Cardinals outfielder Randal Grichuk continued to hit all the baseballs last night chipping in two hits and a two-run home run to help beat the Braves. Randy! Randy! Randy! Randy has been quite randy indeed lately, he’s now homered in back to back games and he’s hitting .346 with six runs, four home runs, ten RBI and a stolen base in the past week. Yes! More please! He’s slashing .283/.333/.566 with 11 home runs and 36 RBI on the year, and the .900 OPS ain’t too shabby either. But it’s the 11 homers in 219 at-bats that raises my eyebrow, Dwayne Johnson. That’s a 25-30 homer hitter over a full season, folks! If we take a peep at the next level stats we can see Randy and his .375 BABIP may be getting a bit lucky. Let’s not even talk about 30.8 K% and 5.8 BB% because they are downright awful. And sure Stephen Piscotty could threaten to steal some of Grichuk’s ABs down the line. However, the fact is Grichuk is hitting hot fire right now and is still under 50% owned in most leagues, a number that will undoubtedly grow over the next few hours as the legend of his four homer week spreads throughout the land. Time to Buy-chuk, Grichuk! I’d add him in all leagues while he’s still hitting everything he sees into the bleachers. Randy! Randy! Randy!
Here’s what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Preston Tucker – 2-for-5, 2-run HR (9). Preston Tucker Must BUY. In the past week, doode is batting .380 with 8 runs, 4 HR and 6 RBI. He is owned in little over 10% of fantasy leagues. Am I seeing something no one else is seeing? DO I have the sixth sense? The shining!? Oh my god I’m an X-Man. Maybe I can shrink like Ant Man? At the very least I can be as sarcastic as Paul Rudd. My teachers laughed when I said I wanted to be a superhero when I grew up, but it’s finally happening. Everything is falling into place. With great power, comes great responsibility. Pick up Grichuk and Tucker. I live to serve the people.
Scott Kazmir – 7.0 IP, 3 hits, 0 ER, BB, 3 K and his 6th win. In my humble opinion, the A’s should trade off all their players to the Astros so they can win the World Series because if you can’t root for the Astros to win this year you are a bad person.
Cesar Hernandez – 2-for-5, run, SB (13). Hey, remember me? Cesar. I was vacationing in the Fingerlakes for the past two weeks, but I’m back if you need some steals. Not interested? That’s cool, I totally get it.
Jeff Francouer – 2-for-5, HR (9). Frenchie is the hero Gotham, I mean Philly needs. He’s batting .600 with two homers in the past week. The best part about this is some team might actually trade for him. Pick him up if you hate yourself.
Yasiel Puig – 1-for-4, 2-run HR (6). So happy I drafted you over Josh Donaldson. Have I mentioned this already?
Jose Quintana – 9.0 IP, 7 hits, 0 ER, 8 K and his 5th win and the complete game shutout. My internet says that JQ is owned in just 50% of leagues but that seems crazy. Why would internet lie to me? Why would you not just own Jose Quintana if he was available. He is pretty good at fantasy baseball and he gets the Dead Sox next week.
Corey Kluber – 7.0 IP, 8 hits, 6 ER, 2 BB, 7 K. Kluber’d!
Melky Cabrera – 2-for-5, run, 2 RBI. The MelkMan is batting .346 with 2 homers and 8 RBI in the past week. I considered picking him up a few weeks ago because he was just sitting there on waivers and I knew he could only get better than he has been. But I didn’t and now I regret it and now I’m telling you all about it. Thanks for listening.
Jose Abreu – 1-for-3, HR (15). Who’s been a more disappointing first round pick, Jose Abreu or Andrew McCutchen? It’s got to be Abreu, right? He hasn’t even been all that bad, but we have such high expectations for our first rounders. Imagine how they must feel living with all that pressure! And all that money!
Max Scherzer – 5.0 IP, 7 hits, 5 ER, BB, 8 K. My name is Max. My world is fire and blood. Allowed 3 homers in very un-Scherzer like fashion. If this were MLB The Show and I was controlling Max, he would have gone the distance with 19-22 Ks, and 1-2 hits if they’re lucky. If you need any pointers, Max, let me know.
Ian Desmond – 1-for-3, 2 runs, HR (10). HE’S ALIVE!!! He was in the Hatch the whole time.
Jung Ho Kang – 2-for-4, run. I’m gung ho for Jung Ho, who’s batting .440 with 10 runs and a homer in the past two weeks. Grey told you to BUY, and yeah, you should probably pick him up before I do. Race ya!
Chris Archer – 6.0 IP, 5 hits, ER, 2 BB, 9 K. Archer has rebounded nicely after giving up 9 runs to KC two weeks ago. He’s still my pick for AL Cy Young. But he could also have a shot at the Emmy for best leading actor in a drama the way the Rays season has been going.
Justin Verlander – 8.0 IP, 7 hits, ER, 3 K. A pitchers duel that rivaled Jon Snuh versus the White Walker, this game had me on the edge of my seat! Rick Porcello (7.0 IP, 5 hits, ER, 6 K) looked sharp against his former team, and Slick Rick has looked solid in his past three starts allowing 2 ER or fewer. I might stream him next week versus the White Sox if I was feeling lucky.
Xander Bogaerts – 3-for-5, and the game-winning RBI. I’m not ashamed to say to love him more than I could ever love a human baby. Or a corgi puppy for that matter.
Michael Pineda – 5.2 IP, 8 hits, 5 ER, 4 K. I remember back in April when I was so happy I owned you everywhere. Now, notsomuch.
Trevor Plouffe – 3-for-4, 2 runs, HR (14). He’s now homered in back to back games. That’s sort of his thing. Homering I mean. If you need homers, maybe you should pick him. Or don’t whatever. It’s your life.
Miguel Sano – 1-for-4, 2-run HR (3). I told you to pick him up before he starts homering and then everyone’s picking him up because its the cool thing to do. Well, you may have waited too long. Don’t act like I didn’t warn you!
Tim Cooney – 7.0 IP, 5 hits, 2 ER, 5 K, and his first win. I’m Looney for Cooney! Well, not really, but I can’t resist a good rhyme. Cooney could be useful if he can stick in the Cards rotation, but with Jaime Garcia scheduled to return we’ll have to wait and see.
Joey Votto – 3-for-5, HR (18). Back by popular demand, Canada’s top baseball analysts are here to tell you all aboot how good Votto’s been lately: “Hey Terrence, did you know Joey Votto is batting close to .600 with 2 homers, 7 runs and a SB in the past week?” “Wow, Phillip, if you look at the fangraphs you can see that Votto is also *FAAAART*” AHAHAHAHA. “Oh, Terrence, your fantasy advice always provides the next-level in analysis.”
Carlos Gonzalez – 2-for-4, 2 HR (16). He’s got three homers in the past week. Someone trade this man to the Yankees!
Charlie Blackmon – 4-for-5, run, RBI, SB (25). Scored the game winning run after stealing second like a Boss. I haven’t seen a Blackmon run like that since [edtior’s note: punchline deleted].
Jimmy Nelson – 7.0 IP, 5 hits, 0 ER 3 BB, 5 K and his 8th win. It’s time for another episode of My Favorite Streamer! He’s actually not my favorite streamer at all, I just happen to stream him a lot and more often than not it works out OK. What a ringing endorsement!
Patrick Corbin – 7.0 IP, 4 hits, ER, BB, 10 K. It was encouraging to see him go 7.0 ininngs in this one, too bad the D’Backs don’t score runs. Corbs has been good, and he’s got a 23/3 K/BB rate in four starts. I would own the shizz out of that.
Andrew Cashner – 7.0 IP, 5 hits, ER, BB, 5 K and his 4th win. I just spent the past week doing mushrooms in the Great North Woods looking for moose. Instead I found a quality start and a win for Andrew Cashner, which actually seem like they’re quite a lot harder to come by these days. I must still be trippin’.
Matt Kemp – 2-for-4, HR (11). In the past two weeks he’s batting .400 with 4 homers, 8 RBI and a SB. After seeing Rihanna’s BBHMM video, he knew he had to do something drastic to win her back. If you could steal even more bases, Matt, I feel like she would really appreciate that.
Hunter Pence – 4-for-5, run, 2 RBI. Angel Pagan had three hits, Buster Posey was 3-for-4 with 2 runs, RBI and a SB (2), and Brandon Belt and Matt Duffy has two hits a piece and the Giants scored 8 runs on 17 hits. It’s been a good couple of weeks to own Giants players, people. Pence has 3 homers and 12 RBI in the past two weeks. If anyone is going to bring them back to the Series, Hunter Pence is on that mission. Who knew?
Ben Zobrist – 1-for-4, HR (6). He homered! Someone trade this man to the Yankees!
Jon Lester – 7.0 IP, 7 hits, 2 ER, 6 K. Not an awful start, but considering this was the Phillies I’m not impressed.
Chris Coghlan – 2-for-4, HR (10). Grey told you to BUY and he’s batting close to .400 with 2 homers and two steals in the past week. If he were ANT MAN, he would have shrunk down to bug sized and stolen the pitcher’s hat and catcher’s mask before heading back to home plate to blast this ball into the stands. Because, ANT strength!
Justin Turner – 3-for-5, HR (13), 2 RBI. JT is hitting .542 with 5 runs, 2 homers and 4 RBI in the past week. This is what Justin Turner Overdrive looks like. You ain’t seen nothing yet!
Juan Uribe – Traded to the Mets along with Kelly Johnson for John Gant and Robert Whalen. You are really going all out, aren’t you Mets? That’s how you get the fans excited for the future: journeymen. I would have preferred someone like Pedro Alvarez, who is also on the block, to play third while Wright is sidelined, but looks like the 36-year old Uribe will get the majority of starts at third from here on out. Kelly Johnson was hitting hot fire lately, but his value could take a hit if he is to serve strictly a utility role. Well, if nothing else, this is certainly a trade that no one can really get excited about. Except Braves fans, yay prospects!
Mike Trout – 2-for-3, HR (29), 2 RBI. I always save the best for last, and Mike Trout is THE BEST. Heeey, boo. Did you have fun honeymooning in the Great North Woods? I’m sorry I got all scared and weird after that third mushroom cap, I really thought I saw the Terminator, and he was coming for me. Regardless, Trout is batting .317 with 9 homers since our holy union a few weeks ago. I told him straight up, if we’re going to make this marriage work, I’m going to need you to win my fantasy league for me. In return, I agreed to do all the dishes. What a deal!
Thanks for reading! Questions? Problems? Complaints to management? Advice, small gifts or large bribes? Please leave it in the comments below. Join us next Saturday for another Friday recap as fantasy baseball continues next week, all week long!
