How dumb is MLB? How about: You have a sport where teams play 162 games and you don’t have every team play on Memorial Day. MLB could own all holidays from April until October. It’s so easy. If you don’t want all day games, fine. Have them play night games. Have them mid-day. Just have them play! I want wall-to-wall baseball while I’m eating my frankfurters and drinking my cold brewskis with my boys* (*Generated by ChatGPT after being shown an American flag and a .38). Any hoo! Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day (except Rob Manfred), at least nicer than Craig Counsell, who was welcomed back to Milwaukee with a tribute video where the fans booed him throughout. Gotta love that kind of pettiness. Or at least I do. Robert Gasser (6 IP, 0 ER, 3 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 1.96) had a 3.2 K/9 coming into this game, which is wild, but has only allowed one walk in 23 IP for a 0.4 BB/9, which is extremely not wild. He’s kind of a Streamonator call in most shallower leagues, but hard to not get in on his lefty craftiness until he gets hit. Speaking of crafty lefties, Justin Steele (7 IP, 0 ER, 3 hits, one walk, 8 Ks, ERA at 4.45) looks remarkably similar to the previous year when he was in the NL Cy convo until September with just bad luck on homers allowed, if such a thing exists — who’s throwing the pitches that are going for homers if not him? Any hoo! He looks like a solid buy low if you can [pinkie to mouth] Steele pull it off. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Willy Adames – 2-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 8th homer, hitting .249. 1st homer in three weeks, and was hitting .213 in May, prior to this game. Fun fact! Wily dames is Joan Collins and Judi Dench around Pierce Brosnan’s butt.
Joe Ryan – 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 hits, zero walks, 9 Ks, ERA at 2.96. [making a note in my iCal to bet on Joe Ryan to win the 2025 AL Cy, and to point out this far-off prediction if he does, and if he doesn’t, then I will forget I ever said anything]
Jose Miranda – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .279. I hate Baldelli. He over-manages so much that the Twins were easily winning yesterday, and he still replaced Miranda like it’s the World Series.
Trevor Larnach – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 4th homer, hitting .270, as he hit leadoff. “Quad, hammy, back, hammy, quad, quad, oblique.” That’s Larnach The Great holding an envelope to his forehead, then opens an envelope and reads the index card inside, “Why will seven of the nine hitters in the Twins’ lineup miss 30 to 60 games this year?”
Alec Marsh – 7 IP, 5 ER, 7 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 3.24. He allowed two costly homers to keep his xFIP pristine.
Davis Schneider – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 6th homer, hitting .241, and seems to have cemented himself in the leadoff role. Not the best lineup behind him, but leadoff in any lineup deserves to be rostered in fantasy leagues.
Bo Bichette – 1-for-4 and his 4th homer. Also, in this game, Gavin Sheets (2-for-5) hit his 4th homer. In summation, Pieceofsheets.
George Springer – 2-for-3, 2 runs 2 RBIs and his 4th homer. Spent the last 10 minutes looking up Springer’s stats, which you wouldn’t guess from this blurb, because I don’t have much to say. Sometimes the best blurbs are the ones where I edit myself way down. This is not one of those. Since he’s so cooked, I guessed he homered off a 85 MPH change, but it was a 92.6 MPH fastball. It was dead-center and it doesn’t change my mind on Springer. Much like his teammate Vogelbach, he just got into a meatball.
Chris Bassitt – 5 IP, 0 ER, 5 hits, zero walks, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.03. Not to take the wind out of your sails, but Bassitt was so lucky he was facing a bad team. He nearly gave up a four spot in the 1st inning.
Nick Lodolo – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 hits, zero walks, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.12, as he was activated from the IL. I wanted to make Lodolo the lede, but he was a little bit upstaged by the two SPs in Milwaukee. I will say this though, if a guy’s stuff is at all measured by how awful he makes opposing hitters, Lodolo’s a straight ace. He is a Filth Merchant. Also, Arenado looks so ridiculously cooked.
Jeimer Candelario – 1-for-3 and his 6th homer, 2nd homer in four games. Might be a light schmotato here, or just him inching his way to his very boring end-of-the-year line of 17 HRs, .250.
Paul Goldschmidt – 1-for-4 and his 7th homer, and 3rd homer in two games. Au shizz!
Charlie Blackmon – 3-for-4, 4 RBIs and his 2nd homer, as he hits leadoff. Beginning to think Blackmon and Bud Black are DEI hires.
Justin Lawrence – Hit the IL with “uhh…being bad?”
Cooper Criswell – 4 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 3.96. Person who streamed him, sadly, whispers, “Cooper…Cries-well.”
Cole Irvin – 5 IP, 0 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 2.84. Streamonator liked this start, and I can see why. The Red Sox lineup looks awful. They have seven automatic outs. Starting Dom Smith at 1st should be two automatic outs. They’re starting Wong as their three-hole hitter. Hey, I love Wong as much as Reese McGuire in a parking lot, but he’s a solid 7-hole hitter, not three. It’s Devers/Duran/aw geez/aw man/aw cmon/aw really? that’s bad/aw geez again.
Miguel Sano – Had a setback in rehab when he burned himself, leaving the heating pad on too long. Leave it to the Angels to have a player with an injury you’d hear from someone in hospice.
Jorge Polanco – Hit the IL with a strained hammy. His fill-in is: Click Moore to read about how hot Dylan’s been.
Cristian Javier – Hit the IL with forearm discomfort. Think you can backdate this to around July of last year, but no one will tell you that.
Jose Abreu – 1-for-3, 1 RBI, as he hit 8th. Recalled from the minors. How’s his curveball breaking?
Framber Valdez – 6 IP, 3 ER, 9 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.34 vs. the M’s, who are collectively hitting .224. Maybe the M’s start to come out of it (if Angel Hernandez was calling every game of theirs).
Bryce Miller – 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.48. Instead of watching this game, I watched Bronx Zoo on Peacock about the 90’s Yankees. Big Stein traded Winfield on May 11th to get more at-bats for one of two pedophiles. What a team!
Jazz Chisholm Jr. – 2-for-4 and his 8th homer. On pace for 75 runs and RBIs and–sorry, I just nodded off. Was I saying something?
Trevor Rogers – 5 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 5.65. How did 2021’s 2.64 ERA, 10.6 K/9 Trevor Rogers become this guy?
Michael King – 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 baserunners, 7 Ks, ERA at 4.09, and out at 89 pitches. Starters are now out before 90 pitches even when they’re throwing well. Change the win stat!
Kyle Schwarber – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and a slam (10) and legs (3), hitting .236. On Memorial Day, we thank the Schwarbomber for his service.
LaMonte Wade Jr. – Left yesterday’s game with an arm over his trainer’s shoulder, which is usually a 30-day IL stint, at least. Sucks, because he looked like he was finally breaking out.
Blake Snell – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 10.42. They should make him return his Cy Young.
Charlie Morton – 5 2/3 IP, 8 ER, ERA at 4.29. [sees favorable two-start week for Morton, does a little dance] two minutes into his 1st inning [continues dance into traffic] Can’t wait for his 2nd start this week. Lowercase yay!
Sean Murphy – 1-for-4, 1 RBI as he was activated from the IL. Ah, see, He gives you only what you can handle. He takes Acuña and He gives you Murphy. Now, He just needs to give Murphy 70-steal speed and 40-homer power. Let’s go, Miracle Man!
Austin Riley – 0-for-4 as he was activated–Oh wait.
Adam Duvall – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, and 2nd in two games, as he started in the outfield. It’s better than watching Ozuna try to field, I guess. Either way, Duvall is a hot schmotato.
Ozzie Albies – 1-for-4 as he hit leadoff to replace Acuña, which is very funny. It’s crazy how hard it is for MLB managers to see what is completely obvious to anyone with a passing knowledge of baseball. If you were to poll 100 Braves fans, it would 98 to 2 for Harris to hit leadoff.
Mitchell Parker – 6 1/3 IP, 3 ER, 5 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.45. Braves look like such a layup right now. To think in the preseason they were likely one of the favorites to win the NL pennant. So, regarding Parker, I wonder if teams caught on like I did and are prioritizing command over Ks. It absolutely is working (for me and starters who are doing it). Parker never had great command in the minors, but is in the majors and it’s working. Streamonator hates his next, and I don’t trust him enough to start him against one of the best teams, but Parker’s getting a full-on monocle.
CJ Abrams – 2-for-4,2 RBIs and his 9th homer, and 2nd homer in the last two games. Corange Juice took most of May off, but flip his initials because he’s back with a vengeance like it’s Easter.
Victor Robles – Designated for assignment. His assignment was to remove his name from above the locker and just leave an empty spot in the Wood.
Lane Thomas – 2-for-5, 1 run as he was activated from the IL. Kevin from ESPN’s Get Him In Your Lineup Department said, “At a Memorial Day BBQ yesterday, I swallowed a whole hot dog to see how it would come out the other end.”
