I’ll admit to a certain type of satisfaction seeing the Rays suck. We should all be rooting against them for what they’ve done to our great game of baseball. The opener? Sucks! Not promoting prospects? Sucks! Pitching guys so far over their limits they all get hurt? Sucks! Platooning everyone? Sucks! Okay, someone help me down from this soapbox. Yesterday, beating up the Rays (hell yeah!) was Willy Adames (2-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 5th and 6th homer, and 2nd and 3rd homer in his last two games). He’s got such easy power. That’s all. I was watching the game, and sweet molassy those balls flew. Unrelated, but if you have the Balls Flu by your Willy, go see the doctor. Please, that’s contagious. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Colin Rea – 6 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.67. Yeah, I love Colin Rea. Colin Rea Charles’s Sirius station and asking them to play Georgia on My Mind. Any hoo! Rea is a Streamonator call I wouldn’t be Colin.
Zach Eflin – 5 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 6 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.17. Yea, lose Rays, lose! Sorry.
Grayson Rodriguez – Hit the IL with shoulder inflammation conveniently at the same time Bradish and John Means are returning. His shoulder checkup went like this. Doctor, “Does this hurt?” Doctor taps his shoulder. Grayson, “No.” Doctor knocks the hammer harder against his shoulder, “How about now?”
Luis Gil – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 3 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.19. I am fascinated by Gil. Call me Quentin Tarantino, because I am a Gil man! (It works if you pronounce it right, any hoo!) His stuff is unhittable by the best hitters in baseball. He reminds me when Strider came sorta out of nowhere his rookie year. Gil is very good, but the wildness is worrisome. For Stuff+, it’s Jared Jones, Hunter Greene, Logan Gilbert then Luis Gil, right in front of Cease and Glasnow.
Oswaldo Cabrera – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 4th homer. Hey, it’s the breakout from the 1st week of the season who hasn’t broken out. Say hello to your mother for me!
Chris Bassitt – 6 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 5.45. Solid enough outing, Quality Start yadda-blabba-bloo and all that, but he should’ve coasted in this game like NBD. Last year Bassitt would’ve done a 8 IP, 2 ER masterpiece. I don’t know what’s going on with Bassitt, if I had to guess it’s his mechanics, but he does not look right at all. A 4.5 BB/9 from Bassitt? Woof, dawg. Mechanics can be fixed, of course, but how long you’re gonna wait depends on your league size.
Danny Jansen – 1-for-4 and his 3rd homer. Kirk should boldly go anywhere but the lineup.
Seth Lugo – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 1.60. Pants just gave you his Seth Lugo fantasy, so I didn’t want to double it up, but, yeah, he’s real and it’s spectacular. The crazy thing is he was facing Bassitt, and that’s exactly who he’s replicating. Lugo: The Replicant.
Michael Massey – 1-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer, and his 2nd homer in as many games. Hot schmotato alert!
Kenta Maeda – 6 IP, 1 ER, 4 hits, zero walks, 5 Ks, ERA at 5.02. One of my bigger early regrets was giving up on Maeda before he had a chance to figure things out. Long season, so I’ll find more/better regrets.
Alex Lange – 1 1/3 IP, 0 ER, and his 2nd save. We all know Foley has the Tigers’ closer job, but any guesses on what Lange’s ERA is? Go ahead guess! Gotta be higher than you think because he lost the closer job, right? Has to be! It’s 0.75. Zoinks!
Willson Contreras – 1-for-4 and his 5th homer. Gotta be embarassing being upstaged by his younger brother on the Razzball Player Rater. Can an ego rebound from that?
Tyler Nevin – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 4th homer, three in the last four games. What’s up, Nevinheads! You know he’s going to be in this Friday’s Buy column, because farkin’ of course! The Buy/Sell is already available on the Patreon.
Ross Stripling – 6 IP, 0 ER, 3 hits, zero walks, 2 Ks, ERA at 4.24. Streamonator had me close to picking up Stripling, but [holds stomach to indicate full] I’ve had enough A’s starters.
Korey Lee – 1-for-3 and his 3rd homer, hitting .255. I’m super hesitant about recommending a catcher in any situation — y’all ruined me! — but, in a two-catcher league, I grabbed Lee and dropped Yan Gomes. Now, watch the comments for, “Grey, handsome face, would you drop O’Hoppe for Lee?”
Tommy Pham – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. I don’t know what Pham’s WAR is this year but it should be 3.
Byron Buxton – Left the game with knee soreness. I’m sure it’ll be fine and he won’t realize he has a torn meniscus and forced to miss the next four months.
Alex Kirilloff – 1-for-3, 2 runs and his 2nd homer, as he was pinch-hit for by Manuel Margot. Baldelli is such an over-manager. Trust the sausage! Then again, knowing Kirilloff, maybe he had an injury I didn’t see. I know Buxton left the game with an injury and now I’m telling a shaggy dog story.
Bailey Ober – 6 IP, 4 ER, 6 hits, zero walks, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.55. This game was vs. the White Sox and I am once again pleading with Ober to throw a ball outside the strike zone once in a while.
Zack Wheeler – 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.91. There are so many terrible teams. This start was vs. the Angels, who are now sporting Ehire Adrianza, Kevin Pillar and Vanessa Hudgens’s boyfriend, Cole Tucker. With that said, Wheeler should’ve made butter of the Angels but got churned out after barely 5 IP. Don’t come for Rengifo, sir.
Patrick Sandoval – 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 10 Ks, ERA at 5.91. If I may bestow in your baby head a little nugget of knowledge, don’t get lured in by an Angels pitcher.
Roddery Munoz – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 2.45. Fun fact! A Roddery is a place to buy fishing rods.
Andy Pages – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer. Two of his three homers have come on my bench. Sonavabench! You’re welcome.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto – 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.91. No, you didn’t want to draft him because of some random game in S0uth Korea. No, I don’t know why.
Jordan Montgomery – 3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 5.63. Me before the game, “Yes, no Ohtani in the lineup! He’s scared of my JoMo baby!” Me about an inning and half in, “What hell hath thee wrought?!”
Joe Musgrove – 6 IP, 2 ER, 4 hits, zero walks, 9 Ks, ERA at 6.37. He’s such a prominent member of My Shizz List, that he would need to rattle off a good month of starts before I trusted him. One home start vs. a weak road team? No. That’s not going to do it.
Jake Cronenworth – 1-for-3, 4 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .265. Cronenworth is a good example of a guy that’s getting real baseball publicity because he’s making better contact, his Statcast looks “good,” and he is hitting better, empirically, but also he’s a barely top 100 guy overall for fantasy, even with better contact.
Graham Ashcraft – 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.63. Do I like Ashcraft better than Musgrove? Yes, yes I do. Thanks for asking! That was considerate–Did you finish my iced tea? Oh c’mon! You know I get the afternoon snoozies and need a hit of caffeine.
Spencer Steer – 1-for-4 and a slam (4) and legs (8). BDon and I were talking on this week’s podcast about Steer over Vlad Jr. and, honestly, I’m not sure it’s close.
Shota Imanaga – 7 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 0.78. How did everyone miss how good he is? Don’t pretend you knew. No one knew. Unlike Triple-A, there’s actually video of every single game of him in Japan.
Jose Butto – 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.57. This is my feeling about pitching, which I repeat daily: There’s so much pitching I picked up Butto off waivers for this start and I might drop him today for someone else. He has a 2.57 ERA! If you had a 2.57 ERA in your league, you’d be doing pretty good.
Justin Verlander – 7 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 2.08. Going off what I said with Butto, you could’ve drafted Verlander in literally every league.
Kyle Tucker – 1-for-4 and his 8th homer. But he only has five steals! Mr. H2H, what are you doing? Losing people the steals category, that’s what!
Triston McKenzie – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 4.34. Unlike Musgrove, I can like Sticks again, but gonna take some good pitching after he raked me over the coals. (Pun noted!)
Will Brennan – 2-for-4 and his 4th homer, 2nd homer in the last six games. From David Fry (a real name of a baseball player), who is hitting fifth for the Guards, down their lineup is so sad. I’d put it up against any other bottom five for stinky.
Kutter Crawford – 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.56. I wanna say Connor Wong (3-for-4, 1 run, 1 RBI) is gonna hit .350 this year, but I don’t want to say it on Main as a highlighted blurb, because then I’ll get a bunch of Wong comments. Guess you could say I’m tucking my Wong.
Dominic Smith – Signed by the Red Sox. There’s a term the kids use “down bad.” It’s desperation. There’s a baseball equivalent to “down bad,” it’s called “Signing Dom Smith.”
