Times are grand this week in the wide world of Two Startapalooza! It is a palooza after all, which is the scientific term for pitching party. Can you imagine a carnival full of pitchers playing those games where you throw balls at the bottles and knock them over for prizes? They would win ALL of the giant stuffed bears. ALL OF THE BEARS. Leaving none for the shlubs like me that can’t hit 95 on the gun. How emasculating. All the girls would leave the normal guys and flock to the pitchers. I wonder if girls are still impressed by the really crappy pitchers? I mean, he still made it to the Major Leagues, which is super impressive. Who cares if he’s got a 6.30 career ERA? That man god paid. Speaking of such things, there are pitchers threatening to post a 6+ ERA this week in the bottom of this week’s slate. Tiers 3 and 4 are awash with capable options though, making this a great week for standard mixed league streaming. Let’s break down the options.

Don’t be dour, Bauer, the Cole Sale isn’t until tomorrow in Greinke’s DeGrom! Greinke’s DeGrom can be whatever you like it to be, but I like to think it’s a fancy bathroom in the Diamondbacks dugout that only Greinke can use, and it’s bedazzled with copper plating that has his likeness pressed into it. It also features a bidet that only churns out pine tar, because you can never have too good a grip on things. That first sentence does happen to include the names of each starter from this week’s Tier 1 by the way, what a coincidence! We’ve got a nice chunk of nine guys between the first two tiers, but alas Tier 3 is weak with just four names. Tiers 4 and 5 are where the real action is as this week, making it a less than desirable streaming week. The likes of Caleb Smith and Marco Gonzales have been plenty useful this season, but bad matchups push each of them to Tier 4. Good luck trying to guess which Sonny Gray you’re going to get, the Sonny or the Gray, and mediocre matchups keep him dwelling in Tier 4 as well. Out of the mucky muck of Tier 5 you could perhaps cast your lot with “The Coors Kielbasa” German Marquez, but doubling up in Coors Field isn’t exactly my cup of tea. Here’s a look at some of the other notable two-start pitchers this week.

If there’s one thing Carlos Martinez loves more than baseball, it’s porn. He and I have that in common (go ahead and Google “Carlos Martinez porn” if you want to find the related article(s), but I cannot be held responsible for the entirety of the search results), and that’s why I respect him. Thusly, I’m excited that not only do we finally get him back, it’s as a Week 10 double dipper. Sadly it’s in the place of where we expected Alex Reyes to be (wasn’t that fun while it lasted?), but we’ve gotta find our silver linings somewhere. Following an insane Week 9 where we had more Texas two steppers than any week prior, we’re back to relative normalcy here in Week 10. Tiers 1-2 are pretty slim as usual, but you feel really good about every option. Tier 3 has some fellas that might just be on your waiver wire if you’re in a shallower league, and I’d feel comfortable using every one of them. Tier 4 is surprisingly usable as well thanks to some good matchups all around. I’m not totally sure Danny Duffy deserves Tier 4 instead of Tier 5, but his matchups aren’t the worst and I’d rather throw him out than anything residing in Tier 5. Let’s dive in!

If last week left a lot to be desired (also what women tell me), well this week makes up for it. There are more two start pitchers here than you can shake a stick at. Just try it! Try and shake a stick at all these names, it won’t work. You’ll tire by Tier 4, and Tier 5 alone has TWENTY TWO options. They’re stinky options, but options nevertheless. So leave the stick outside. They’re dirty anyway and you don’t vacuum the carpet nearly often enough to make up for that.

Welcome to Week 6 of Two Startapalooza! Happy Cinco de Mayo to you, as well. It’s a lesser occasion than the arrival of this post to be sure, but I’m a fan nevertheless. Oftentimes in the past I would participate in “Cinco de Mondo” at my local Taco Del Mar, where on Cinco de Mayo […]

Welcome to Week 5 as we scurry along and try to figure out which low-to-mid tier pitchers are actually good and which ones are all smoke and mirrors. You’d think we would have come up with an updated phrase for “smoke and mirrors”. Nobody has really used smoke and mirrors since, like, 1920. I have no idea if that’s accurate. In any case, there is plenty of two-start action to go around this week. Here they are, tiered for your pleasure. Let’s have a gander at some of the more interesting options as we go through those tiers as well, shall we?