Nothing is normal in Seattle this year. It’s like grunge has returned but as a clean-shaven Buddy Holly Happy Days music. Coffee is now tea, and the space needle is shooting adrenaline directly into our hearts. This team is an offensive juggernaut, emphasis on jugger, deemphasize naut. They were in Atlanta yesterday, who is also going through The Opposites. Everyone’s the unlikeliest on both teams. Starting with the most unlikely move, the Braves moved Acuña down in the order to 7th as he hits around .200 in the 2nd half. That, however unlikely, is the least of the Braves’ problems. They were destroyed yesterday and their pitching is mostly a big ol’ mess. How’sever, to fact-check this, I went to look at the team ERAs and the Rockies’ team ERA is 6.00. In almost 1250 innings! The 1996 Tigers had a 6.38 ERA, then you have to go back about 80 years to even get close. Leading the M’s onslaught like Don Slaught on greenies and PEDs, Eugenio Suarez (2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 44th and 45th homer, three homers in two games). He’s actually the most likely of the unlikelies. It’s Eugenio and the Unlikelies: Josh Naylor (2-for-3, 2 runs and a slam (18) and legs (24), 2nd homer in two games). A 20/30 season from Naylor would be up there with the most unlikely seasons to ever happen. He’s molasses slow! Another unlikely season is Cal Raleigh (2-for-6, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 53rd homer, 2nd homer in two games). Coming into this year, he was merely a sideshow at the carnival. Sign above the cage read, “See the Giant Ass.” Now, he’s The Show. Really freakin’ unlikely! Then you have Jorge Polanco (1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 24th homer), and this season is fairly unlikely too. He looked like he might be out of baseball after the last two years. Now he’s pretty valuable. Though, compared to the other M’s, he’s the most likely unlikely. He’s rocking normcore ooh wee ooh he looks just like Buddy Holly. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:
Hurston Waldrep – 5 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners (5 BBs), 5 Ks, ERA at 1.33. So, those five walks are incredibly scary, and I don’t want to be roofied. I like where my pancreas is currently housed. Streamonator has him getting the Astros next, and I think I’m too chicken.
Joey Wentz – 2 1/3 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 5.82. Ya know how if you come up too fast while scuba diving you get The Bends? If you streamed Joey, you get The Wentz.
Jurickson Profar – 2-for-4 and his 13th homer, hitting .261. When everyone is poo-poo’ing him next year, I’ll be wafting the air away from my nose as I enter the John and drafting Profar aggressively.
Luis Castillo – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.85. M’s won 18-2, and Castillo cruised out to the Ivictory Coast for a free night at the W.
Luis Gil – 6 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners (4 BBs), 1 K, ERA at 3.31. Four walks and one strikeout is code and I’m a codebreaker. The code reads: Be very carefell–Carefell? What the hell does that mean? This code is wrong or I’m wrong and I’m never wrong!
Max Fried – 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.02. If you would’ve told me in the preseason he’d have a 3.15 ERA, plus or minus .15, I would’ve shrugged and said, “What, you do just super random predictions? Is that your thing?”
Ben Rice – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 23rd homer. Ya know what he’s starting to feel like? A guy who is pushed up too much next year because of catcher eligibility.
Max Scherzer – 4 1/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.36. Damn, Unc let us (me) down!
Matthew Boyd – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 hits, zero walk, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.92. It’s headed to the home stretch and Boyd has a sub-3 ERA. Cust kayin’.
Daniel Palencia – 0 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.00, and left with a shoulder injury. Bad news, everything to do with Palencia. Good news is since he left with an injury, it means this voodoo doll of mine works. Brad Keller and Andrew Kittredge have both been solid, and Keller has worked as the setup man, but Kittredge has received the last two non-Palencia saves, so I’d go Kittredge, but it could be either. I doubt they go back to Porter Hodge. but I guess they could.
Carson Kelly – 2-for-4 and his 15th and 16th homer. Third homer in the past week, and maybe a slight schmotato, but he also doesn’t play all that much. Does that matter? Hmm, yeah, gonna say it does.
Robert Hassell III – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer. Aw, one for each Robert Hassell.
Sandy Alcantara – 6 IP, 4 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.67. Streamonator didn’t love this start (I would’ve started him, for what it’s Wuertz), but it does love his next one.
Otto Lopez – 3-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 13th and 14th homer, hitting .248. That’s because he was hitting cleanup. You put OLo in the cleanup role he’s gonna cleanup. He’s a call answerer. He answers calls.
Jesus Luzardo – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.01. At the end of the year, Luzardo’s gonna have an ERA of, like, 3.90 or 4.05 or something, and it’s going to tell us nothing. It’s like looking at the wrinkles of an 80-year-old. You don’t know the shizz he’s seen and you don’t know what we’ve had to endure to get that Luzardo ERA.
Trea Turner – Hit his 15th homer, and now sounds like he’s gonna hit the IL with a strained hamstring. Oh no, Treat Urner you were such a good boy. Speaking of good boys, my dog Ted turns 100 (in dog years) in October. Crying emoji that is wrapping him in bubble wrap.
Jonah Tong – 6 IP, 4 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.09. I watched most of this game so, if I may channel my inner Hefner, Tong should trust his fastball more.
Brandon Sproat – 6 IP, 3 R, 7 baserunners (4 BBs), 7 Ks as he was called up. Just gave you my Brandon Sproat fantasy. Nothing really changed after this start. He looked a tad better than I expected, but not enough to change my expectations.
Juan Soto – 1-for-4 and his 38th homer. I’m kinda surprised Sexy Dr. Pepper didn’t stop at 1st base on his homer and try to steal 2nd and 3rd. I take back what I said about him wanting a 40/30 season. I think he’s sniffing 40/40. He is running every time he’s on base.
Brett Baty – 1-for-3 and his 16th homer. It sucks that Baty and Vientos are in a platoon, but, since the platoon is working, it stamps CONFIRMED on the word SUCKS. If one was not doing well, then the other might take over full-time, but it’s not looking that way.
Hunter Greene – 7 IP, 1 ER, 1 hit, 2 walks, 12 Ks, ERA at 2.59. Going in drafts next year we have a good chance for it to be Brown then Greene in the Hunter category, back-to-back.
Drew Rasmussen – 5 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.64. Not bad for a guy they were shutting down seven weeks ago. I’m sure that won’t cause issues for him next year.
Carson Williams – 1-for-3 and his 2nd homer, hitting .209. One of the more puzzling callups. He had a 34 K% in the minors; now he has a 38% in the majors. Seems completely ill-prepared but okay.
Parker Messick – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 hits, zero walks, 4 Ks, ERA at 1.93. Told you to grab him when he was called up and now I’m saying, same same.
Hunter Brown – 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.25. Not quite a 2.25 ERA pitcher, though there’s only two guys who are even close to that, so no dur. Brown’s peripherals look solid though, and, last week I was saying how there’s three clearcut starters for next year, then four through 20 are a tossup, but Brown could lay claim to a single digit spot in the starter rankings.
Jake Burger – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer, 2nd homer in three games. Burger with a side of schmotatoes!
Joe Ryan – 2 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 3.32. Joe Ryan’s 2nd half is like watching Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger if he died in the opening credits.
Byron Buxton – 1-for-2 and his 30th homer, and left with a knee contusion. Being real sincere, Buxton, you’ve done enough this year. It was a success. Take an IL stint and rest up for March.
Kody Clemens – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer, 2nd homer in three games, while dreaming of throwing a bat at Kody Piazza. Hot schmotato alert!
Bailey Ober – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.08 vs. Michael Lorenzen – 5 1/3 IP, 4 ER, 7 hits, zero walks, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.63. This matchup was billed as, “What a bore-zen. Mmm, herbed cheese that comes in a wheel.”
Yusei Kikuchi – 2 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 4.18. Yustink.
Jo Adell – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 35th homer. 34 homers is for little babies. 35 homers is a benchmark for The Breakout.
Mitch Farris – 6 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.45. He wasn’t good in Double-A, so you either explicitly trust the Angels’ coaches or whatever I say on the other side of the “or” is clearly the answer.
Tyler Soderstrom – 2-for-3 and a slam (24) and legs (8). Has a hit in every September game, and hit .330 in August and only 11 games since the break where he failed to record a hit. That’s sparkling, Soderstrom.
Manny Machado – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 23rd homer. Also, in this game, Ramon Laureano (1-for-5) hit his 23rd homer; Gavin Sheets (2-for-5) hit his 19th homer and Jackson Merrill (3-for-5, 2 runs) finally reached double digits with his 2nd homer. Have I mentioned the Rockies have a 6 ERA?
Brayan Bello – 6 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.12 vs. Ryne Nelson – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.48. This matchup was billed as, “You want upside and yawn at boring, but both of these ‘boring’ guys are better than upside, unless the upside is good. Let’s assume it’s not for this example.”
Brandon Pfaadt – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 5.18. Without fact checking, I’m gonna go out on a sturdy limb and say this was his first good start of the year.
Ryan Walker – 0 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.93 on Saturday. Welp, he sucks, but hopefully he settles down, because my entire shizz is relying on him!
Riley O’Brien – 1 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 1.60 as he got his 3rd save, and the Cards continue to committee. Co-tittee? Actually, don’t say that aloud, you might get slapped.
Jacob Misiorowski – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.09. Listen, I’m all for throwing your starters as many pitches as they can throw, but how do you tamp down Misiorowski for almost two months straight, then throw him for 108 pitches? How does that make sense?
Bubba Chandler – 2 2/3 IP, 9 ER, ERA at 7.36, as he started his game, and I liked Bubba better when he was working in relief.
Tarik Skubal – 7 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.10. It’s not even Skubal and Skenes and everyone else this year on the Player Rater. It’s Skubal and every other pitcher.
Lenyn Sosa – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 20th homer. Convincing myself Lenyn Sosa is a big-time power threat to make myself feel better about Gunnar lagging him by so many homers.
Trevor Rogers – 5 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.51. What a fantastic rum!
Yoshinobu Yamamoto – 8 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 1 hit, 2 walks, 10 Ks, ERA at 2.72. He came within one out of a no-hitter when Jackson Holliday homered. Smdh, Holiday doesn’t respect the game. Seriously, though, the Dodgers took a 8 2/3 IP no-hitter in and left with a loss. Their pen is such a mess. On Sunday, Jack Dreyer got the save, and he might get the next one or give up 5 ER in 1/3 IP.
Shohei Ohtani – 2-for-2 and his 47th and 48th homer, hitting .279. Someone needs to do like Marty did to his dad George McFly and wake Dave Roberts in the middle of the night with a Sony Walkman on his ears and tell him to use Ohtani as the closer.
Mookie Betts – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer. “Ohtani/Betts?!” That’s Ippei in jail reading the Dodgers’ lineup.
Dalton Rushing – Hit the IL with a shin contusion. With no Rushing, the Dodgers are now the Bills! Bam! Did that make sense? Seriously, I’m asking. I’m also asking if you’d like to purchase a fantasy football subscription. You’d instantly move above members of my family for “possibly getting a Xmas card, but ultimately not.”
