Two Start Pitchers, Week 20: Battle Anybody

Hip-hop as an art form, and culture, is built on the ability to battle. One must show and prove their true mastery of the craft before being considered amongst the B-Boy Illuminati.  Doesn’t matter if you’re a breaker, DJ, producer, or Emcee, your battle skills are essential to staking your claim as elite. In this grand tradition many great rap battles have popped off on wax and led to some highly publicized, and in one instance, deadly beef. If you’re wondering what beef is, go ask B.I.G. Pretty sure he’s an expert on the subject…. Any pooh…….In today’s post I discuss 3 of my favorite rap battles and two that were completely lopsided. Don’t worry there sizzle chest I promise we’ll discuss the Two Start Pitchers for Week 20 as well. After all Fantasy baseball is the reason we’re here, right? Speaking of which, can you believe we’ve already had 20 weeks of baseball? Heck this is the 19th two start pitched post of 2015. How have I not run out of ideas yet? Magic mushrooms is the answer!!! I eat an 8th before I write. Makes the words feel like friends in my head. So go ahead and get to know my friends.

Biggie vs. Pac (Ace) – No need to get into this one everyone knows the outcome of the B.I.G vs. Pac beef, even my Mom, and Old lady Lifshitz ain’t that hip. I mean she’s broke a few hips, but who hasn’t?…..Cole all by his lonesome, he’s pretty much peeing on everyone. I’m ignoring the tough matchups and embracing the overall 2.48/2.67/3.07 ERA/FIP/xFIP splits. This is a long winded way of saying, “He’s Good Start Him” otherwise known as Hegostim.

Jay-z vs. Nas (Good Starts) – One of the all time great battles two top-notch diss songs, and an ultimately peaceful end. You can hear Takeover and Ether here. I was always a Nas guy but I’m not sure if there was a clear cut winner. Stillmatic and this battle revived Nas’ career. Sort of…. Good group of two starters this week with no one but Cole in the ace tier. This makes for a deep second tier with names like Wacha, Richards, Zimmermann, Liriano, Salazar, and Cole Hamels making up the meat of the order. Um, yeah about Monsieur Hamels he’s got a few question marks this week. Or what the french call “point d’interrogation”. Health chief among them. But he also hasn’t looked great thus far in a Rangers uni, and gets a tough road matchup later in the week against Detroit. Then again I’d  prefer to face Detroit at Comerica than in Arlington if I was Hamels, or if I was the dude who replaces Hamels when he’s scratched from this start. The numbers don’t bear that out though. The Tigers are tough in the D….Colin Rea is a surprise but a Hodgepadre with two starts in Petco canyon is too tough to pass on. Rea was like Olive Garden breadsticks in 75 AA Innings this year, delicious. How delicious you ask? How about 1.08 ERA with a 2.35 FIP delicious? And that’s not all, Rea also sported a 7.20 K/9, a 1.32 BB/9, and a minuscule .12 HR/9. Once he was called up to AAA things didn’t go so hot, but it’s the PCL so certain numbers can be taken with a grain of salt and dismissed as a small sample size. What exactly those things are I’m unsure of…..I love Matthew Wilser’s matchups. I’m a fan of the player as well even if his last few outings have been rough…..Carlos Rodon looked like a young Cindy Crawford covered in whip cream in Tuesday’s start against the Angels…..The Heston, Tillman, and Eovaldi trio should benefit from solid matchups this week and all be startable.

Juice vs. Supernatural (Why Can’t I Sit You) – This is an actual live freestyle battle between two of the sickest off the head freestyle emcees of all time. Battle was fly, tons of punches etc, etc. I know people will post a trillion Youtube battles which is all well and good, but you have to understand this battle went viral before viral was a thing. I’ve seen both of these monsters of freestyle live and I give Juice the edge in the battle and in concert. Most people see it the other way. I love Supernat but Juice is a tad better. Check the battle out here. As always these are the starters that I just down right do not trust….Jake Odorizzi’s inclusion might raise an eyebrow. But he’s a 4.00 ERA guy outside of St. Pete, and his FIP/xFIP support it… Scott Kazmir has bad matchups, so he sits in the middle of this tier. I didn’t know where to rank Williams Perez but he’s in here because his matchups are top notch but he’s not.

Masta Ace vs. High and Mighty + Boogieman (One Good/One Bad) – This battle was totally onsided but it produced one of my favorite diss tracks of all time, from one of my favorite emcees, from one of my most favorite albums. Check out Ace’s dissection of these two acts here…. Pretty simple these are the lads to start in the highlighted green games and sit in the red ones. Capache? One clarification Eduardo Rodriguez’s two moderate starts are marked in yellow. The Indians and Royals starts could go either way to me. So he’s here because I anticipated one good and one bad.

Murda Inc. vs. G-Unit/Aftermath – I’ll take the Gunit/Aftermath side all day, but this battle was stupid because the best thing about Murda Inc. was Asanti and that was mostly because she looked good with the mute button in full effect while watching her videos. Didn’t she have a porn too? Not touching Feldman this week, personal reasons. The Tampa start is streamable though. Danks has also been hot of late and gets two solid mtchups but he’s still John Danks I don’t trust anyone named dank. Because hippies use the word ‘dank” to describe everything from Pizza to weed to your mom’s cooking. Hippies ruin everything. Grey’s told me that’s my bumper sticker. He’s spot on.

As always these punk ass busters could be scratched, moved up, squashed by Godzilla, captured by Somali Pirates, or  trip on their gym bag coming in from a date with their “masseuse”. If any of them are changed we’ll discuss in the comments. For example with Steven Wright hitting the 7-day DL the Red Sox have not yet announced their starters for Monday and Tuesday.