Betting

Iglesias was surprisingly not available to close Saturday’s game, and the Braves said he slept on his arm wrong and would be fine. The veteran then returned to notch a save on Sunday night, but he walked one and gave up a hit, and didn’t look sharp. Two days later, he’s landed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation. The expectation is that this won’t be a long stint on the IL, but Michael King also “slept on his arm wrong” last year and wound up missing almost three months with a nerve issue. While Iglesias is out, Robert Suarez becomes a top-five closer option in fantasy baseball and needs to be added everywhere. Hopefully the Iglesias manager already scooped him up last week when the injury first popped up.

The Orioles scored their first run with two outs in the top of the ninth to turn this into an extra-inning game. Both teams went scoreless in the 10th and plated one in the 11th. In the 12th, the Orioles took a lead on a Samuel Basallo single before Taveras appeared to finish things. The Royals, though, came back with three runs before making an out in the 12th, only to sputter out afterwards. Taveras came into tonight as a lifetime .280 hitter with the bases loaded, but he’d never gone deep in 50 plate appearances. He’s been a great surprise in the early going, hitting .341/.453/.554 to take over as the Orioles’ primary center fielder. His success might get Colton Cowser demoted at some point.

The run came on a Jac Caglianone homer, so all of those other runners were erased of stranded. Bradish became the first pitcher since Ubaldo Jiménez in 2016 to allow 13 baserunners but only one run. Incredibly enough, Jiménez was also pitching for the Orioles and facing the Royals in that game. Bradish will likely make his next start Sunday against Boston.

Erceg walked Gunnar Henderson on seven pitches, only to pick him off afterwards. Another walk and a groundout followed. Facing Pete Alonso, Erceg got ahead 1-2 but walked him after a couple of borderline check-swings weren’t called. Samuel Basallo then singled to tie the game. Erceg’s stuff is down a notch this year, but he actually had great velocity tonight, throwing 1-1.5 mph than his season averages. Still, he certainly can’t afford to walk batters like this when he’s just not getting many strikeouts. This might open the door for Matt Strahm and/or Daniel Lynch IV to receive save chances.

Guerrero Jr. smoked a two-run shot off Reid Detmers to give Toronto a 2-1 lead in the third frame. The 27-year-old has only homered twice in the first three weeks of the season, but it’s hard to complain too much about a hitter slashing .354/.442/.488 in his 21 games. Not many hitters have the ability to make that a sustainable slash for more than a week or two. Guerrero is one of them.

If you’re going to pick up your first win with your new team, you might as well strike out a dozen in the process. That’s just good manners. Cease was able to get 18 swings-and-misses on his offerings, and he issued just two walks. While it is his first win, that says more about the lack of run support than anything he’s done wrong; he now sports a 2.10 ERA and a 44/19 K/BB over his first 25 2/3 innings with the Jays. The only complaint here is that because Cease needed to throw 110 pitches, he wasn’t able to get deeper into the game. He should obviously be in fantasy lineups for Sunday’s scheduled tilt against the Guardians.

Muncy and Dalton Rushing both hit a pair of homers, with Muncy’s coming off Jose Quintana and Tanner Gordon. Remarkably, Muncy now has eight homers on the season, but only nine RBI. Seems impossible, but to say the 35-year-old is off to a hot start is an understatement. Those RBI totals should continue to rise for Muncy playing in the loaded Dodgers lineup.

Baldwin has been stuck on five homers for two weeks now, but he’s still hitting .313/.377/.510. He leads the majors in both runs (23) and RBI (21), though since he’s tied with five others in the RBI category, that might not be true by the end of the night.

Stewart has been one of the most impactful all-around contributors in the entire fantasy landscape this season, hitting .289/.388/.639 with 17 runs scored, eight homers, 21 RBI and five steals across 23 games. There were some concerns about the 22-year-old rookie’s path to everyday at-bats during the offseason, but he’s done more than enough to answer those question marks with his early-season performance. His ability to consistently drive the ball without sacrificing anything from a plate skills perspective is extremely impressive to watch.

Acuña underwent imaging out of an abundance of caution after being drilled on the left hand during the sixth inning of Monday’s showdown against the Nationals. The 28-year-old fantasy superstar was hit by pitches twice during the contest and finished 0-for-1 with a run scored prior to exiting. It’s possible he’ll need some time off to rest and recover but the encouraging development here for Atlanta, and fantasy managers, is that Acuña appears to have avoided serious injury.