This is just a whole lot of fun. Kawasaki hit a walk-off two-run double off Baltimore’s struggling closer Jim Johnson—giving the Blue Jays a 6-5 win in a game they trailed 5-2 going into in the ninth—and delivered a great impromptu-yet-also-scripted post-game interview.
Kawasaki is called on camera for a post-game interview by teammate Mark DeRosa and proceeds to take the microphone and yell his name and country of origin. He then reads from prepared note cards ...
More than 500 major league baseball players served in the military during World War II, including stars like Ted Williams, Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio. But little attention has been paid to the two who died, Elmer Gedeon and Harry O’Neill, because their playing days were brief.
I’ve been wondering how much more of the putrid Cubs offense this front office could withstand watching. The Cubs President couldn’t hold back any longer. In Paul Sullivan’s latest, Theo Epstein publicly blasts his team for their lack of ability to get on base.
“There is certainly a snakebit quality to it with respect to our timing,” team President Theo Epstein said. “But to me the biggest factor is our inability to draw walks and to get ...
When the Florida Marlins decided to trade [Miguel] Cabrera in 2007, the Angels offered second baseman Howie Kendrick, catcher Jeff Mathis and one of two pitchers, Ervin Santana or the late Nick Adenhart. The Marlins wanted both pitchers; the Angels had second thoughts about including Kendrick; the talks deteriorated to the point where the two teams publicly clashed about whether they ever had agreed on a deal.
The Marlins traded Cabrera and pitcher Dontrelle Willis ...
As Szymborski tweeted yesterday…“Does Cincinnati chili contain large amts of lead?”
“He’s supposed to talk to Pete,” Baker said of Votto and other Reds. “Just like they need to talk to Johnny Bench. I wish Tony Perez was around more to teach our guys how to clutch hit. This cat was the best. He taught me and I was on the other team – what to look for, what to do, how to approach this and that. I wasn’t even around him that much. Davey Concepcion, (Perez) taught him, too. When Davey ...
Minor threat: Guilty of being a brave (covers up neck)
What Minor is on pace to do is post the best season any Braves starter has logged in quite some time. His ERA+ of 138 is equal to Tim Hudson’s mark in 2010, his best as a Brave, and was last bettered by Jair Jurrjens and Javier Vazquez in 2009. To find a Braves starter before that better than Minor’s pitched this season, you have to go back to John Smoltz, 2007.
Minor expressed gratitude that the Braves were so patient with him.
Here come Freese, he’s wearing a Cardinals shirt
Here comes Craig, y’know he’s sporting pure RBI plague
Androgenius.
“Absolutely, I always root for them,” McGwire said Saturday. “I’ve got a lot of time invested - great times - with those guys over there.
“It was a bit funny to watch them from the other side. But they’re really great hitters. Their offense is just stacked. It’s always been but ... it’s sort of different when you’re watching from the other side.
Umpire Jeff Nelson expressed regret on Saturday for making an incorrect call a night earlier, saying it was a play he’d never seen in 25 years.
“That play, your focus goes to the bag, and you watch the foot touch the bag and listen for the ball hitting the mitt. In this case, I ruled the ball was caught by the first baseman, and the ball was actually caught by the pitcher,” Nelson told a pool reporter before Saturday’s game between the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. “The pitcher kind of ...
At this point the Ike Davis saga is little more than a symbolic sideshow. Yes, he should be in the minors by now, if only to throw a life preserver to a drowning hitter, but with each passing day, the debate matters less and less as the Mets sink into oblivion.
Suffice to say the Mets are as bad as the weather lately, and, of course, only one of the two is guaranteed to get better in the weeks ahead. Remember when Sandy Alderson insisted during ...
By now you have likely heard about the snow-cone vendor at Minute Maid Park who took his snow cones with him into a stadium bathroom stall while attending to his waste-making needs – or, as Houston’s Channel 2 news reporter Bill Spencer referred to it: “Knocking it out, taking the Browns to the Super Bowl.” Yes, the vendor’s actions were so deplorable it made someone think of the Cleveland Browns.
If only this was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, a 2011 review of MLB stadium ...
OK, well, I know what comes next. If you have been around the Kansas City Royals for any extended period of time, you do too. The Royals have lost 14 of their last 18 games. But more, much more, 11 of those 14 losses are by two runs or less. Oh yeah, we know what comes next.
Lots and lots and lots of talk about … the little things.
Get ready for it. There will be closed door meetings. There will be public proclamations. There will be quotes galore. People from the Royals organization will ...
The Yankees’ contract with WCBS-AM, another one-year deal, expires following this season. So does Ma and Pa’s one-year contract. While all interested parties are talking about a possible deal, the radio situation is up in the air. CBS wants to remain the Bombers’ radio home and ESPN-98.7 is looking to take those Yankee radio rights away. Some Yankee moles suggest there are other interested outlets, too.
...Last season, we were confident Sterling and ...
Is “Parks and Recreation” playing to “The Office’s” level?
Ever so quietly, though — as quiet as the flashy Brandon Phillips can be — Phillips is slipping into Joe Morgan’s domain.
Morgan played seven years for the Cincinnati Reds and Phillips is in his seventh year with the Reds. And so many of their statistics are dead-on similar that it is eerie.
Consider: Joe Morgan hit 152 home runs and Phillips has 150. Joe Morgan had 612 RBIs and Phillips has 605. Brandon Phillips has 221 ...
The Rotation is a weekly feature here at SB Nation MLB in which we put a question to our vast network of baseball scribes and bring you the answers. This week we ask, What is the worst ongoing conversation in baseball?
From the comments: How is this post not named, “Who’s on fourth?”—“No, Who’s on first. How’s on fourth!”
OK, this is a totally dumb idea. But how would our favorite game [...] be different if there were five bases, with each of them still being 90 feet apart[?] The infield would look something like this:
If you’ve been looking for the hitter’s equivalent of the gif of Yu Darvish throwing five pitches at once, here it is. Note that the pitches are all over the place, and not one of them is actually a strike. No matter, Cabrera will still hit it out.
It makes perfect sense. Starters having more pitches to fall back on. Relievers usually only have one or two good pitches, so the pitcher has less options to make adjustments.
This lines up well with what Jeff Zimmerman and I found regarding pitcher aging and how it differs depending on a pitchers role.
Let’s take the example of strike outs. Jeff and I found that while starting pitchers were able to mitigate against their decline in velocity–and therefore experienced a less drastic decline ...
Worst Baserunners through May 22, 2013
Player Net Gain
Justin Smoak -17
Martin Prado -15
Allen Craig -12
Nelson Cruz -12
Albert Pujols -10
Chris Carter -10
Guess Seymour Siwoff’s childhood fave “Techno-Cracked” link was busted…so he had plenty of time on his hands.
Amid the Orioles hitting a season-high four homers and tying their season high for runs, Manny Machado put his name in the record book again when he singled in the seventh inning.
It was his fifth straight road game with three hits or more. According to Elias, the only other player younger than 21 with a streak of four or more consecutive road games with at least three hits was Ty ...
Don Mattingly is turning into the most hilarious cartoon character since Babe Ruth!
Meet Donnie Dark.
The Dodgers embattled manager returned home Friday night with a scowl the size of a block of empty seats in the reserved section. He conducted his pregame news conference with a tight jaw and a thin stare. For 30 surreal minutes, the nicest man at Chavez Ravine barked.
“It’s what I believe in the way the game of baseball should be played, the determination you’re supposed to play with, the ...
It’s the 10th inning, it’s a tie game between the White Sox and visiting Marlins. As such, White Sox broadcaster and devoted rooter Hawk Harrelson was in a state of percolating tension and in no mood for the umpiring pratfalls of Angel Hernandez.
So listen as Hawk reacts—“reacts” as in “core reactor meltdown”—to a plainly incorrect call by Hernandez, in which the latter convinces himself that Alex Rios is out at first despite plain visual evidence to the contrary ...
The Yankees just can’t catch up to all these injuries. Less than two weeks after he returned from a fractured right forearm, Curtis Granderson suffered a fractured fifth metacarpal (left hand) in his left hand when Cesar Ramos hit him with a pitch in the fifth inning. No word on a timetable for his return, but it’s same injury Alex Rodriguez had last season. He missed six weeks. Crud.
Granderson, 32, actually stayed in the game to run the bases before being removed the game after the ...
Uhh…to give John Hart more face-time to mindlessly say “look” and “listen”?
Even more striking than the distribution, though, is the absolute level of talent. Three wins, a reasonable expectation for what this year’s Mets and Yankees first-rounders will do in their careers, is about the value a decent and unexceptional player like Daniel Murphy will have in a good year. It’s a really nice hot streak, a misplaced stroke in a ledger. It makes you appreciate just how rare high-end baseball talent ...
One, two big schools
All the worlds are
Colliding all around you
I was going to write something today for SI.com re Votto. Specifically, that Votto represented one of the clearest cases of Old-v-New schools of thought, re hitting production. The idea was discussed when The Technician was sitting on 4 HR/20 BI. Now, he’s up to 7 and 22. Both #s are subpar for him and, in fact, for a No. 3 hitter. The obvious question being, can a guy who ranks 11th among NL 1Bs in BI be seen as having a ...
Sutton: Because that’s where the defaced money is.
The outspoken Sutton—who came up with the Dodgers in 1966 and pitched with them for 16 of his 23 seasons—has his own opinion about everything.
He said in an interview last week that he hates pitch counts.
“I say it with a laugh in my voice when I broadcast: ‘That’s 100 pitches. On the next one, he’s going to turn into a troll.’ At 101, you just disappear. Poof, you’re gone,” Sutton said.
