Good job by Luis Perdomo and the Padres as the F5 Sunday free baseball play got there. But it was just a split on the comps overall, as the play on the Arizona Cardinals posted earlier in the week was a wrong side. More F5 material on the diamond tonight.
YANKEES (Pineda) at ROYALS (Gee)
Take: YANKEES F5
I have no desire to try and beat the red hot Royals over a full nine innings. They’re back to working that KC magic again. That is, hang around early, get hot as the game progresses and then hand the game over to a bullpen that is about as pure shutdown as it gets right now.
But I don’t have a problem trying to get a first half win against Kansas City when the starting pitcher matchup dictates such a maneuver, and I believe that’s the case tonight.
Michael Pineda can be maddeningly erratic. I don’t think his stuff plays as well when he’s pitching out of the stretch, and that’s why crooked numbers can be an issue for the righty. But Pineda has been pitching some reasonably good ball for the Yankees, and I can see him being okay for five or six innings tonight.
Dillon Gee just hasn’t been very good for Kansas City. I’ve got him grading out at better than average in only three of his 11 starts. I do need to point out that two of those have come recently, so I would not classify Gee as auto-fade material, at least not presently.
But the bottom line for me is that when doing the head to head comparatives in the categories I value the most, it’s a clean sweep for Pineda over Gee. I’ve been having quite a bit of success playing these scenarios as long as the price is right, and I shouldn’t have a problem with that here. So I’ll go back to that well once again, and will make a Yankees F5 play for the Monday comp.
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My 2* MLB Grinder is up now for Monday.