Piscotty Be Pippin’

Briefly alluded to Stephen Piscotty in yesterday’s roundup and how I’d love to the see the A’s go deep in the playoffs.  Do I think they will?  Can pigs fly?  No, though, Puig can hit deep flies, and lick inanimate objects like he’s a fly regurgitating his food.  The A’s have two starters and they’re named Mike Fiers and Edwin Jackson (5 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.18).  So, that’s an uphill battle as they say on the way to the soap box derby starting line.  They do have a well-balanced offense, which is a little crazy when you think about their home park.  Ron Jeremy has less foul territory.  Oakland is a top five offense, and their park, as it always has been, is a bottom five park for offense.  That’s so backwards it’s like, “I’m getting so lucky on Tinder recently!”  Then finding out you’ve actually been opening 23 and Me and you’re banging your cousins.  At the forefront of the A’s attack — A’stack? — is obviously Khris Davis (2-for-4, 2 runs, 1 RBI), but ‘a little dab will do ya’ with Semien (3-for-5, 1 run, 5 RBIs), every Semien encounter begins with a Martini (3-for-6, 3 runs, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer), and Matt “Thank God I’m Not Matt Olson” Chapman (2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs) has been on one since July, but Stephen Piscotty is having the year everyone expected from him when he was on the Cards.  I know he had some personal issues, but he might be the first player ever to not be better on the Cards vs. anywhere else they’ve gone.  Piscotty went 2-for-3, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and hit his 26th homer with back-to-back huge games, and in the last 20 games, he’s hitting .338 with eight homers and 26 RBIs.  For 2019, what can he do?  Piscotty doesn’t know!  Piscotty doesn’t know!  But I do.  He can do what he’s been doing this season, a solid third outfielder with 2nd outfielder upside.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Trevor Cahill – Scheduled to return on Sunday.  If anyone wants to bet me, I’ve got money that on Sunday someone’s name on the A’s lineup card will be illegible.  Because, of course, A’s manager Bob Melvin will be making out the lineup card like this, “Please let us have three starters healthy for the playoffs,” with his fingers crossed.

Sean Manaea – After saying Manaea would miss all of 2019, the A’s are now saying he will be able to pitch next year.  Right, just like Jimmy Nelson pitched in 2018.

Matt Shoemaker – 2 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.48.  The Cobbler was more like a Squat Cobbler.  If you don’t know what a Squat Cobbler is, don’t Google it (and by me saying don’t Google it means you will definitely Google it).  Instead, I’ll give you the oral (wrong word choice) history of a Squat Cobbler.  Imagine your fantasy team is an apple pie, then imagine Shoemaker removes his trousers and squats into the pie.

Peter O’Brien – 2-for-4, 1 RBI, hitting .333.  Will be in this afternoon’s Buy Column, because if you can’t fail for sixteen years as a prospect to turn it around for a week and get in a Buy column, you’re not living.

Cody Reed – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.66.  If you listened to the Stream-o-Nator and started Reed, you’re living a charmed life.  You’re so lucky you could be a stringer in Los Angeles and come upon a 14-car pileup right as it’s happening.

Scooter Gennett – 2-for-3, 4 RBIs and his 23rd homer, hitting .318.  I’m doing my positional recaps on the backend of the site, which will be posted after the season ends, and I noticed Gennett is the 2nd best NL 2nd baseman, and he’s not close to 3rd best.

Francisco Lindor – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 36th homer.   As you likely know, the Indians are not having a great season in the wins column compared to other teams, but, off the top of my head, I’d say they’ve had as much fantasy value as any of the big teams.  Michael Brantley (3-for-6, 2 runs and his 17th homer, hitting .306), Edwin, Jo-Ram, Kluber, Bauer, Clevinger, Carrasco, Yonder, Oxford comma, and Bieber at times.

Sean Newcomb – Will be skipped in the rotation.  That’s the Newcombler fallout for sucking for two months.

Kevin Gausman – 6 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.80 on the Braves vs. Vince Velasquez – 3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 4.59.  Considering how I feel about both of these guys right now, I’d be happy with either of those lines from them.  As I would say to girls on a first date, it’s all about expectations.

Christin Stewart – 2-for-4, 6 RBIs and his 1st and 2nd career homer.  Should be many more where those came from, and Stewart should get a rookie outlook post from me this offseason.  Have bat, ball will travel.  For this year, I could see grabbing him for power, but, at this point in the season, I don’t usually go for upside flyers.

Nick Castellanos – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 22nd homer.  The Greek God of Hard Contact went on the record this week and said, “I’m the Greek God of Hard, Consensual Contact, the consensual is implied.  Also, I agree with the woke people wanting to take sensual out of the word consensual, it really is unfortunate.”

Matt Boyd – 1 1/3 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 4.16 vs. Jorge Lopez – 1 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 6.35.  Drunk SpongeBob:  iS THaT hOw yOU USe tHe OpENeR?

Jorge Bonifacio – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer.  George Goodface has risen from the ashes like an extinguished cigarette.

Hunter Dozier – 1-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and a slam (10) and legs (2).  Dozier is the left side of the Royals’ 1st base platoon with O’Hearn.  If the Royals still think that’s cute by April of next year, they should be folded and put into your childhood home attic, then your mom can throw ’em away with your Honus Wagner card.  “Maaaa!!!  You threw out the Royals!”

Adalberto Mondesi – 2-for-5 and his 11th homer.  You know how in professional wrestling the heel will bring an enemy of the good guy to a fight just to get under his skin?  Other teams should bring Raul Mondesi to games to get under Adalberto’s skin.

Eduardo Rodriguez – 3 2/3 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.79.  Joe Buck in two weeks, “Welcome to the Red Sox/Yankees matchup, there is sure to be lots of scoring tonight.”  Yes, because both teams have one starter each.  Every game between the Sawx and Yanks that isn’t started by Severino and Sale will go like this, “We have a 7-7 tie.”  Fourteen innings later, “Well, we’re still tied because both teams have bullpens.  Wait, here comes one of their starters to pitch, okay, this game will be over in five minutes.”

Mookie Betts – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 5 RBIs and his 30th homer, hitting .339.  Mookie Ballgame!

Masahiro Tanaka – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.67.  After Hamels yesterday, this was the 2nd day in a row I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t have that many innings left to use, but I have enough for a 9-inning shutout from Tanaka!”  Optimistic is just idiot spelled wrong.

Giancarlo Stanton – 1-for-3, 4 RBIs and his 35th homer, a grand salami.  Speaking of salamis, I’m typing this without using my fingers.

Luke Voit – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 10th homer.  MTV’s True Life:  I Am A Sparkplug.  Voit sits at a picnic table with a kid on his lap, talking to the camera, “My last name looks like volt and I get charged when there’s electricity in the air.  This is not hyperbole, this is true life.”  Then Voit hands the baby to an intern, because everyone on MTV has a baby on their lap, but it’s always the same baby.

Max Scherzer – 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 13 Ks, ERA at 2.57.  This game was vs. the Mets, so there was at least one future winner of the 2018 Cy Young award in attendance.

Jason Vargas – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 6.25.  This is obviously the future Cy Young winner I was talking about.

Michael Conforto – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 27th homer.  He was not right yet in April.  Should’ve never been on the field.  He had one homer in 63 ABs, hitting .222.  Since then, he’s had no months under four homers, and has hit eight homers this month.  Next year, if I project him for 85/33/95/.255/3, how is he not a top 35 outfielder with upside?

Jay Bruce – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer.  A’la Doc Brown, “Damn, damn, DAMN, damn!”  I just dropped Bruce, and I knew as soon as I did it, he was still a schmotato and should’ve been held.  I didn’t place Bruce in this afternoon’s Buy column, to avoid adding insult to injury, but he does still seem to be going well.

Austin Meadows – 0-for-1, as he was called up.  Dot dot dot.  To not start the game.  I get it, the Rays have a decent outfield.  OR DO THEY?!  Whoa, Reversal Question, you scared the bejesus out of me.  OR DID I?!

Mallex Smith – 1-for-4, 1 run and his 34th and 35th steal, hitting .301.  Whether you own him or not, you should be rooting for him to get to 40 steals, so he’s overdrafted next year with some faulty narrative of, “Steals are in short supply, and that is not an Altuve crack, you have to draft Mallex high.”

Sergio Romo – 1/3 IP, 3 ER and the blown save, ERA at 3.71.  I liked him better when he was off living his double life as an Elvis impersonator.   Audience member, “He looks nothing like Elvis Andrus.”

Danny Jansen – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer, and 2nd in three games, and, goodbye, Kurt Suzuki, I’m picking my catcher scab!  Screams out my window, “Time is nigh!”  Someone screams outside, and I reply, “I don’t know what nigh means!”

Rowdy Tellez – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer, hitting .385.  Looks like a baked potato; hits like a hot schmotato!  Also, Rowdy Tellez sounds like a character Chris Farley was meant to play.  *insert fat guy in a little coat GIF*  Damn, you read that in your head as jiff, didn’t you?  You’re banned from the internet for 24 hours.  Sorry, dude.  In-person conversations for you today.