— Allow me to vent a little bit today.
2025 has been a cruddy sports year so far. Had some high hopes for the A’s this season- they actually spent some $$$ this winter, brought in Severino and Springs to bolster a rotation that was decent last year. From July 1st on last year, the A’s were over .500. There was hope.
Few weeks ago, the A’s were 22-20, playing home games in Sacramento, but the bottom has fallen out, in a big way. They’ve now lost 20 of their last 21 games. No bueno.
Their pitching is freakin’ terrible; bad pitching is like having a bad offensive line in football, you have no chance to win with bad pitching. None. Zero. Bupkis.
I’ve been an A’s fan since 1965, when I was five years old; I lived thru the 54-108 disaster in 1979, the 110-214 debacle in 2022-23, when the front office was blatantly not trying- that was really upsetting. In 1979 I was a college kid, had lot of other stuff to distract me, plus Rickey Henderson was a rookie that year.
A’s are supposed to move to Las Vegas in 2028; hopefully they’ll break ground on the new stadium sometime this summer. There is a nucleus of good position players to build around; Mark Kotsay seems like a good manager, but dammit, they need to start winning some games, just for their own mental health.
— Understood that no one will care about this, but my fantasy team sucks this year too, at least so far; after three good years in a row, my hitters have either been hurt or terrible. Haven’t won a game in a month; lot of close games, need Alex Bregman to get healthy.
So with the A’s in the trash can and the fantasy team bumbling, it hasn’t been a good month.
On to happier things………
— NBA commish Adam Silver announced that next winter, the NBA All-Star Game will be a new format, USA against the World. This is going to work.
My one concern is this: IT MIGHT WORK TOO WELL!!!!! Do you want a freakin’ All-Star Game to be highly competitive, where players bust their butts to win, and one of them might get hurt, which would be a disaster.
But give them credit for this: it’ll be a real basketball game, a competitive event.
— We mentioned yesterday how people were saying that the ball/strike challenge system might become a bargaining chip in the upcoming labor negotiations- yesterday there were thoughts that the system might not happen until 2027.
Wednesday, Commissioner Manfred said that he intends to submit a proposal to the league’s competition committee this offseason that would implement the automated ball-strike challenge system for Opening Day 2026, which is an excellent thing.
The challenge system worked very well in spring training this year; it’ll make the game a lot more interesting, in several ways.
— Wednesday night, Orioles’ play-by-play guy (not Kevin Brown, not sure who it was) was openly promoting fans to “stuff the ballot box” for Oriole players to play in the All-Star Game.
He sounded like a 10-year old; the Orioles are having a cruddy year, they don’t deserve to have multiple guys in the All-Star Game.
Here’s a novel idea; vote for the best players.
— Best teams in one-run games:
Padres 13-6
Angels 10-4
Phillies 11-5
Tigers 12-6
Cubs 9-4
Royals 12-8
Mariners 12-8
— Worst teams in one-run games:
White Sox 3-16
Red Sox 6-17
Braves 9-15
Reds 5-10
Rockies 6-11
— Famous birthdays, June 5th:
Jeff Garlin, 63
Bill Spiers, 59
Mark Wahlberg, 54
Zydrunas Ilgauskas, 50
Torry Holt, 49
Ryan Mallett, 37
Andrew Heaney, 34
Royce O’Neale, 32
Joe Ryan, 29
Sam Darnold, 28
— Mets 6, Dodgers 1
Pete Alonso homered twice, knocked in five runs.
Griffin Canning is very quietly 6-2, 2.90 this season.
— Giants 6, Padres 5
San Diego led 5-0 in the fifth inning.
Giants scored three runs in the bottom of the 7th.
This was first time in 17 games that San Francisco scored more than four runs.
— Tigers 5, White Sox 4- Chicago used an opener in this game; the first four Detroit hitters reached base, but the White Sox left their starter in to face NINE BATTERS, by which time they were down 4-0. Are we trying here?
Openers only have to face three hitters; this was managing malpractice.
— Nationals 2, Cubs 0
Gore/Boyd had an old fashioned pitchers’ duel; game was 0-0 after six.
Amed Rosario broke the tie with a 7th inning home run.
— Diamondbacks 2, Braves 1
Merrill Kelly allowed one hit, no runs in seven IP.
Atlanta is 27-33, six games out of a Wild Card spot.
— Rockies 3, Marlins 2
Colorado swept the 3-game series, their first series win 23 tries.
Kyle Freeland threw 6.1 IP, allowed two unearned runs.
— Red Sox 11, Angels 9
Ceddanne Rafaela hit a walk-off homer for Boston.
Angels led 7-5 in the second inning.
— If the baseball playoffs started today: (they don’t):
NL: Mets, Cubs, Dodgers. Wild Cards: Phillies, Padres, Cardinals
AL: New York, Astros, Tigers, Wild Cards: Guardians, Twins, Mariners.
