— Thursday in Kansas City, umpire Mark Ripperger worked a perfect game behind the plate; he called 136 pitches, all of them correctly. Pretty awesome, very unusual.
In case you were wondering, he called 89 balls, 47 strikes.
— Mariners 5, Rangers 3
Cal Raleigh hit the decisive 2-run homer in the 8th inning.
Corey Seager is 0 for his last 28 against Seattle.
— Dodgers 3, Cubs 0
Tommy Edman’s 3-run homer were the game’s only runs.
Yamamoto allowed two hits in seven shutout innings.
Dodgers are 7-0 at home.
— Rays 6, Braves 3
Danny Jansen homered, knocked in four runs.
Bradley allowed one run in six IP.
Braves are off to a horrendous 3-10 start.
— Giants 9, New York 1 (5)
San Francisco scored five runs in the first inning.
Game was called on count of rain in the sixth inning.
Giants won nine of their last eleven games.
— Tigers 7, Twins 6
Minnesota led 4-1 after five innings.
Dillon Dingler went 3-5 with an RBI, also scored a run.
Twins lost five of their last six games.
— Cardinals 2, Phillies 0
Pallante threw 7 shutout IP, allowed only four baserunners.
Last two nights, Phillies were 0-15 with runners in scoring position.
— If the baseball playoffs started today (they do not):
NL- Mets, Brewers, Padres Wild Cards- Dodgers, Giants, Phillies
AL- Blue Jays, Tigers, Rangers Wild Cards- Angels, Guardians, New York
— Famous birthdays, April 12th:
Mike Garrett, 81
Ed O’Neill, 79
Jerry Tagge, 75
Andy Garcia, 69
Devlin Hodges, 29
Paul LoDuca, 53
Brad Miller, 49
Claire Danes, 46
Cade Povich, 25
— Word of the Day– Integrity- the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
These days, our country needs more integrity. A lot more.
— Not a lot of happy news these days; the QB for the Tennessee Vols, Nico Iamaleava, skipped spring practice Friday; apparently he wants a raise in his NIL deal from $2M/year to $4M. This is for a college QB who has started for one year; they lost 41-17 to Ohio State in the first round of the college football playoff last fall.
Just stop calling it “college football”; give it a new name, a lower level version of the NFL. Have the players sign contracts, like the NFL guys do.
— Problem is, this likely will have a domino effect; if Iamaleava bolts Tennessee, then the Vols have to poach someone else’s QB and so on and so forth, until Coastal Carolina or Nevada loses its QB, all because Iamaleava is a greedy, disloyal human.
— Lucas Giolito, Jack Flaherty, Max Fried are all major league pitchers; they also all pitched on the same high school team, Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, in 2012. The pitching coach for that high school team was Ethan Katz, now the pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox.
— Speaking of a different Harvard, their point guard Evan Nelson will play for Arizona next year; Ivy League players can’t take redshirt years, and Nelson didn’t play in 2023-24, so he had to transfer in order to keep playing.
This past season, Nelson scored 9.1 ppg; he is from Tucson, so he’s coming home to finish his college career.
— Cleveland Browns signed 40-year Joe Flacco to be one of their QB’s next season; Flacco started six games for the Colts last year, throwing for 1,761 yards. His won-loss record in his 17-year NFL career is 115-92, 10-6 in playoff games.
Seattle Seahawks are expected to sign QB Drew Lock to back up newly-acquired Sam Darnold after Lock started five games for the Giants last year. Lock started two games for Seattle back in 2023, after starting 24 games for Denver before that.
— Was pretty cool to see the reception Luka Doncic got when he returned to Dallas Wednesday night. Doncic played for Dallas for 6.5 years, was traded to the Lakers February 2nd, in a trade rattled the Interweb when it happened.
Wednesday, Doncic scored 45 points, grabbed 8 rebounds, had 6 assists; Lakers were +26 with him on the floor, in a 112-97 LA win.
