[brid autoplay=”true” video=”1380460″ player=”13959″ title=”2013 Fantasy Football Tight Ends” duration=”160″ description=”0:23 Darren Waller 0:56 Cole Kmet 1:45 Kyle Pitts” uploaddate=”2023-08-13″ thumbnailurl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/snapshot/1380460_th_64d83e81af895_1691893377.jpg” image=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/snapshot/1380460_sd_64d83e81af895_1691893377.jpg” contenturl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/9233/sd/1380460.mp4″ width=”480″ height=”270″]
Angels are Charlie Brown and the every other team is Lucy pulling away the football. Another Peanuts analogy: Every Angels fan is standing at Lucy, under her sign for Psychiatric Help for five cents stating the Doctor is in, and the Angels fan is telling her how they’ve had arguably two of the best two players ever, and can’t win games. One guy, so good, he’s absurdly a top five hitter and a top ten pitcher, and still nothing. Yesterday, the Angels met reality once again, as a team that was seemingly rebuilding just last year is marching towards the AL West title, and every move they do seems to work. They went out and got a future Hall of Famer, who looked past his sell-by date in Max Scherzer (7 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 1 walk, 11 Ks, ERA at 3.67) and he’s rejuvenated looking like vintage Max again. Mean’s while, the Angels threw, Patrick Sandoval and he went 2 2/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.09, as he ran up to try to kick the football. Anyone got a nickel he can borrow? Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Marcus Semien – 2-for-5, 5 RBIs and a slam (19) and legs (11). What a shot by Semien! His homer was good too.
Adolis Garcia – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 30th homer. Ignore it! It never happened!
Braxton Garrett – 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 1 K, ERA at 3.91. Not exactly the strongest start, but he beat the Astros and Framber Valdez (7 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.31), so natch. Buenos natches! Natches cheese in a ten-gallon hat made of tortilla chips. Give me a box of natches and let me light this world on fire! Okay, I overstayed my welcome on that. Streamonator doesn’t like Garrett’s next start, and I don’t, and I’m moving on as soon as I find someone better.
Luis Arraez – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer, as he chases Ted Williams’s .400 batting average. He just needs to hit roughly .700 the rest of the year. “Wait, you defrosted me for this?” That’s Ted Williams’s previously frozen head.
Jorge Soler – 1-for-4 and his 29th homer. Gonna be wild when the Yanks give Soler a 5-year, $75M deal this offseason and he becomes Soiler of pinstripes.
Josh Bell – 2-for-4 and his 16th homer, and 4th homer in the last five games, and the one trade I was meh on for the Marlins, or really anyone, was the Bell to Miami trade, and I am contemplating becoming a GM for a team that is purposely tanking like in Major League. I genuflect to you, Kim Ng. Much like your last name, I am NG, as in Not Good.
Starling Marte – Might be shut down for the year. Guess he wouldn’t pinkie swear to trying to lose, but, then again, he’s kinda been checked out since April, so what’s the problem?
Jonathan Arauz – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. He was called up recently to play 2B. Finally, Kool Moe Dee’s fantasy team name, Aruaz ‘n Shine, makes sense! Arauz hit 14 HRs in Triple-A and .244, and looks like a Quad-A player, at best. Honestly, he might hit .210 in Quad-A, if there was a Quad-A, but he does power.
Brandon Nimmo – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 16th homer. Nimmo found one!
Daniel Vogelbach – 1-for-2 and his 9th homer, hitting .223. It’s a small microcosm of the Mets’ season, that Vogelbach has been so awful, but that he has and continued to get ABs says so much. And that is the first and last time small microcosm and Vogelbach have appeared in the same sentence.
Jordan Lawlar – Promoted to Triple-A. Is it me or do you see a big prospect mentioned and quickly skim the word “promoted” and immediately lose your mind only to finish the sentence that says he’s been promoted to Triple-A?
Merrill Kelly – 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 11 Ks, ERA at 3.05. This start was in Coors, and sonavabench! Beginning to think we might be looking at Coors all wrong. While not an ideal start, maybe it’s not as bad as it was when CarGo was going 30/30 and every guy in the lineup was a .280 hitter.
Elehuris Montero – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer. Solid for power and cackles, when thinking about how Bud Black insists on batting Elias Diaz cleanup, and Montero at 8th. Like he doesn’t know what he has in Elias Diaz. I mean, he’s fine, but he’s a catcher.
Ezequiel Tovar – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 13th homer, 2nd homer in three games, in Coors all week, and hot schmotato alert!
Ozzie Albies – Hit the IL due to tests on his hammy. Can it watch Porky’s without becoming inflamed? Does it respond to oinks? Those kind of tests.
Eddie Rosario – 3-for-5, 3 runs, 4 RBIs and a homer. Guess how many homers. Go ahead. You know every other Braves’ hitter has been hitting, but Rosario’s a platoon guy so he couldn’t have–He has 17 homers and 55 RBIs. That’s ten more ribbies than Aaron Judge! Giancarlo has only one more homer than Rosario! Every Braves hitter is good.
Austin Riley – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 29th homer. Continuation of thought from Rosario’s blurb. The Braves are so good, that Riley feels like a let down, and he’s doing so well he’s out-performing his ADP (21) on the Player Rater.
Max Fried – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.57. Looking like a giant idiot for saying I was worried about Fried, like some new age hippie who only eats raw. Hopefully, he’s fine, I can’t say I think he’s out of the woods.
Clarke Schmidt – 2 1/3 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 4.76. Only it wasn’t Schmidt that he said. What he said had a s-h-i and T, but it was not Schmidt.
Brady Singer – 7 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 3 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.91. There’s the guy I thought was a preseason sleeper! Now under-3 ERA in the last month and a 3.49 ERA in June. Singer hasn’t just been good in the last two weeks, he’s been good in the last two months. You can’t throw out his April ERA of 8.49, but, if you were to do that, you’d find a guy that’s been valuable for a while.
Salvador Perez – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 19th homer, hitting .251. Sal P. putting some mother-effin’ cheese on it!
Bobby Witt Jr. – 4-for-5, 3 runs and his 22nd homer, hitting .277. So glad I took the dub on my Witt schmohawk post when I did because he’s been about as valuable as his draft price this year. Thankfully, I already got the win on that! Sorry, haters! *dodges tomato* What?
Steven Matz – Hit the IL with a lat strain. He’s got Gamelitis. Disease that affects people who get hurt any time they start performing well. No known cure.
Paul Goldschmidt – 2-for-2, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (19) and legs (10), hitting .277. Au Shizz!
Miles Mikolas – 6 1/3 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.27. You can look at Streamonator, but this start was at home vs. the A’s and is so freakin’ demoralizing! He gave up a homer to Esteury Ruiz!
Esteury Ruiz – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer. Didn’t see the highlight of the home run, but I’m going to assume he was hitting from 2nd base and an outfielder still almost robbed it.
Yu Darvish – 7 IP, 4 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.24. I like to imagine I drafted Yu Darvish this year, but I got last year’s Yu Darvish. See, I’m playing fantasy fantasy baseball.
Grayson Rodriguez – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.44. I’ve had the kind of year where on my teams Grayson has an ERA of fourteen-billijeanion, and not on my teams it’s sub-2.
Ryan O’Hearn – 2-for-3 and his 10th homer. O’s are having a year so good they’ve turned Ryan O’Hearn into a .295 hitter. Narrator, “Ryan O’Hearn is not a .295 hitter.”
Aaron Hicks – 2-for-3, 1 run as he was activated from the IL. With the O’s big slugger back, they optioned Cowser to the minors. Okay, was being a little sarcastic, but this is why I don’t know if Jackson Holliday or Heston Kjerstad are going to be mixed league relevant this year. Even if they’re called up, O’s have a lot of mouths to feed for playing time.
Wade Meckler – 0-for-3 as he was called up by the Giants, and hit 2nd. He is the 4th player from that 2022 draft to make the majors (all three of the others were Angels). The only wee bit catch here is he was drafted as the 30th pick of the 8th round! Dude doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Does Meckler have something on the Schmekel, Kapler? His 2023 stats are five homers and hitting .379, which is great, except, outside of 10 games at Triple-A, those at-bats came at lower levels (A+, AA). He did play college ball, so he’s not super young (23 years old). He might be able to hit for some average, but he’s not just raw. Sushi is raw. He’s a fish still in the water.
Wander Franco – Placed on the restricted list. Hmm, so many thoughts on this. The two sides agreed to him being placed on the restricted list, but I don’t know how much that’s mutual. It could be like, “We mutually agreed to divorce,” says a man sobbing at the bowling alley with his friends. It could actually be mutual and that hints at the allegations’ truth. Don’t have a clue. Also, it was reported that it was being investigated in the Dominican, where it allegedly happened, so what does that mean? I don’t know that either. All I know is Wander will be out at least a week, and my guess is it’s going to be longer.
Tyler Glasnow – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.01. Hey, finally some good news for the Rays that doesn’t involve someone making up a fake birth certificate.