— Four weeks until the baseball trade deadline; this where Major League Baseball needs to have a Hard Knocks-type show, so we can peek behind the curtains and see how decisions like there are made.
When do you give up on this season?
How do you decide who to trade, if anyone?
Orioles, for instance, are 42-49, a bad record, but they’re only 3.5 games out of the AL’s last Wild Card spot. One strong homestand and they’re right in the thick of things. Don’t teams owe it to their fans to try and make the playoffs?
Anyway, baseball needs NFL Films-type stuff, to promote their great game better.
— Saw a note on Twitter this weekend about how Taylor Swift sang the national anthem before Game 3 of the 2008 World Series, then it dawned on me; I was at that game. Saw a World Series games Saturday night, Falcons-Eagles Sunday afternoon. Pretty good weekend.
Singer Tim McGraw threw out the first pitch that night; before he threw the pitch, he spread some of his dad’s ashes on the back side of the pitchers’ mound. His father was Tug McGraw, the great relief pitcher for the Mets/Phillies.
— Earlier this week I was whining about Willson Contreras getting tossed from consecutive games, then getting suspended. He is the 1B on my fantasy team; well……..he appealed his suspension, played this weekend and had a stellar series in Anaheim.
MLB will decide on his case Monday; chances are the suspension will be shortened, but I won’t be able to use him this week, but he helped me avoid a loss last week, so kudos to him. If you’re going to be critical, then you have to give credit where credit is due.
— A big reason behind Pete Crow-Armstrong’s improvement this year; more walks.
Last year, he walked 29 times in 647 plate appearances, had a. 287 on-base %age.
This year, he’s walked 41 times in 385 PA’s, has a .380 on-base %age.
— This year, Vladimir Guerrero Jr hasn’t hit a home run in 158 at-bats in Toronto.
Guerrero only has four home runs in 151 at-bats on the road.
He hit 23 homers last year, 30 the year before. So far this year, not so much.
— Seattle P Bryan Woo’s home/away splits;
Home: 8 starts- 6-0, 2.10, .156 opponents’ batting average
Road: 9 starts- 1-6, 6.38, .284 opponents’ batting average
Pretty freakin’ big difference there.
— Other day during lunch, some TV station replayed a baseball game from 2011, only 15 years ago. One big difference; when someone got a hit, then didn’t dance/strut every single time, they way guys do now. “Act like you’ve been there before” was the line back then.
The 2011 game involved the Cardinals; Skip Schumaker (now the Texas manager) and Matt Holliday were playing for St Louis. Holliday’s son plays for the Orioles now; time flies.
— Famous birthdays, July 6th:
Burt Ward, 81
Fred Dryer, 80
Sylvester Stallone, 80
Jason Thompson, 72
Willie Randolph, 72
Curtis Jackson, 51
Kevin Hart, 47
Pau Gasol, 46
Manny Machado, 34
Brandon Lowe, 32
Andrew Benintendi, 32
Zion Williamson, 26
— Way back on July 3, 1966, a guy named Tony Cloninger hit two grand slams in the same game for the Braves, in a 17-3 win at San Francisco. Pretty impressive for a guy that hit five homers that year, with 23 RBI.
Here’s the thing: Tony Cloninger was a freakin’ pitcher. A pitcher hit two grand slams in the same game. Pretty amazing feat.
— Back before the National League adopted the DH in 2022, I used to have a thing in our fantasy league; I tried to only have pitchers from NL teams, because they faced other pitchers, who were mostly (Tony Cloninger-types an exception) easy outs.
AL pitchers didn’t get to face pitchers much; their jobs were tougher.
— July 1st was Bobby Bonilla Day, where the former Pirates/Mets OF/1B gets his annual deferred payment of $1.9M, because the people who used to own the Mets are morons.
They could have paid him $5.9M one last time back in 2000, but instead decided to give him deferred payments from 2011 until 2035.
That adds up to $29.83M. Kind of a big mistake.
— All-Star Game starters for the AL:
C- Shea Langeliers, A’s
1B- Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Tor
2B- Ernie Clement, Tor
SS- Bobby Witt Jr, KC
3B- Junior Caminero, TB
OF- Mike Trout, LAA
Byron Buston, Minn
Aaron Judge, NYY
DH- Yordan Alvarez, Hous
— All-Star Game starters for the NL:
C- Drake Baldwin, Atl
1B- Freddie Freeman, LA
2B- Ozzie Albies, Atl
SS- CJ Abrams, Wash
3B- Max Muncy, LA
OF- Juan Soto, NY
Brandon Marsh, Phil
Andy Pages, LA
DH- Shohei Ohtani, LA
— I don’t get why fireworks are so popular; I don’t dislike them or anything, but I don’t like them either. Saturday night in my neighborhood had the most fireworks I‘ve ever heard- they kept going until just before midnight. Could see them out my living room window; there is a school two streets away, think some people were shooting them off there.
— If the baseball playoffs started today (they don’t):
NL: Braves, Brewers, Dodgers. Wild Cards: Phillies-Cubs-Cardinals
AL: Rays, Whits Sox, Mariners. Wild Cards: Bronx-Guardians-Rangers
