bonds 1260 games.  Giancarlo’s 43 homers are a Marlins’ single season record and it’s mid-August.  Oh, and he’s got me so excited, I’m typing this without use of my fingers.

Adam Conley – 6 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 0 Ks, ERA at 5.32.  That’s the saddest Quality Start.  That Quality Start goes home after school to care for its infirm mother and watches kids from school play in the street in front of its house.

Marcell Ozuna – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 27th homer.  OZUNA just happy to get opportunity to be Barbara Hershey in Giancarlo’s Bette Midler shadow.

Tim Beckham – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 16th homer, hitting .296.  Serious question, why did the Rays trade Beckham to the O’s?  The Rays had to get Daniel Robertson into their lineup that badly?  Beckham was attracting the wrong kind of crowd at Rays game who were looking for soccer?  There’s crowds at Rays games?  I got questions, y’all!

Manny Machado – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 23rd homer, a grand slam, and his 2nd homer in the last two games.  Macho, macho Machado!

Seth Smith – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 12th homer.  Well, is that thpecial?

Kevin Gausman – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.08.  Has had moments this year, but the positives are so far outweighed by the negatives it’s difficult to recommend him.

Cory Spangenberg – 3-for-3, 3 runs and his 11th homer, and 3rd homer in two games.  Hot schmotato alert!

Travis Wood – 5 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 5.57 vs. Jerad Eickhoff – 5 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.33.  This was a matchup billed as, “Wood meets Jer-khoff, and it comes out a draw for the weirdest game of Pictionary ever.”

Rhys Hoskins – 2-for-4 and his 1st and 2nd homers.  Roger that, rabbit!  Hoskins hit that first homer in Petco a far way, and the 2nd homer to nearly the same place.  Halp, Ralph and I(alph) discuss Hoskins on the podcast, and they both give their projections for him for next year.

Wilson Ramos – 1-for-3 and his 4th homer, hitting .175.  Ramos was radically changing the narrative that “When Ramos is healthy, he hits.”  Not a good narrative to change either.  This home run though could be him breaking out of his funk or it could be a short schedule day and I didn’t have much to point out.  You be the judge!

Jake Odorizzi – 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.30.  I wonder if he’s battling something this year, because he was a 3.70 ERA pitcher through three seasons, and looked on the verge of a breakout.  His velocity is a little iffy and his fastball usage is way down from last year.  2017 was not the year to go all-in on guys whose last names start with Odor.

Josh Donaldson – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer, and, like his 10th homer in the past 36 hours.  Okay, small exaggeration but he’s been a man on a mission of late.  That mission is to get people to draft him in the first three rounds again next year.

Michael Fulmer – 5 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.78, as he was activated from the DL.  He’s returning from ulnar neuritis in his elbow, and I think his ulnar neuritis might be following him still.  To think, a pitcher’s elbow injury isn’t healed in the minimum stay on the DL.  Stick a Fulmer with that neuritis and call his elbow macaroni.

Justin Upton – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 23rd homer.  This surprised me.  On our Player Rater, Upton is a top 20 player overall.  Yup.

Mikie Mahtook – 3-for-4, 1 run, hitting near-.400 in the last week.  Don’t Mahtook this guy for a superstar, he’s just a hot schmotato.

Joey Gallo – 1-for-3 and his 33rd homer.  Donkey Dong Jr. barrels up better than Steve Wiebe.

Rougned Odor – 3-for-4, 3 runs and two steals (10, 11).  The hits column on my fantasy team was like, “You’re sure that’s three hits from Odor?  Can you verify it by calling the official scorer of the game?”

Robbie Ray – Will make a rehab start on Thursday at High-A Visalia.  You know someone who was trying to Google “High AF Visine” just landed here.  It’s all good, we won’t judge.

Brian McCann – Hit the DL with knee soreness.  With Gattis also sidelined, filling in for the Astros is the military police officer, Max Stassi, and a Centeno.  Sorry, that’s not ‘a’ but Juan.

Carlos Correa – Took 20-25 swings off a tee on Monday.  Sounds like a fun day at the pitch & putt.

Collin McHugh – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.88.  If I were the Astros, I’d decide on my playoff rotation right now, and rest every one of them, while starting guys like Musgrove and Liriano.

Anthony Rizzo – 3-for-5, 5 RBIs and his 27th homer.  HR to the Rizzo!

Kris Bryant – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 22nd homer.  Ugh, he’s getting hot and going to get to 30+ homers, isn’t he?  Seriously hindering my fantasy fantasy baseball that has him falling into the late 2nd round next year.

Jose Quintana – 5 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners (4 BBs), 4 Ks, ERA at 3.86 on the Cubs, 4.33 overall.  I’m still not 100, raised and underlined millennially, that the Cubs wouldn’t just have been better with Montgomery in the rotation.

Devin Mesoraco – Diagnosed with a fractured foot.  It happened when he looked at his foot.

Scooter Gennett – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer, and, in the same inning that he homered, he gave up a two-run homer to Javier Baez (2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs, his 18th).  The last player to homer and allow a home run in the same inning is prolly Bumgarner or Babe Ruth, said the laziest Elias Sports Bureau statistician.

Scott Schebler – Will begin a rehab assignment, and could be back by this weekend.  Jesse Winker purchased a gift for Schebler’s return, Wally Pipp’s autobiography, “How I Ended Up Being Gehrig’s Sneeze Guard.”