Two-start pitchers: Garrett Crochet leads a list of outstanding options for the third week of the 2026 season

Hello and welcome to the third installment of our weekly two-start pitcher article for the 2026 MLB season. I will be here every Friday to highlight some of the best two-start pitcher options in fantasy baseball leagues for the upcoming week providing my insights and recommendations on which options should be started or benched. While it’s only the third week of the season, it doesn’t make it any less important than any other week along the way, they all count equally.

Historically though, we have done a bit better streaming somewhat sketchier options at the beginning of the season, as bats are usually slightly behind pitchers to start the season, leading to more low scoring games. The cold weather in many cities around the league doesn’t hurt either. I’d much rather take my chances rolling out an extra start or two now than in the dog days of summer.

Now that we’ve seen each of these pitchers a couple of times (for the most part) we should have a better feel for how they’re going to perform for the upcoming week, rather than blindly trusting what we saw from them during the spring. This is a living document, so we'll update the options below as the weekend moves along. ⚾️  Baseball is back!

MLB returns to  NBC and Peacock in 2026 ! In addition to becoming the exclusive home of Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, “Opening Day” and Labor Day primetime games, the first round of the MLB Draft, the entire Wild Card round of the postseason, and much more. Before we get into it, we'll start with a couple of notes on situations that may be unresolved or teams that may not have a two-start pitcher lined up for the upcoming week: The expectation is that Ryne Nelson will make two starts next week (at Orioles, vs.