Yesterday, Stephen Strasburg went 6 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 2 walks, 8 Ks. And, um. That’s roughly one-thousand percent surprising. Take every cat that’s every jumped out of a closet in a movie and put ’em together and you have a catomic bomb of shock and it’s less shocking than how well Strasburg pitched. Take the “I see dead people” twist and put it in The Crying Game “ding dong” twist and that’s nowhere nearly as surprising. Take a surprise party where the guest of honor has a heart attack and you have something, okay, about that surprising. Yet. Dot dot dot. Still don’t trust Strasburg. If you have him, then I wish you well, but it would not be me. Now I’m simply second-guessing whether or not my fears were for naught. By the way, try to say “naught” without sounding like you’re in a movie in South Boston with Ben Affleck. You simply cannot. “Where’s my munchkins?” “I went to Dunkies and they were out.” “Naught?” “Naught.” See what I mean? Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Trea Turner – 2-for-7, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer, and 2nd in as many games. Treat Urner kills dead balls dead.
Mike Soroka – Shut down with shoulder discomfort. Of course, I wasn’t drafting Soroka, but I’m about to make it a hard fast rule of mine that any time a pitcher has arm or shoulder issues, I’m not touching them until they have a full year back. I don’t have the desire to go through six months of news, but I bet I could find at least 20 articles from the offseason about how Soroka is feeling great, and aiming for a return around Opening Day.
Max Fried – 2 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 9.00. The WAS-ATL offenses enjoyed being Fedde Fried food. That just made Sandoval hungry for later.
Pablo Sandoval – 1-for-1, 2 RBIs and his 2nd homer, both pinch-hit homers. He’s a modern-day Rusty Staub. Call him Rusty Tub.
Huascar Ynoa – 5 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 5 Ks. Streamonator hates his next start. Ynoa? Y yes. And I’m not sure he’s in the rotation after this, but I’m definitely monocle’ing. By the way, when I see his name, I can’t not see this:
— Razzball (@Razzball) April 7, 2021
Keston Hiura – 0-for-4, hitting .000. Lest I remind you, but my bold prediction this year was Keston Hiura’s average bottoms out and he’s sent down to the minors. So, when you see ‘perts now talking about Hiura’s struggles, remind yourself that Grey was talking about it prior to the season, not after when the info is essentially useless.
Brandon Woodruff – 7 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, zero walks, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.45. Fun fact! Bra-Wood is best expressed in charades with Semien doing a chest thump.
Lorenzo Cain – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 1st and 2nd homer. If you want to hang out, you’ve gotta hit the ball out…Lo-Cain. If Cain’s hitting, what the hey, but I don’t trust him to Zombino for more than a week or two.
George Springer – Rehabbing from an oblique injury, he injured his quad and went for an MRI. None of this is good news, except he was carrying his MRI stamp card.
Marcus Semien – 2-for-3 and his 3rd homer. Fun fact! Semien doing a chest thump–Oh, see Woodruff.
Kyle Gibson – 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 7.11. Yeah, haha, no. Never. Gibson can start serving cylindrical hamburgers with his 7.11 ERA and I ain’t touching him.
Nick Solak – 1-for-3 and his 1st homer, hitting .238. The question isn’t, do I like Solak? It’s: How did I miss you wrote a Nick Solak sleeper?
Ketel Marte – Running to first, he crumpled to the ground. And now here I am crumpling to the ground. *yelling from the floor* Damn, I just pressed the wrinkles out of these track pants! Gives me an idea. Start a dry cleaner for clothes just for people who have crumpled to the ground. Is there anything to this? So, Marte was helped off the field with what looked like a hamstring injury. Tweaked hams take ten days, crumpled to the ground hams usually take three to five weeks. Hopefully he tweaked it, and just crumpled because he heard there wasn’t yet a dry cleaner who specialized in crumpled people clothes and wanted to give me a brilliant idea.
Chris Devenski – Placed on restricted list for personal reasons that are not Covid related. Yikes, that sounds more ominous than hanging out with the main character on that new Netflix show, The Serpent. Once feeling better from the flu, Kevin Ginkel should close.
Garrett Hampson – 2-for-3, 3 runs, 1 RBI and three steals, his 1st three, as he led off and now Raimel Tapia is randomly in Bud Black’s doghouse. The Rockies starting outfield was Hampson, Yonathan Daza (not the boss) and Chris Owings (3-for-3, 1 run, 2 RBIs). Bud Black has a dart board with names on it, and that’s how he sets the lineup. “Batting 1st…Barn…Pottery.” “Uh, Bud, you missed the dart board and hit a decorative wall piece.”
Ryan Yarbrough – 5 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 5.06. Welp, things can only get better, right? Right? Please?
Christian Vazquez – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 2nd homer, hitting .421. If I’m remembering correctly (I am), Vazquez is the best hitter every year for the first fifteen games.
Nathan Eovaldi – 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 1.46. The best, and I mean best, and by “the best, and I mean best,” I mean worst is gonna be around mid-May when someone comments, “Hey, Grey, handsome face and all, but Eovaldi has a 2.50 ERA, do you trust him?” And I’m gonna become The Joker, because I wrote a sleeper post about him in January, so of course I trust him.
John Means – 4 2/3 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 0.77. Yes, sleeper here too. I get your hesitation, but you have to just start Means every time and watch what happens, like Andy Cohen of Bravo would want.
Cedric Mullins – 1-for-4 and his 1st homer. Hey, beautiful, I have you for speed, but you want to hit homers too? Fine! Let’s get married!
Anthony Santander – 1-for-5, 2 runs and his 1st homer. I won’t say it, but, yes! All right! He was a sleeper too!
Cesar Valdez – 2 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 3 Ks, ERA at 0.00 and the win as the game went into extras. Cesar Ain’t Got No Face, huh? His 85 MPH junk kinda reminds me of what I keep saying: Every pitcher throws fast; hitters think 95 MPH is normal. Get a guy that throws 85 MPH, and no one has any idea what to do.
Aaron Judge – Out with general soreness. Judge, Giancarlo and General Soreness do a tour of duty every two weeks.
Alec Bohm – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and a slam (1) and legs (2). That’s a BOHM-DA-BOHM-BOHM bomb.
Aaron Nola – 4 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 2.53. His owners better help some elderly people across a street to pay their good luck forward to get out of this game with only one earned run. Oh, and only if the elderly people want to cross the street. Ask them first.
Rhys Hoskins – 3-for-5, 2 runs and his 1st home run. Was thinking since the first game of the season when he nearly homered, and was caught trying to take third, how I kinda wish I was in on Hoskins this year. Seems like he’s about as locked in as I’ve seen him.
J.T. Realmuto – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 1st homer. He saw Omar Narvaez had twice as many homers, and Jerry Tomato stomped his foot and yelled, “Ketchup!”
J.D. Davis – X-rays came back negative on his hand, and he’s day-to-day. The x-rays were examined after this exchange, “Is your name really Jonathan Davis Davis? Really? Okay.”
David Peterson – 4 IP, 6 ER. He should go by D.P. Peterson for David Peterson Peterson. Okay, I’m done now.
Ramon Laureano – 0-for-4. 1 run, and his 3rd and 4th steal, he’s also hitting third, and, yes, I wrote a sleeper post for him this offseason too. *latches foot into chandelier, swings self in circle* I am a fan.
Jesus Luzardo – 5 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners (4 BBs), 6 Ks, ERA at 6.10. Betts and Belly were out of the lineup, and the Dodgers’ lineup is still better than 75% of teams. Luzardo seems to be having mechanical issues, which you can tell from my bumper sticker, “Jesus is my co-pilot and I’ve been lost for three hours.”
Matt Chapman – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 1st homer. Now just need that other A’s Matt suit up and stop being toxic to my fantasy teams.
Trevor Bauer – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 4.15. I made one bet this year, and it was with someone that Stroman would have a lower ERA than Bauer. Wasn’t about fantasy value, I think Bauer’s Ks do put him over the top.
Pablo Lopez – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.54 vs. Jack Flaherty – 6 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 4 walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.23. Not to be a homer, and by ‘homer’ I mean someone who only cares about the players they have on their team, but Lopez pitched better than Flaherty, but that Marlins’ offense is just so sad. Chisholm’s about to hit .170 in 300 ABs until he’s sent down, isn’t he?
Yadier Molina – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. Yadi hit that home run with the respect he has for the game.
Dylan Carlson – 1-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 3rd homer, a grand slam. Why didn’t any of you tell me to look at Carlson again? I’m rueing the days here big time for not drafting him anywhere! Big time rue!
Justin Dunn – 4 2/3 IP, 3 ER and eight walks. I believe eight walks is a Ventillion in Seattlese
Darin Ruf – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and a slam (2) and legs (1). Think someone took it to heart when I said the other day that Babe Ruth would be about as good in the modern game as Darin Ruf. Your 2021 San Francisco Giants featuring Babe Ruf.
Kevin Gausman – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 1.32. Yes, wrote a sleeper post for him too. Gausman, however, was a guy who was more like a top 20 starter disguised as a sleeper. Oh, and ESPN had him ranked around 250th overall until the final week of the preseason.
Blake Snell – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners (4 BBs), 8 Ks, ERA at 1.86. Frequent commenter, Oaktown Steve wrote yesterday, “Is there a glossary term for when your pitcher goes well except for getting burned by on a homer by a scrub? Asking for Blake Snell.” We should have a term. Please suggest in the comments.
Wilson Ramos – 1-for-2 and his 2nd homer, hitting .250. Ended up with a bunch of Ramos shares this year in deep leagues, to which I say, “Ramos? Vamos!”
Matthew Boyd – 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.13. Boyd is fixed! Dot dot dot. Or is he? I suppose it’s possible, but I’m so far from trusting him. Like “trusting Boyd” is down that alley, and I’m Robert De Niro telling Karen to go down it.
Shane Bieber – 6 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners (4 BBs), 12 Ks, ERA at 3.65. Honestly, didn’t watch a second of this game, so I’m wondering if he was wild, squeezed or wildly squeezed and we need to contact someone’s employer.
Nick Wittgren – 1 IP, 0 ER, and his 1st save. It’s decided! Cleveland’s got their closer! Woohoo! *intern whispers in my ear* It was a tie game and they had used their two other potential closers previously? Oh. It’s not decided, y’all.
Jose Ramirez – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 1st and 2nd homer, hitting .350. Those two home runs don’t count because Lindor was traded–Wait, I’m hearing they still count. Hmm, weird, I thought Jose Ramirez would have no value without Lindor.
Jakob Junis – 5 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, 2 walks, 6 Ks. Junis has had moments where he’s solid, so this will bring out my cyclops with a monocle, but for now I’m looking at the Streamonator.
Luis Castillo – 7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 6.97, as Eugenio Suarez conveniently had the day off. As frequent commenter, toolshed, said yesterday, “Some pitchers request a personal catcher, Luis Castillo is requesting a personal shortstop.”
Amir Garrett – 1 IP, 4 ER as he entered a 11-0 game. Kazaam!
Tyler Naquin – 1-for-5 and his 4th homer. Naquin, perfectly still, rises from flames to proclaim, “I am the hottest schmotato in the land. Now, call me Aristides Tyler Naquino.”
Aristides Aquino – 1-for-1 with his 2nd homer. *reenacting Spartacus* I am Aristides. Tyler Naquin, “No, I am Aristides.” Aristides, “No, I promise you, I am Aristides.”
Nick Castellanos – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 4th homer. “No, I am Aristides.” Aristides, “Okay, I don’t know what shizz you white boys are playing at, but I am Aristides.”
Chad Kuhl – 4 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 6.43. Kuhl just proved that (Marlboro) Reds do more damage than menthol cigarettes.
