While the DFS community is going absolutely bonkers over such a large night slate here on Friday, the seasonal league troops march on just as we do every day. Night games, day games, it doesn’t matter. Everything is important and what happened yesterday in MLB very much impacts our decisions today and this weekend. There is no clean slate every day. You’ve been dealt a hand, studied it for almost two full weeks and have to play it to the best of your ability. I don’t want to perpetuate the stereotypical fight between DFS and Seasonal as we can all happily co-exist, but I do think we have it harder than they do. You can grind out money in cash games and easily turn a profit in daily. In seasonal, it’s six months of grueling battle and to quote the legendary Reese Bobby, “if you ain’t first, you’re last.”

Now as we step into the weekend, there’s plenty to look at, beginning with the MLB Injury Report. With Michael Stein still on vacation, I pinch-hit on the injury front once again and provided you with as detailed an article as I could. I definitely recommend checking out Tuesday’s report as well since today’s has a few updates on some guys who were day-to-day then but have landed on the DL since. I’ve also brought you more updates on players who could be returning soon.

Staying up to date on injuries is obviously crucial and your reading should be paired up with the rest of the articles we have for you. James Grande’s bi-weekly waiver piece is loaded with names helpful in all different sized formats while Colby Conway’s Category Impact offers you up specifics as to which players will help you in the different roto categories. And all of that is even before you get your weekend articles on pitching and overall planning.

But enough of the lecture. You all know what I’m talking about here. Let’s get to some of the recent action that deserves serious attention from the fantasy community.

A Call to Arms Part Deux

In the last Call to Arms, we looked at a number of surprise pitching performances. Were they believable or not? Were the players worth adding to your roster or are you just setting yourself up for a major drubbing and enlargement of your team’s WHIPhole by streaming them in? Well, we’ve got another few to look at here as yesterday there were quite a few surprises.

Let’s start with Brett Anderson shutting out his former team for five innings during the Cub’s 4-0 win over the Dodgers. The issue with Anderson has never been about skill set. It’s health. When healthy, he’s definitely capable of contributing to your pitching totals, but the problem, as always, is that he rarely stays healthy. Very rarely. Like almost never. So while a win and five scoreless frames are nice, keep in mind that it was a labor-intensive start. He needed 90 pitches to get that far and only a little more than half of those pitches thrown were strikes. If the command is off, he’s throwing more pitches which only increases his risk for injury. If you feel to ignore the red flag, then go ahead and roll with him. Just remember that you’re going to need a solid arm on your bench to eventually replace him.

Chad Kuhl had himself a real nice outing as he held the Red Sox to just one run on five hits with no walks and six strikeouts over 6.1 innings. His command looked solid and he should be useful as a streamer under the right circumstances. There’s nothing so amazing about his stuff that you should be locking him down on your roster, but if you go in with the understanding that a strikeout per inning (or close to it) is not the norm and he is nothing more than an SP5/6, you can get some use out of him. Starting him against Boston was certainly risky and I’m not sure I would green-light him against some of the tougher offenses just yet.

Welcome back, Yu Darvish. You’re at Table SP1. We hope you enjoy your stay. A 5:1 K:BB? Yes, please. #ToldYouSo

While Kevin Gausman’s start against the Jays was solid and expected, given how anemic their offense has looked, but everyone’s focus landed square on the performance of Francisco Liriano who rebounded from his drubbing last week with a 10-strikeout performance against the Orioles. It was nice to see him actually make it out of the first inning, let alone pitch into the seventh, but just keep in mind that last year, the Orioles ranked in the bottom three for offensive production against lefties. Their roster is practically the same and they’re already sporting a .267 wOBA and 73 wRC+ against southpaws this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he struggles next week against the Red Sox.

I’ll just sum up Jimmy Nelson and Jason Vargas with the good ol’ “sun shines on a dog’s ass at least once.” I don’t believe in either of them for the long haul and would be afraid for you if you emailed me and said you were looking to add one or both and even entertain the idea of starting them regularly.

Power Players

Someone get Yoenis Cespedes a piss test, please. You’ve got to be kidding me here. He’s got six home runs on the season with five in his last three games? Holy crap! He is single-handedly carrying fantasy offenses right now and is an absolute pleasure to sit and watch each and every time he steps to the plate. THIS was the Showcase we expected when he first came into the league. The dings and dents that keep him out of the lineup every so often are just a part of the game he plays. Deal with it. This type of power right now should be embraced with an awkwardly long, ass-in hug. If you can get your leg around it too, you probably should.

Remember that time I used the dog’s ass analogy? Yeah. It applies to Aaron Hicks as well. While a two-homer outing against the Rays is nice, he’s just not about that life, people. He is a part-timer who had a really good day. Nothing more than that. Send him to the DFS world, please. Without a starting job, he does nothing for us here.

And how about some applause and encouragement from a couple of first-timers here – Andrew McCutchen, Trevor Story and Miguel Cabrera all decided to finally do some yard work. The first one gets the monkey off the back. Let’s see if it’s the start of a nice, healthy hit streak!

Hot Streaks

Jake Lamb and Daniel Murphy hold the lead this season with a nine-game hit streak for each of them. Murphy’s streak probably doesn’t surprise many people and he was obviously drafted early for his offensive prowess, but Lamb is a nice bonus here. He showed some real nice power last season and continues to steadily shine with a .342 average, two home runs and 10 RBI. However, that batting average is obviously BABIP-juiced and that 30.2-percent strikeout rate is going to crush it down to size if he doesn’t improve his plate discipline. He’s drawing walks which is nice, but he’s got to learn to take the bat off his shoulder and defend the plate better with two strikes on the count.

Dustin Pedroia shares the AL streak title with Avisail Garcia as both have hit safely in eight-straight games. Similarly to their NL counterparts, there’s not much we don’t know about Pedroia and expect a few hot streaks from him along the way. But lots of folks are asking about Garcia and wondering if he’s the real deal. We’d certainly like to think so, but a quick look at his swing rates and the pitches he is seeing gives me pause. He’s being super-aggressive at the plate, swinging at just over 55-percent of the pitches he sees, and while he’s hacking outside the zone less this year, he’s still swinging at more than 31-percent of the pitches outside the zone and has a 14.4-percent swinging strike rate. That type of an aggressive works for a guy like Miguel Sano, but I can’t get totally on-board with Garcia here. You can ride the wave until it breaks, but don’t hold onto him after that. Turn and burn that roster spot.

While technically it’s not a streak, there’s certainly something to be said about Marcell Ozuna who has hit safely in five of his last six games with four multi-hit performances, four home runs and 13 RBI. Insane production from a guy so many people tend to dismiss in their drafts. Even better is the fact that his swing rates are normal, there’s not some outlandish BABIP to point to and there’s nothing different about the way pitchers are throwing to him. He’s definitely improved his batter’s eye and is swinging at significantly fewer pitches outside the zone. It’s tough to believe he can keep this pace going, but for now, all signs point to this 26-year old breaking out this season. Enjoy!

Stolen Base Watch

While Eduardo Nunez sits atop the leaderboard with five stolen bases, you already see his pace dropping off and a number of burners starting to creep up. He’s now tied with Billy Hamilton, Jose Peraza and Brett Gardner and with the way the Reds are running, he’s about to fall behind both Peraza and Hamilton shortly. We’re also seeing a number of players like Elvis Andrus, Lorenzo Cain, Raul Mondesi, Cameron Maybin and even Mike Trout starting to run more. Hell, even Byron Buxton kicked in his first stolen base of the year. The watch continues, but so far, there seems to be more than enough speed to go around.

First pitch is at 2:10pm ET today, so make sure those lineups are set properly!

May your bats be mighty and your arms fierce. We’ve got championships to win and every day counts!