Up from the depths. Congratulations, Yadiel!

Now here's a Yankee I do have (following up on my Brett Gardner post). Again and again and again, he's scorched the ball, hitting into a tough-luck out.

I swear.

Ken Davidoff, ranking the biggest Yankee disappointments so far this season...

2. Brett Gardner

His surface numbers (.165/.293/.299) are simply awful, his underlying counts (exit velocity, line-drive rate, walks-to-strikeouts and more) far less so; they’re all quite similar to last year’s renaissance.

As we see, Gardner's line-rive rate is actually a tick higher. But in the games I've watched, I can't say I've noticed a lot of hard contact resulting in outs.

Could be because I don't have him.

What? Until recently you'd never heard of Kevin Ginkel, Stefan Crichton and Travis Bergen?

From the Monkey:

Arizona Diamondbacks — Travis Bergen picked up his first career save by getting the final two outs Thursday in a 5-2 win. Anytime someone earns a save for Arizona it’s noteworthy, as this bullpen situation has been pretty muddy since the departure of Archie Bradley. We’ll add him to the hierarchy as we continue to track this situation. It’s worth noting that Kevin Ginkel and Stefan Crichton had pitched in back-to-back days, so they might have needed rest. 

Updated hierarchy: *Ginkel | Crichton | Bergen.
* = closer-by-committee

Deivi will be the big-ticket item in the next FAABs but Bryan won't be far behind. In a few 4x4 leagues (there are still a few of those) he was claimed on Monday.

From the Monkey:

Detroit Tigers – It appears there’s a new saves option in Detroit. Bryan Garcia earned his second save Thursday, just days after closing out Sunday’s win. In between, Garcia got the final out Tuesday in an 8-3 victory after coming into the game with two men on and two outs. Asked about Garcia after the game, manager Ron Gardenhire said, “We think he’s got the moxie to be able to do it.” We’ll slide Garcia to the top of this committee, and it looks like he might shake the asterisk by early next week if he keeps pitching well.

Updated hierarchy: *Garcia | Soto | Cisnero.
* = closer-by-committee

Might Ron Roenike's mind be on another sport as summer turns to autumn?

Jen McCaffrey at The Athletic:

... On Aug. 31, Houck impressively struck out nine batters over five innings, but also issued four walks to lefty hitters. On Monday, he threw six innings and finished off with three strikeouts, including two against lefties. In keeping on a five- or six-day schedule, he’s due to make another start within the next couple of days.

So could that next appearance be his major-league debut against the Rays this weekend?

“I think if things go kind of as planned, there is an opportunity,” Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke said of Houck. “Like I said, we plan these things out. As you know, they’ve changed a lot this year. We’ve had to readjust, a lot of audibles, but we wanted to make sure that if there was an opportunity that we could get guys here instead of scrambling.”

Jeimer appears to be a contradiction of sorts - in the Livonian language, Jeimer literally means "sea of ice."

Faced with playing 23 games in the next 18 games, the Cardinals looked like they were off to a great start: knocked off the Tigers 12-2 in the first game of the double-header, led 3-1 going into the top of the seventh in the second game, when it all fell apart. Gallegos gave up a walk, a single and a single to the first three batters. The second single closed the gap to 3-2 and a bad throw to the plate by Bader (Weiters still should have handled it) allowed the tying run to advance to third, the winning to second. Gallegos left the game with an apparent injury, up stepped Candelario and that was that.

A groin injury for Gallegos. They'll find out today how serious it is.

There's en fuego and there's Jeimer Candelario. Five more knocks yesterday, driving in five. Ten hits in his last three games, a homer in each. Before we get today's stat feed -- before -- he's got a .396 BABIP.

Peter somehow saw this coming and claimed him for our team in the XFL at the beginning of the month.

Thu, Sep 10 - Bobby Dalbec hit his sixth homer in 10 big-league games Thursday off the Rays' Josh Fleming.

He struck out in his other three at-bats, so it was more of the same
for him. A full two-thirds of his hits thus far have been homers, and
he's struck out 19 times in his 39 plate appearances. There's nothing
fluky about the home runs, but his contact issues are likely to pose
problems going forward. Like Austin Riley last year, we'd say he's in
line for a big swoon at some point, except for the fact that there's
only 15 games left in the season.  (Rotoworld.com)

If Thursday ends up being Jordan Zimmermann’s final start as a Tiger, he at least got the chance to smile after an outing once more.

Just saw the clip. Boy, as a writer, am I blown away by the drama inherent in the bot's sportswriting. This is Red Smith masquerading as an algorithm. 

He may steal, if he gets on base, but I don't think he'll hit.  He's not his father, who was consistently a very solid player in real baseball because he was a world class defender, but also in our game b/c he would consistently put up 20-20 seasons.

Baseball America's weekly ogling of the rooks:

NATIONAL LEAGUE

1. Jake Cronenworth, 2B, Padres

While the race between Lewis and Robert is drawing national attention in the AL, Cronenworth has outperformed both of them. Cronenworth slowed down some last week but still has the highest batting average (.323) and OPS (.930) of any qualified rookie in the major leagues, Lewis and Robert included. He leads all MLB rookies in both doubles (11) and triples (3) and continues to play standout defense whether the Padres put him at second base, first base or shortstop.

In the seventh edition of Baseball America's weekly Rookie of the Year Stock Watch:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

1. Kyle Lewis, OF, Mariners

The Kyle Lewis vs. Luis Robert debate continues, with neither clearly separating himself from the other. Robert looked like he was starting to pull away but summarily began swinging at everything last week and lost that advantage (see below). Lewis has fallen back to earth some as well, but he’s still managed to reach base in five straight games and 18 of his last 21 overall. At this point, Lewis has a 42-point edge over Robert in batting average (.307 to .265), a 70-point edge in on-base percentage (.399 to .329) and a 30-point edge in OPS (.896 to .866). Those gaps are simply too large to ignore and we have Lewis back in the lead for AL Rookie of the Year.

2. Luis Robert, OF, White Sox

Robert continues to do spectacular things, but on the whole he’s slowing down as pitchers take advantage of his aggressiveness. Since his scorching first two weeks to begin the season, Robert has hit .223 with a .289 on-base percentage and a 34 percent strikeout rate since Aug. 6. He’s made big impact on contact in that time (9 HR, .534 slugging percentage), but he’s not making contact consistently enough to sustain his hot stretches. Robert is in one of his down streaks right now, going 4-for-30 with 13 strikeouts in his last eight games.

Yikes.

Or does the law of averages favor Arrieta? Remind me to check this tomorrow.

Today's Matchups to Watch

• Enrique Hernandez vs. Madison Bumgarner: 52 PA, .500/.519/.860, 4 HR
• Alex Bregman vs. Sean Manaea: 26 PA, .300/.462/.750, 3 HR
• Miguel Rojas vs. Jake Arrieta: 16 PA, .357/.438/.714, 1 HR
• Corey Dickerson vs. Jake Arrieta: 15 PA, .429/.467/.643, 0 HR
• Matthew Joyce vs. Jake Arrieta: 26 PA, .333/.423/.571, 1 HR

View All Possible Matchup Histories for Today

If he hits, he'll break what's left of our FAAB piggy banks. If he doesn't, he'll get serious coin thrown his way.

Yesterday's Debut

RF Daz Cameron (DET)

Born: January 15, 1997 (Age: 23-238d)

Baseball America Prospect Rank: #74 in 2016

Drafted: Drafted by the Houston Astros in the 1st round (37th) of the 2015 MLB June Amateur Draft from Eagle's Landing Christian Academy (McDonough, GA).

Debut: 0-3 

It looks like he's had some bad BABIP luck, but he came through last night.

Yesterday's Biggest Play

Batter: Ramon Laureano (OAK)

Pitcher: Ryan Pressly (HOU)

Situation: Bottom 9th, 2 out, 1-0 count, Runners On 1st and 2nd

Score:  OAK 2, HOU 2

Single to CF (Line Drive to Deep LF-CF)
1 run scored on the play, and OAK went from a 61% win probability to a 3-2 walk-off win.

View the full game Boxscore at Baseball-Reference.com

Looks the Mets have a shortstop to trade in the off season.  I am hoping Gimenez stays and Rosario goes.  

Freddie's answer in the post-game, asked if he thought Snitker would have him batting second again today: "I would assume so, I think it would be very hard for him to change the lineup after scoring 29 runs."

With one more run, the Braves would have matched the Rangers for the most runs scored in a game by any team since 1900. The Rangers edged the Orioles 30-3 in 2007.

 The Braves had 23 hits, seven of them out of play, after being shut out on four hits by the Marlins on Tuesday. Snitker might have had a hard time sleeping after that; when Freeman in woke in the morning he had a text from the manager with the new lineup.