Week 5 Avocado Fantasy League Results

MLB TALK

• Edwin Jackson is 35 years old and when he pitches for the Blue Jays on Wednesday against San Francisco it will make 2019 his 17th major league campaign and his 14th organization, breaking Octavio Dotel’s mark of 13 organizations. Jackson had been signed to a minor league deal with the Oakland Athletics (where he pitched last season) but the pitching needy Blue Jays struck a deal to acquire him over the weekend. How long his stay will be is to be seen, depending on a combination of his performance and the status of the 4 starting pitchers currently on Toronto’s IL.

• Speaking of the Giants, pitcher Derek Holland and the team’s brass are going head to head. Holland, angry over his demotion to the Giants bullpen, claims he faked an injury earlier in the season when he went onto the IL. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi attributed Holland’s claim to the pitcher’s competitive spirit and termed the use of “fake” as a regular issue when a player believes they can play through an injury and what the team determines their health to be.

• Felix Hernandez of the Mariners is not nearly the pitcher he once was. At one point he was a Cy Young winning ace, a workhorse who dominated even as the team around him never fully rose to his level. He’s pitching more at the level of a #4/#5 starter and currently has an ERA well over 6. But he became the 36th pitcher in MLB history to reach strikeout number 2,500 in his career when he struck out Red Sox rookie Michael Chavis on Saturday. Unfortunately that was the only highlight to his day as the Red Sox would pound him for 7 runs in 2.1 innings and Hernandez would be placed on the IL with a strained right shoulder. He’s only 33, should he rediscover a way to get back to a more consistent level of performance he is certainly young enough to reach 3,000 within the next few years.

• Travis d’Arnaud lasted 5 days and 1 at bat in his Dodger career after being acquired to perform as a bench piece. The Tampa Bay Rays, suddenly desperate for a catcher after placing both Mike Zunino and Michael Perez on the IL within a day of each other, acquired d’Arnaud for cash and quickly installed him as their starting catcher for the time being.

• The Ringer wants to know, are the Minnesota Twins for real? Let’s have a read.

• Hey I figured out how to make the images blow up when you link to them! *pats self on the back*

What’s on your minds baseball fans?