Gilbert Arizona Rises Like a Phoenix

The stage was set. A 27-year-old with three and two-thirds innings in his major league career under his belt. Zero starts prevously. A Rule 5 no-nothing arm from the 6th round of the 2015 draft. He was traded from the Dodgers to the Phils for Garlick. Not even a root vegetable! Not even a rutabaga, they said! Then left him unprotected, and the Diamondbacks grabbed Gilbert in the Rule 5 draft. A draft where players are divvied up by one team saying, “We’ll take him,” then every other team has to the count of five to say they want him. And no one wanted Gilbert! His own father, Gilbert Gilbert, didn’t even want to name him Gilbert Gilbert Gilbert after his father, Gilbert Gilbert Gilbert. Forgotten, abandoned, and then:  History.  Tyler Gilbert (9 IP, 0 ER, 0 hits, 2 walks, 5 Ks) threw MLB’s 8th no-hitter (because they don’t count games that are seven innings long as real games) in his first major league start. With that historic, momentous game under his belt, grab him now for fantasy? God, no! He sucks. I mean, maybe in NL-Only. But while holding your nose. The other three guys to throw no-hitters in their first start were Bobo Holloman, Bumpus Jones and Ted Breitenstein. Two of them were in the 1800s when baseball were made rocks. Bumpus and Bobo sound like great company for a traveling circus. Either way, Saturday made for a memorable night for Gilbert. Just last year he was an electrician’s apprentice, so he went from lights on to lights out. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

Merrill Kelly – Tested positive for Covid. The Diamondbacks were doing contact tracing for Kelly late-Saturday night. *team officials watching Kelly jump into the no-hitter dogpile, team officials grimacing*

Josh Rojas – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 11th homer, and hitting near .410 in the month of August. Red is the color of Josh and a schmotato.

Yu Darvish – Hit the IL with ‘being garbage for a month.’ Glad he can now be garbage on the IL and not on my team.

Drew Pomeranz – Will undergo surgery on his forearm, ending his season. On March 19th, Pomeranz was out with forearm tightness. That makes it now 10,456 out of 10,456 pitchers who have not been able to rest and rehab their forearm injury.

Fernando Tatis Jr. – 4-for-5, 3 runs, 4 RBIs and his 32nd and 33rd homer, as he was activated from the IL. FTJ is back! Fun the Jewels has returned! FTJ! And Fun’s now playing right field! This guy is so ridiculously talented he could return with one shoulder, playing out of position and still go full Fun. Though, slightly less Fun for me because I only have him in a weekly league where he was on my bench.

Jake Cronenworth – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 17th homer, hitting .275. Surprised not to see Cronenworth hit for a higher average, but when you remember how low all averages are around league, it’s kinda like he’s hitting .350.

Chris Sale – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, as he was activated from the IL. Kevin from ESPN’s “Get Him In Your Lineup” Department said, “I saw meme and I thought that was a new way to write metoo.”

J.D. Martinez – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 23rd homer. Just Dong because the alternative is just don’t’ing.

Eduardo Rodriguez – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.97. Streamonator loved this start, and feels equally joyous and celebratory towards his next start.

Matt Moore – 6 IP, 0 ER, 0 hits, 2 walks, 8 Ks, ERA at 6.07. When I saw that line, I immediately looked to see if it was a 7-inning game or a 9-inning game, then I cursed Rob Manfred for ruining my brain. I shouldn’t have to look at how many innings are in a game, Rob!

Nick Senzel – Activated from the IL, and sent to the minors. The Reds are, like, two games out of a Wild Card berth and playing like they wish they were in position for a number one draft pick, while dicking over a former number two overall draft pick.

How to Ruin a Top Prospect by the Reds with a foreword by Nick Senzel

— Razzball (@Razzball) August 15, 2021

Jonathan India – 3-for-5, 3 runs and his 15th homer. Slice me off a piece of India at the New Delhi!

Luis Castillo – 6 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.51. Gonna put candles on rafts surrounding my fantasy teams that have Castillo and float those rafts out to sea, as the fallen warriors that were sacrificed so people can have decent Castillo shares next year, because you know he’s gonna be great in 2022 when all of us are out on him.

Sonny Gray – 4 2/3 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 4.47 vs. Aaron Nola – 4 1/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.48. This was a matchup billed as, “Two guys I’d like to see at a Q&A and take the microphone and scream at both of these guys for 45 minutes.”

Taijuan Walker – 6 2/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.75. He nearly threw a no-hitter too. A real one. Or I guess he was closer to ‘throwing a Bumgarner’–Ya know what? Whatever it is, Walker has looked awful for the last month or so, but great on Saturday, and maybe he’s out of that dead arm period.

Carlos Carrasco – 2 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 10.32. Super happy I held onto Carrasco for five months until he returned from injury. Was very helpful. The Mets Jokey Smurf themselves and me every chance they get.

Julio Urias – Hit the IL with “Do we even have to give him a real injury or can we just say he has plonko, which is a made-up word?”

Justin Turner – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 21st homer. In 301 games with the Mets across three seasons, he had eight homers.

Will Smith – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 18th homer, and his third homer in three games. If the NL gets the DH, Smith is going to be a big bat minus the eligibility.

Max Muncy – 2-for-4, 3 runs, 4 RBIs and his 24th and 25th homer, hitting .272. If this is Maximum, wouldn’t it be the Munciest? Hand on chin emoji using its other hand to hold a watch fob as it hypnotizes you into thinking you’re a chicken.

Matt Chapman – 3-for-4, 2 runs and his 17th homer, and his 3rd homer in the last two games. He’s gonna finish with 30 homers and a .240 average and everyone’s going to forget how awful he was for four months and draft him next year footloose and fancy free.

Sean Manaea – 5 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 3.77. Geoff and I talk about Manaea on this week’s podcast, which will be out on Tuesday, and was recorded before this start, so it’s going to sound absolutely hilarious when you hear all the praise we have Manaea. I mean, I still like him a lot and one start doesn’t change that, but it’s pretty funny hearing us talk about how Manaea can do no wrong.

Adolis Garcia – 1-for-4 and his 26th homer, hitting .245. Nowhere as good as he was when he first came up, but, honestly, he’s held up surprisingly well compared to some other hot streaks that have petered out. Speaking of petering out…But in a good way…

DJ Peters – 2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 3rd and 4th homer, hitting .191. “That’s how you Peter out, baby!” What you never want to hear from a creepy guy wearing only a trench coat.

Jose Ramirez – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 26th homer, hitting .254. Yuck, can’t believe it took him until mid-August to get going after losing Lindor. Gotta hurt to see Lindor thriving in New York too.

Triston McKenzie – 8 IP, 0 ER, 1 hit, zero walks, 11 Ks, ERA at 5.12. “Strong Bean power!” He screams in a cartoon thought bubble. Watching McKenzie pitch is like watching a game of sticks and stones. Thankful on this Sunday as I write this, that McKenzie never rubbed his legs together and accidentally made fire. Any hoo! The peripherals hate this Strong Bean, and his command is so wildly sideways this year, not sure I trust him either, even after this game. Streamonator doesn’t like his next start, and I’m not running out to grab him.

Dansby Swanson – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 24th homer, and third homer in two days, and fourth homer in three games. Austin Riley (3-for-5, 2 runs, 24th homer) said to Dansby, “Thank you for joining me in this swamp where I will teach you my Jedi secrets on how to get scalding hot for a week then disappear for a month.”

Freddie Freeman – 2-for-5 and his 25th homer, hitting .290. Freeman has about the same number homers as Riley and Swanson. Not sure what that means, but it struck me, so I stuck it out to strike you too.

Alex Wood – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.14. He was facing the worst road team in the majors. Could’ve sent out a piece of plastic painted brown and it could’ve done as well as Wood.

Reid Detmers – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 7.04. I was thinking about how after I dropped Logan Gilbert and Shane McClanahan, they both pitched better, so I picked up Reid Detmers before yesterday’s game and my very illogical process worked!

Zach Thompson – 6 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 2.91 in 72 pitches. Is this the way teams are throttling innings? Because this sucks. This whole 70-ish pitch start is useless. I mean, Thompson wasn’t useless on Saturday, but more times than not if a guy is throwing 70-ish pitches, he’s gonna be useless.

Elieser Hernandez – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 2.84, as he was activated from the IL. Elieser do little or He’s All That? This month on Netflix catch the latest gem in the Pygmalion crown…*slowly walks out into traffic* When did we get so old they’re remaking She’s All That and Rachel Leigh Cook is an adult? Stop adulting! Any hoo! Elieser’s much more interesting to me in deeper leagues. His stats over the past two years have been kinda gorgeous, but small samples are the word. Now if Streamonator likes Elieser, I can get with it even in shallower leagues.

Jazz Chisholm – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 12th homer, hitting .254. Jazz is going to be a tough guy to rank next year. He’s “fun.” Whatever that means. Could see him being overrated, but I also like him.

Jesus Aguilar – 3-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 22nd homer, and his 2nd homer in the past three games. And on the 7th day, Jesus made a hot schmotato.

Frank Schwindel – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer, hitting .303. Third homer in the last four games, and the nicest thing I can say about this 29-year-old rookie is I can’t figure out why he was in the minors so long. My guess is he was stuck behind other better players and never got a chance, i.e., I like Schwindel, i.e., Schwing…del!

Mallex Smith – Jays acquired him from the Reds. Now the Jays have someone to go on Tim Hortons runs.

Logan Gilbert – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 4.42. A nothing prospect named Gilbert no-hits a top offensive team, and a big-name prospect Gilbert has his lunch handed to him and it’s a sh*t sandwich. Fantasy baseball: When you want ulcers from your hobbies.

Randal Grichuk – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer. Five fake dollars says he comes back and homers in his next game. C’mon, put your fake money where your real mouth is!

Teoscar Hernandez – 3-for-4, 2 runs and a slam (20) and legs (8). He’s a .240 hitter, right? Right? That’s what you think. He’s hitting .314! Break me off a piece of that pi!

J.A. Happ – 5 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 6.03. Let’s just be glad the Cards use their Devil Magic for good instead of evil.

Nolan Arenado – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 25th homer, hitting .265. This is the prized item in my ‘previously used napkin’ collection. This napkin was used by Pee-Wee Herman after he, uh, came out of a theater. I’m just going to carelessly put it by this open window–NOOOOOO!!! Torenado!

Tyler O’Neill – 1-for-4 and his 20th homer, hitting .272. Saw his batting average and I was like, “Wow, this guy must’ve really cut his strikeouts, or, I don’t know, maybe, uh, a high BABIP?” Luckily, I came up with a 2nd scenario, because he has not cut his Ks.

Anthony Rizzo – May be able to begin baseball activities by Monday. That includes scratching oneself and spitting.

Nestor Cortes – 6 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.55. Nearly jumped on Cortes for a stream quicker than Cortes could jump on the Aztecs, but the Streamonator didn’t love it, and his stuff is kinda meh, so sigh.

Luke Voit – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer. He had exactly five homers last year by this time, before going on to lead the majors in homers. Yes, I’m saying he might be a last 60-game hitter.

Michael Pineda – Left the IL with an oblique strain. I didn’t know piñatas had obliques.

Byron Buxton – Could begin a rehab assignment next week. I usually don’t talk about contracts, but who is advising Buxton to turn down an $80 million contract? Did he get that advice from someone who made farting noises with their hand under their armpit? I couldn’t care less how much he milks a billionaire for in a contract. Take them for $400 million for all I care, but Buxton really thinks he’s worth more than $80 mill? I wouldn’t give him anything guaranteed longer than one year. Dude can’t stay on the field.

Wander Franco – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer, hitting .244. We expect guys to do what they are capable of all the time. Everyone projected Wander for a .290 average (me too), and he might do that for his career, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to hit that any given year.

Mike Zunino – 2-for-4 and his 25th homer, and 4th straight game with a homer. Can’t believe how many catchers I’m cycling through when I could’ve Ron Popeil’d my Zunino and had 25 homers. By the way, Ron Popeil passed away recently, so he’s now the ultimate set it and forget it.