The Weekend Round-Up — April 30th
Recap of MLB News, Fantasy News, and today’s gambling picks.
Yankees Win 9 Straight
The New York Yankees are finally putting it all together. The Bronx Bombers are now winners of 9 straight games with all of their big hitters mashing baseballs. Didi is leading the league in many of the top categories, El Gary’s slump is officially busted after he launched his 7th HR last night, and their young bucks Torres and Andujar are taking full advantage of their opportunities. This is what all Yankee fans have been waiting for all year long, and it looks like they are getting it full force.
Kingham Dazzles In Debut
Here was the plan for Nick Kingham: Come up to the bigs for the first time, put on a Pirates uniform, and hopefully make a quality spot start to politely introduce yourself to the fans before going back to the minors for some more polishing. Here was not the plan for Nick Kingham: come up to the bigs for the first time, put on a Pirates uniform, and bring a perfect game into the seventh inning with 9 strikeouts. Nick Kingham chose to do the latter in what was just 7 outs away from the greatest beginning to a career in sports history. Kingham is by no means a highly touted prospect. He is the 8th prospect in the Pirates system to start 2018 and was a fourth round draft pick. Although Pittsburgh counts on Kingham producing in some sort of way one day, this surprised everyone, even Kingham. His final stats were 7 innings pitched, no runs, just one hit, and nine strikeouts. There were no plans to keep him up past yesterday, but it’s pretty hard to tell a guy to “do better” in the minors after a performance like the one Kingham had Sunday.
Bryce Keeps Walking
The record for most walks in a single month is 39 by the great Barry Bonds. Bryce Harper currently has 36 walks in the month of April. For some reason (maybe it’s the home runs) pitchers in the NL just aren’t pitching to Bryce. If today he gets walked 3 times, which isn’t totally out of the question, Bryce Harper will tie the single month walk record. I think that is just plain absurd to walk someone as much as they do. Barry Bonds was in the prime of his career on the way to breaking the All-time HR record when he was being walked, but Bryce is 25 years old and doesn’t even have 200 home runs yet. Why doesn’t Mike Trout get walked this much? Pitchers seem to have no problem pitching to the best pure hitter in baseball, so why do they have a problem with #2? I say the NL pitchers agree to #MakeBaseballFunAgain and try to get the guy out. Just a thought.
Sox Are First To 20
The Red Sox were on the verge of getting swept by the Tampa Bay Rays yesterday but prevailed with some late inning magic by Sandy Leon and shut down pitching from Craig Kimbrel. This win officially makes the Sox the first to 20 wins in the entire league, cementing their dominance of the beginning of the year. Nobody has been nearly as good as the Sox have been so far because they have had dominate pitching, stellar hitting and overall top of the line defense. The AL East is heating up though, with the Yankees and Blue Jays right on their heels. This race is looking to get heated early in the year.
Cubs Sweep Brewers, Hit Stride
It is very clean in Milwaukee at the moment because the Chicago Cubs just swept them in a four game series. It wasn’t an overpowering series, but they had great pitching and defense throughout the week. The Cubs pitching staff worked off great performances from Darvish and Quintana, and held the potent Brewers lineup to only 2 runs the entire series. Also, they didn’t get the usual output from Bryzzo (Anthony Rizzo & Kris Bryant for those that don’t know) because they combined for just 1 hit. The offensive charge was led by Kyle Schwarber, Albert Almora, and Javy Baez. This series spoke volumes about what the Cubs are capable of because when their main guys aren’t producing, they have young superstars who can step up and take their place. Consider this series a statement to the rest of the league that the 2016 World Series Champions are back and better than ever.
Fantasy News
Lance McCullers Jr. — Not One & Done
If you’re a Caught Looking enthusiast, then you probably read the article where we had spotlighted three of the Astros pitchers because of their stellar start to the season. Those guys being Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, and Justin Verlander. They are still on top of the world, so no need to worry there. However, there’s one more guy climbing his way up the pitching ranks from Houston, and his name is Lance McCullers. McCullers introduced himself to all of baseball last year with an incredible first half of 2017, and after a couple blips, McCullers is again pitching like an ace. The only problem with McCullers pitching like an ace (and it is definitely not a real problem) is that he’s the 4 right now in Houston. This benefits fantasy players though, as you can buy him low and his production could blow through the roof at some point, much like it did for a lot of last year. McCullers sits at 4–1 with a 3.71 ERA entering the new week. Those numbers rank him 19th in standard points leagues.
Blake Snell
Blake Snell was a top notch prospect for the Rays a couple years ago and while still young, he’s finally turning into an ace before our eyes. His ERA sits at a miraculous 2.52 while he’s 4–1 on the year. Also, Snell is top 15 in strikeouts which is currently 10th among starting pitchers. Yes, it’s early but in the last 4 starts Snell has had his fantasy points at 26, 25, 26, and 25 in standard points leagues. That sounds pretty consistent to me. On top of that, these games came against good lineups like the Yankees and Red Sox to name a few. Snell is also only owned in 80% of leagues, so check on your waiver wire just to be sure. Enjoy the Blake Snell coming out party because no matter how good or bad the streaky Rays are, Snell is going to shine.
Scaf’s Picks
We’re looking to start off the week hot after a big weekend. Today’s picks are:
- Washington Nationals (-115)
- Milwaukee Brewers (-115)
- Toronto Blue Jays (+105)
Balzy’s Beat The Streak Pick
We actually had a big streak coming into yesterday, but Freddie Freeman blew it for us. Tomorrow’s picks are Mookie Betts & Joey Votto.
Streak Counter — 0
Bonus
Panda Perfect Pitching
In the 9th inning of the 15–6 blowout loss to the Dodgers, the Giants decided to save their arms and go with their 3rd basemen. If you have read Caught Looking you know how much we love position players stepping up on the mound. It is the best part of blowouts because they throw low 80’s and usually stink. However, the Panda had other ideas. Pablo Sandoval stood 60 feet 6 inches from home and fired in 8 strikes out of 11 pitches and worked a perfect 1,2,3 inning. You gotta love it.
Joey Votto, Baseball Guy
When asked a question about Anthony Rizzo saying the MLB should play a shorter season, Joey Votto responded in usual Joey Votto fashion. Clearly cold from a long chilly game, Votto said he thinks we should play MORE baseball and asked “how could you not love this?” Well we agree Joey. Sign us up for March and November. More Money, More Games (60 according to Votto). Gotta love this guy.
Cespedes Trash Can Homer
In one of the most amazing moments I think I have ever seen, Yoenis Cespedes launched a homerun this weekend that landed directly into a trash can. What makes it even more crazy, the trash can had a lid. He hit a ball that landed into the front opening of a trash can. The odds of this must be ridiculous, the video is a must see.
A closer look at the trash can:
Yeah, that is absolutely unbelievable.
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