On my teams with Juan Soto, Trevor Story and Cody Bellinger, there’s been very little to celebrate. I paid $15 for Tom Arnold to send me a Cameo video telling me it would be okay. You remember Tom Arnold: Guy who is famous for sleeping with Roseanne Barr. Honestly, that should make someone famous. That and getting your junk Ginzu’d are valid reasons for fame. More so than your sister was in a sex tape. If I were ranking them for fame, 1A) Marrying Roseanne, 1B) Getting Junk Ginzu’d, Z) Sister was in a sex tape. Any hoo! Trevor Story (2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 7th and 8th homer) had a big game — on the road! — and maybe finally there’s light at the end of the tunnel. As Geoff and I discussed on this week’s podcast, Story’s Launch Angle hasn’t been great. He’s hitting way too many ground balls, and pulling everything. The result: Pitch on the outside corner, and he rolls over it to the shortstop. Maybe there’s a fire lit under him with the thought of getting out of Colorado. Think this could be a boon for his value: If trading for Story, the team will be contending, so the lineup will be better. Not all stadiums are bad. You telling me Story in Yankee Stadium is bad? Are you telling me this? Don’t tell em this. Also, the reinvigoration of a pennant chase can activate him like charcoal. Either Coors or elsewhere, he needs to correct his Launch Angle, and hopefully yesterday is the right direction. My other solution is spitting blow darts into his ribs while he’s at-bat, so he lowers his back elbow and it forces him into an uppercut swing. But that might be illegal. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Brendan Rodgers – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .261. As Chad Kuhl would say, “Kuhl.” So, just searched to see if I missed an injury to Ryan McMahon, and why was he benched three days in a row. Was fully expecting it to be because Bud Black is a giant idiot, but McMahon has forearm soreness. No word if it’s from making the universal gesture for “Bud Black is a jerkoff.”
German Marquez – 8 IP, 1 ER, 2 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.99. Retired the first 17 batters in order, and I thought he might get a perfect game, or no-hitter, because: Mariners. Would’ve been fitting that the Rockies no-hit the Mariners because they were already by the Tigers and Orioles. The Mariners see a competitive limbo stick, and they always go under it. As for Marquez, is he getting traded to the Angels or what?
Taylor Trammell – 1-for-3 and his 6th homer, hitting .158. It’s not a great sign when I check to see if a guy has any other hits besides homers, especially not when he only has six.
Travis Jankowski – 3-for-4, 3 runs, 3 RBIs and a slam (1) and legs (2). I don’t think there’s any coincidence that his nickname, Tra-Jank, sounds like tragic.
Bryce Harper – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 10th homer, and 2nd homer in two days. Can Bryce sneeze on Soto to get him started too?
Hector Neris – 1 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 3.54, and his 3rd blown save in his last five appearances. Joe Girardi says he will take the day off, ask a few random people on the street to remove their pants to check for sticky substances, then decide if he’s making a change at the closer role. Jose Alvarado would be the guy I’d stash.
Kyle Schwarber – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 19th homer. And in the run-producing spots in the Nats’ lineup: Josh Harrison, Alex Avila and Starlin Castro. *digs down two miles into the earth’s core, lets out a loud, echoing chef’s kiss*
Josh Bell – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 4 RBIs and his 10th homer, hitting .228. Mean’s while, Juan Soto took a 1-1 pitch for a ball in a cute way. Haha, awesome, Soto, truly.
Dylan Cease – 5 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.81. For people in Quality Start leagues, what a bummer–Lou Costello pops his head in, “He pitched later in the game.”
Caleb Smith – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners (4 BBs), 6 Ks, ERA at 3.03. Takes a lot to walk four in six innings and only get six strikeouts while escaping relatively unscathed. His magic sauce: facing the Brewers. Streamonator hates his next start, and I wouldn’t mess with it.
Christian Walker – 1-for-4 and a home run, hitting .197. Any ideas how many homers he has? I’m gonna guess you’re guessing around eight. Guess what you guessed wrong, guesser! It was his third homer. Think Walker read too much into the tortoise and hare story.
Eduardo Escobar – 1-for-1 and his 16th homer. Sonavabench! They said he wasn’t going to play! *Lisa Simpson grumble*
Keston Hiura – 0-for-2, but zero strikeouts — lowercase yay! — as he was recalled from Triple-A with The Jelly Donut of Swat going on the IL. I missed this yesterday, but it truly is a joy to watch the Diamondbacks. The Snakes got some rattling going on, but it’s in their heads. Here, enjoy:
Daniel Vogelbach suffers a leg injury rounding 3B but the Dbacks refuse to throw it home ¯\_(?)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/Aftk5Z31wc
— MLBdream (@MLBdream) June 23, 2021
Shohei Ohtani – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.58, 0-for-3, hitting .265. His fastball averaged 92 MPH early on, but climbed as the game went on. I know, I’m Mr. No Fun, from the land of Can’t Have Anything Nice, but Ohtani’s gonna burn out this summer without more rest. It’s a lot the Angels are asking of him. See, I’m couching my negativity in “But I just care about him.”
Mike Tauchman – 1-for-6, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .173. He’s the first player to strike out five times in a row, then homer since Ray Lankford in 1998. In 1998, hitters belted balls. In 2021, pitchers have their belts checked.
Mike Yastrzemski – 1-for-7, 2 runs and his 10th homer, hitting .233. Carl’s Jr. Jr. is another slugger who sits in the leadoff spot, and is better elsewhere, but I’m not arguing with the Giants’ success. They’re basically like challenging a grandmother to a 50-yard dash and under the makeup and saggy stockings is Usain Bolt. Did I just memory bank fuse an old Nike Larry Johnson commercial into something else?
Brandon Belt – Left yesterday’s game with a leg injury, and will get scans on his knee. Hmm…*putting string up on a board labeled “conspiracy theory”* Umpires are checking for sticky substances by asking players to remove their belt, and Belt is removed. This is not a coincidence!
Aaron Civale – Will miss 4-5 weeks with a sprained middle finger. That’s the worst middle finger incident since that little kid gave Jerry Maguire the middle finger that sent him into a tailspin that cost him a job, all his clients, including a surprising grown-up Jerry O’Connell–Well, you’ve seen the movie.
Cody Bellinger – 0-for-2, 1 run, as he was activated from the IL. Not sure if I’m supposed to be happy or prepare myself to be hurt again. Bellinger has damaged me. I may never be the same.
Trevor Bauer – 6 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners (4 BBs), 10 Ks, ERA at 2.57. *breaks into planetarium, moves giant telescope to aim directly at my computer where I have a table open of spin rates, light catches telescope lens, accidentally burns hole in computer* Damn it!
Jake Cronenworth – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 11th homer, 3rd homer in three games, and 4th homer in five games, and what was I doing dropping him? Why am I so dumb? He only has 7.7 whiff% vs. fastballs, which is 7 of his 11 HRs. So, yeah, that’s good.
Manny Machado – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 12th homer. Padres are suddenly hitting on all cylinders like a 10-year-old me playing Mario Bros.
Kyle Wright – 2 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 9.95. “Braves’ young arms are the envy of every team,” said someone before this year. For some reason, that person can no longer be reached for comment.
Freddie Freeman – 4-for-4, average up to .251. Freeman only got four singles, so he’s not going in the champagne room, but I’d take it for another week if it gets his dumb average up to respectable levels.
Marcus Stroman – Mets said Stroman’s MRI came back clean. What a shame. He was having such a great season.
Francisco Lindor – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer, hitting .217. Hasn’t been a great start to the season, right? Legitimately it hasn’t been good, correct? Lindor has more homers than Soto, Bellinger and Story.
Michael Conforto – 2-for-4, 2 runs as he was activated from the IL. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “I got popped by a paintball yesterday. Sorry, I thought you were wondering why my face was half-covered in pink paint.”
Tylor Megill – 4 1/3 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks as he made his MLB debut. Fun fact! When Megill is used in a sentence and he’s doing the action, it changes to Igill. So, I can’t find anything on Megill. Igill looks like a back of the rotation, not-even-in-the-rotation arm when you look at his prospect grades, but you see Megill and he’s pumping 97 MPH fastballs and your heart skips a beat. Maybe there is nothing here as he’s an 8th round draft pick, and 35-grade arm, but watching him made me want to see more. His command is wonky, how’sever, so be careful in mixers.
Jose Altuve – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer. Someone put this guy on the back of a Great Dane and send him off into the sunset, so he stops hitting.
Yordan Alvarez – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 11th homer, and 2nd in as many games. Captain Woo Cubano starring in the video, Astros Just Wanna Have Fun.
Abraham Toro – 2-for-5, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer, hitting near-.500 in the last week with another homer. Toro is one hot fish!
Jose Urquidy – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.32. Not a fan, but even the Streamonator loves his next start, so eff my feelings.
Ryan O’Hearn – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, and 3rd homer in three games, and 2nd homer in two games, which matters more, because the third one goes a month back. Hot schmotato alert!
Danny Duffy – 2 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 1.85, as he returns from forearm tightness. So, now he’s an Opener, because the Royals don’t want to send him for Tommy John surgery? Fantastic stuff. Someone should film a road trip movie with Lamet, Duffy and Gallen all going to Dr. James Andrews’ clinic, and having one last hurrah the night before their surgery — Pitchers, Trains & 15-Months of Rehab.
Aroldis Chapman – 1 IP, 2 ER, ERA at 2.54 and his 3rd blown save. Oh, man, what did Donkey Teeth give me in a trade? I got cursed? Did he curse me? Donkey, how could you?!
Gary Sanchez – 1-for-4 and his 12th homer, hitting .236. Not a top three catcher again — at least not yet — but he looks so much better than he did the last few years.
Garrett Richards – 1 2/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.74 vs. Rich Hill – 5 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners (5 BBs), 5 Ks, ERA at 3.52. Dick Mountain beat off Garr-Dicks, as it should be. By the way, Garr-Dicks is one guy who has lost all value with the wacky tacky checky-checky, though not sure he had value before. But he’s just nonstop b’ing and m’ing about how he can’t grip the ball with industrial glue.
Austin Meadows – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 16th homer, hitting .231. C’mon, less Meadows’ing, and more Wander’ing!
Brandon Lowe – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 14th homer. Sorry, Lowe, but nothing can save you from being in every other Razzball comment about getting dropped. Lowe, you’ve even moved past Schoop for most requested to drop. Not to inject logic and reasoning into this, but Lowe is around a 130th most valuable player on the Player Rater. In other words, you need to be in a 6-team league to not have him rostered.
Mike Zunino – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 15th homer. Who’s Zunino’ing who?!
Robbie Ray – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.35. Robbie Ray was the first pitcher the umps could visually check his pants from ten feet away. No room to be hiding anything there!
Starling Marte – 2-for-4 and a slam (6) and legs (11), hitting .326. Not sure if you heard but Marte got into some trouble the other day because he posted a video on Instagram of a rat tied to a bottle rocket and *poof* shot up and up in smoke. Marte later revealed he was just trying to visualize what he wants to happen to Jeff Bezos.
Adolis Garcia – 2-for-4, and his 19th and 20th homer, hitting .276. Just on the ol’ 40-homer in 120 games pace. Abbondanza Garcia!
Nate Lowe – 2-for-4 and his 10th homer, hitting .250. Lowe has a modest five-game hitting streak. Mean’s while, Nick Solak has remained retired from when he hung up the bat and glove on May 1st.
Joely Rodriguez – 1 IP, 0 ER and his 1st career save. Why did Texas go to Joely? Where was Kennedy? Stuck on a grassy knoll?
Sean Murphy – 2-for-4 and his 10th homer, and 2nd homer in three games. Murph Dawg, as he’s commonly known to guys who add “dawg” at the end of people’s names, has done it again!
James Kaprielian – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.86. Not sure if this season is his ‘coming out party,’ because you get a bunch of debutantes together for a ball and it’s a cotillion not a Kaprielian, but he’s done about as well as you could hope. Also, Streamonator loves his next start.
Daz Cameron – 1-for-3, 2 runs and a slam (3) and legs (3), and 2nd homer in the last three games, but didn’t play on Tuesday. Yesterday, Cameron was out there with Grossman on the bench. Yes, I’m squinting my eye firmly to hold this monocle in place.
Matt Manning – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners (2 BBs), 1 K, ERA at 3.38. Jerry Seinfeld voice, “What’s the deal with more walks than Ks?”
Jonathan Schoop – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and a slam (15) and legs (1), and 37th homer this month. Drop him! He’s terrible! Get him off your team!
Nolan Arenado – 1-for-4 and his 14th homer. Can’t believe I finally finished this 18,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of sand, but, before I glue it together, and hang it on my wall, I’m going to haphazardly place it by this open window–NOOO!!! Torenado!!!
John Gant – 3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 3.76. In 20 June innings, he’s given up 18 runs. The Regression Fairies are getting a bit clingy with Gant, huh?
Lars Nootbaar – 1-for-3, 1 run. Lars Nootbar is such a snack.
