Ben Rice…
Uncle Ben’s Rice…
Brace for Rice…
Rice brace…
Grimace!
Oh my God! Oh my God! The Yankees are trying to steal the Mets’ glory! Is Ben Rice purple? Is he the shape of a teardrop? Is he purple and the shape of a teardrop?! Does he make love to women incessantly like a giant purple, teardrop would?! Ben Rice is Grimace! Grimace is Ben Rice! Okay, clearly, I’m obsessed with Grimace. Spare me your smart person stuff about how there’s no such thing as Grimace mojo. So, the Yankees called up Ben Rice and he has power and catcher eligibility. What else do you need? This year he hit 15 homers in just under 260 plate appearances across Double and Triple-A. He makes fantastic contact — 20% K% in Triple-A — and crazy amount of walks — 16% BB%. With Rizzo out for months, and honestly not very good either way, Rice could stick (to your ribs?), and be huge. Or at least as good as Gary Sanchez. What do you want me to say? Rice is filler, Grimace is the beef! He’s worth picking up everywhere though. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Aaron Judge – Hit on the hand by a pitch from Albert Suarez, and I am working on getting Suarez’s address. We ride at dawn. If I can be an armchair doctor, it looked like it got the meat of his hand, and not as bad as Betts. What stage of grief is this? Denial? Well, the x-rays said Judge will be fine. So there!
Nestor Cortes – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.36. As long as he’s not walking anyone, Nestor is the Bestor.
Anthony Santander – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer, 4th homer in four games, hitting .231. Santander’s on pace for 42 homers. Don’t you want that, Marlins? C’mon, send them Tanner Scott!
Ty France – 0-for-2, 1 run as he was activated from the IL. What does this mean for Tyler Locklear? Why do you ask? Are you French? In a Mariners-only league? Tell me why you have to know! Sorry, just had two coffees.
JP Crawford – 2-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 7th homer. I believe this was my first batty call of the year that resulted in a homer. It’s been that kinda year so far.
Luke Raley – 2-for-5 and his 8th homer, 2nd homer in a week. Luke, you are my waiver wire fodder.
Dylan Moore – 2-for-4, 3 runs and a slam and legs (12). Guess how many homers Dylan Moore has. Go ahead, it’ll be fun! Okay, try: Does he have more or less homers than Albies? Do you want to know the answer?
Kyle Manzardo – Optioned to the minors. He was a solid prospect, but solid prospects suck this year, so bye bye.
Triston McKenzie – 2 1/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 4.48. Sticks and ‘throwing Sticks in fantasy’ may break my bones…
Mike Trout – Hasn’t resumed running and has no timetable. Brah, every Trout update is so depressing.
Christian Yelich – 1-for-4 and his 7th homer. Hey, only two less than Heliot Ramos.
Tobias Myers – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.26. Solid start vs. the Angels. Surprised that Willie Calhoun or Mickey Moniak weren’t able to get to him. By the way, Adell now batting 9th. Next stop, Triple-A.
Nick Lodolo – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 hits, zero walks, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.76. He looks as good as any pitcher I’ve watched this year. Yes, even as good as (fill-in pitcher’s name).
Bailey Falter – 7 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.74. Manages to stay in the games he pitches, but polar opposite of Lodolo in he looks so hittable. Me and the Streamonator keep waiting for him to Falter.
Ke’Bryan Hayes – 1-for-4 and his 3rd homer, or the same amount of homers most guys who aren’t even home run hitters hit in a hot streak over a weekend.
Randy Arozarena – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 10th homer. Ah, that was all he needed! Me to say sell him! How about this: Sell Pablo Lopez! Is it working?
Brandon Lowe – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 5th homer, 2nd homer in two games. Hot schmotato alert!
Josh Lowe – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer. Here come the Lowe’s! (For great prices on lawn furniture!)
Aaron Civale – 3 2/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 5.42. Unless a guy has an insanely long track record, it’s hard to get back in on someone once they top out at a 5 ERA. I liked Civale coming into the year, but when do you go back in? After two good starts? Three? A month? I’m conservative. Prolly a month for me, but depends on the player.
Pablo Lopez – 4 IP, 5 ER, ERA at 5.63. But check out his peripherals! [dodges tomato]
Walker Buehler – 4 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 5.84. And Buehler has me glad again that I didn’t start Bobby Miller this week.
Shohei Ohtani – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 20th homer. Imagine Ohtani as a Rockies player…[wavy lines for a dream sequence] Oh no Shohei Ohtani just ran into Kris Bryant’s plantar fasciitis and is IL’d for six years! [wavy lines ending dream sequence] Hmm, maybe we should be happy with what we have.
Teoscar Hernandez – 1-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 18th homer, up to 54 RBIs. Also, in this game, Andy Pages (1-for-3, 2 runs) hit his 8th homer and Jason Heyward (1-for-1, 4 RBIs) hit his 4th. Crazy to think bad Rockies pitching in Coors would lead to the Dodgers hitting homers.
Tyler Kinley – 1/3 IP, 4 ER, ERA at 9.00. You mess with garbage, you get the stench.
Brenton Doyle – 4-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer, hitting .274. He’s a near-top 15 outfielder overall on the Player Rater.
Justin Verlander – Headed to the IL, missing his start vs. the White Sox. Clear what’s going on here, Verlander doesn’t want to face his former catcher, Martin Maldonado, because of how familiar he is with his pitches.
Jonathan Cannon – 8 2/3 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 3.34. How do you not let him finish the game? I know it’s inconsequential but so are the White Sux! So, that kinda start has me checking in on Cannon. [sticks head into cannon, says hello just to hear an echo] Cool. So, he has a 7.8 K.9, 1.7 BB/9, and less than ideal command in Triple-A this year. Looks like a five-pitch starter with a 95 MPH fastball and “heavy” 89 MPH cutter with a 93 MPH slider being the main ones. Ton of ground balls and interesting for deeper leagues. Can’t imagine he’s anything more than a streamer in shallower leagues though.
Paul Goldschmidt – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer, hitting .230. Au Shizz!
Alec Burleson – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 10th homer, hitting .274. Goldy – 100% rostered. Burleson — 49%. Figure that out!
Brendan Donovan – 1-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer. With Winn out, Donovan hit leadoff, i.e., Winn’s loss, Donovan’s win. Absolutely nailed it! High five me! No? Okay.
Jesus Sanchez – 3-for-5, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .241. Having a hard time imagining someone purposely picking up a Marlins’ hitter outside of Jazz and BDLC.
Lawrence Butler – 1-for-3, 1 run as he was recalled from the minors. Supposedly has 70-grade power, but might struggle to hit .200 and seems to be the poster boy for “Swing too long.” No relation to Long Duk Dong.
Zack Gelof – 2-for-4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and a slam (6) and legs (8), hitting .195. Two weeks ago, I said Gelof was overdue for a hot streak, and since then, well, lukewarm — 5 HRs, hitting .225.
Alec Marsh – 3 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 4.37. Staring up at the heavens, “Thank you for not letting me fall for this.”
Dansby Swanson – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and a slam (7) and legs (5), hitting .209. Not sure what happened to him, but he left the Braves and really became a JAG.
Justin Steele – 6 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.16 vs. Logan Webb – 7 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.99. Logan Webb vs. the Man of Steele is three superhero movies in one. A co-production? Who’s doing the accounting? DC? Marvel? Who’s helming? Army Archerd wants to know!
Keegan Thompson – 1 IP, 0 ER, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.30, as he got the Cubs save. Okay, but he’s so not the answer.
Max Scherzer – Will debut on Saturday vs. the Royals. I saw someone say this was an easy matchup for his first start. In what year? 2019?
Wyatt Langford – 1-for-4 and his 2nd homer. June 18th was the date of his first out-of-the-park home run of his career/season. Remember this next time someone has 10 homers in Spring Training.
Josh H. Smith – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .298 and in the three-hole. Seriously, they just switch up their Joshes when Jung returns? That simple?
Michael Lorenzen – 6 IP, 3 ER, 5 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.00. The secret to getting good pitchers is get the ones who haven’t thrown many innings. This is my working hypothesis.
Brandon Nimmo – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 9th homer, 2nd homer in as many games. He was touched by Grimace!
Mark Vientos – 3-for-5, 3 runs and his 6th homer. Raspy, said like a gambling addict in an Atlantic City sportsbook, “The purple man loves Vientos.”
Luis Severino – 6 1/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.52. Grimace farted on him.
Michael King – 4 2/3 IP, 1 ER, ERA at 3.49. I guarantee you (said like Paul Prudhomme — very new reference!) that if pitchers regularly went 4 2/3 IP back in the 1920’s, they would’ve made 4 IP the length of time needed to get a Win. Change the Win rule! Though, Suarez blew the game anyway, so whatevs. Jeff Hoffman remains The King. Sorry, Michael. Whoa, this blurb is its own Shaggy Dog story.
Kyle Schwarber – 2-for-4 and his 17th homer, and 3rd in two games. That was his 1,235th home run on date of June 18th.
Spencer Schwellenbach – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.98. This was a favorable matchup (vs. the Tigers), but, if you started Schwellenbach, you got schwellenfront grapes.
Jake Irvin – 5 IP, 4 ER, 12 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 3.24. I streamed him for his two-start week, and this was supposed to be the easy start. Lowercase yay!
Corbin Carroll – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 1 RBI and his 13th steal, hitting .218. His MRI came back clean yesterday and Road Rules’ Torey Luvollo put him back in the lineup saying, “How much worse can he be?”
Ketel Marte – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 15th homer. Was writing up my Buy/Sell that will be on Patreon later today, and I was looking at Ketel for a Ke-Sell, and I didn’t think he was one. He looked solid. First time I’ve felt that way about Ketel maybe ever.
Slade Cecconi – 6 IP, 0 ER, 3 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 5.90. Is it me or do you also scream any one syllable word starting with SL- like you’re in Onyx screaming Slam? Slade! Let the boys be boys! It’s just me, huh? Streamonator hates his next start, and I don’t disagree.
Tanner Houck – 5 2/3 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 2.23. ‘Member those novelty cards of Bud Black and Vida Blue called Black and Blue? They should be a Houck/Moniak with them dressed as Hulkamaniacs. Should I patent this?
Tyler O’Neill – 2-for-4, 2 runs and his 15th homer, and 3rd Dong Cheezo in two games. Tyler O’Neill is Icarus and Royce Lewis is the sun.
Chris Bassitt – 6 IP, 2 ER, 9 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.52. First legit start from Bassitt that was “good.” Maybe he fixed his mechanics. If he did, he could be a buy–well, not low. He’s been usable, but a buy back better? No, that’s ridiculous wording that means nothing.
Orelvis Martinez – Called up with Bo Bichette headed to the IL with a calf strain. Piece of Chette would wait until Tuesday, the day after lineups lock, to head to the IL. Piece of Chette Stop Being Annoying Challenge: Impossible. With Chettehead’s IL stint, the Jays called up Orelvis. While long overdue, the Jays are such a Chettehead organization, where does Martinez play after Chette returns? I’m seriously asking. If you’re thinking, ‘Well, there’s no way they send him back down.’ I wish I had your optimism. I’m not even sure the Jays play him every day now, opting for Israeli Diner Falafel instead. IKF over Orelvis? Yes, I’m not being facetious. I’m not saying I would do it, but we’re talking about the Jays. Why do we even care? Orelvis has 16 HRs in only 235 ABs in Triple-A and is only 22. He looks like a future star. Who brings up a future star to bench them for IKF? The Jays!
Willie Mays – RIP, Say Hey to Joe D. and Hank Aaron for us at Razzball.
