1. Hitting in the major leagues is fundamentally broken
What will it take for teams to start admitting that this passive-aggressive, run-up-the-pitch-count philosophy isn’t working? Apparently almost a decade of declining results isn’t enough. Entering this week:
• The number of hits per game is down for the seventh straight year.
• On base percentage has been stagnant or down for the seventh straight year.
How many Votto triads of numbers have not yet been drawn?!
Several years ago, Votto was standing in the on-deck circle at Great American Ball Park while Pete Rose was watching from a box seat. The two men struck up a conversation, and the Hit King passed along a few pearls of wisdom that resonated. Among other things, he told Votto that it’s no sin to reach for the last cookie in the jar. Rose would never have amassed 4,256 hits if he didn’t have a touch of the greed-monger in him.
Guys, the Orioles have pitching prospects not named Dylan Bundy!
The Baltimore Orioles hope this year’s high-profile midseason call-up is as good as last year’s high-profile midseason call-up.
The Orioles will promote right-hander Kevin Gausman from Class-AA Bowie to make his major league debut Thursday against Toronto, major league sources told FOXSports.com.
Gausman is reaching the majors less than one year after the Orioles selected him in the first round of the 2012 draft. He is 2-4 ...
For his part, Reds manager Dusty Baker believes there’s a commonality to his group that makes them better collectively, and perhaps even easier to manage.
“I don’t know if it’s easier,” Baker said, pondering as he sat in his visiting manager’s office at Citi Field Tuesday afternoon, surrounded by a few reporters. “But consistency is a key over time [building a club]. I was on the Dodgers like that, I came in to a locker room that was like that. ...
The Braves have a problem: They can’t hold late inning leads because all their non-Kimbrel relievers keep getting hurt.
The Braves have a solution to their problem: More Evan Gattis pinch hit home runs.
Evan Gattis just keeps coming through for the Atlanta Braves.
The rookie hit a two-out, pinch-hit homer in the ninth to send the game to extra innings and Freddie Freeman won it in the 10th, sending the Braves to their fifth straight win, 5-4 over the slumping Minnesota Twins on Tuesday ...
George Suggs, the Red pitcher, who is badly in the dumps on account of his illness, which prevents him from taking his regular turn in the box, came to Manager Tinker today and made a sportsmanlike proposition. The Kinston citizen declared that he is sick with sore throat and stomach trouble, and asked of his own accord to be laid off without pay until he is in shape to work. He told Joe that he was ashamed to be drawing salary without delivering the goods…
The Angels broke out the disco ball in the clubhouse, and why not? That was quite a party.
Mike Trout, the guest of honor, became the youngest player in American League history to hit for the cycle. Josh Hamilton, the birthday boy, enjoyed two rounds of serenades from the crowd. The Angels posted their most lopsided victory of the season, a 12-0 rout of the Seattle Mariners.
The fans even went home with party favors — Mike Trout pint glasses, in honor of a player of ...
Uhh, there’s already a robo-broadcaster in Bob Lorenz…so I’d watch what I wish for, Brenly.
“I’m telling you,” Brenly said on the air, “you get into extra innings, you get into the late innings of a close ballgame, you don’t want the umpire to determine who wins a ballgame.”
Brenly is a former major-league player and manager, but unlike many of his contemporaries, he’s ready for change in the way the game is officiated. He’s ready for new technology to step in. He’s ready ...
Today we add the 1928 Negro leagues to the DB. This was the year the Eastern Colored League fell apart, putting an end to the first edition of the Black World Series. Meanwhile the Negro National League continued with a split-season format. The St. Louis Stars won the first half going away; in the second half, the American Giants just edged the Stars and the Kansas City Monarchs, setting up an NNL championship series with St. Louis that would take the place of the World Series that year. ...Read More...
Mentioned this is the Chris Sale thread, but by that time the healthy eaters had taken over, and this deserves its own thread, anyway:
Phillies broadcaster Rickie Ricardo told Sports Radio 94 WIP in Philadelphia on Monday morning that he delivered 100 Cuban pastries (two boxes of 50) to Chapman this weekend and when he saw the reliever in the clubhouse Sunday morning, Chapman had eaten about 18 of them. “He couldn’t breathe!” Ricardo said. “I looked at my partner, I said, ‘He’s ripe for the ...
With Microsoft’s new Xbox, the next time you yell at your TV it will actually be able to respond.
The Xbox One, which the software giant unveiled Tuesday, is a next-generation console that aspires to be more than just a plaything. Not only will Xbox One let users to watch live TV, rent a movie, listen to music and play games, viewers can use their voice and gestures to control the device too. Want to change the channel? Just tell the Xbox One to turn on a baseball game on ESPN or to check ...
Somebody dig up McLean Stevenson…it’s been renewed!
Larry Dierker, who has been a part of Major League Baseball in Houston as a player, manager and broadcaster for almost a half-century, will rejoin the team as a special assistant to new Astros president of business operations Reid Ryan, the team announced today.
“I’ll be doing some writing and will be a right-hand man for Reid, mostly in the area of public relations,” Dierker said. “I get the feeling that I will gravitate to the area ...
Like any decent American institution, baseball has close connections to sex, from the early 1900s postcards that featured baseball-themed sexual instructions to the salacious sheet music to the scorching hot photograph of five sexy, shirtless shortstops in Sports Illustrated to the amazing collection of baseball erotica that you can find on Amazon and the deepest, darkest corners of the web.
But there is another forgotten relic from baseball’s sexual past. Perhaps lost amidst the frenzy of ...
Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber announced today that a partnership of global sports powers, Manchester City Football Club and the New York Yankees, has acquired the League’s 20th expansion club. The new team will be named New York City Football Club (NYCFC) and expects to begin play in 2015.
Wait, I thought Manchester United was the Yankees’ fellow member of the Legion of Doom, not Manchester City!
The disarray in the Nationals’ bullpen reached a bizarre and self-inflicted new height Monday night. After the Nationals’ 8-0 loss to the Giants, Manager Davey Johnson revealed that set-up man Ryan Mattheus had broken his right hand Sunday when he punched his locker after a dreadful performance, landing him on the disabled list and leaving the Nationals scrambling for fresh arms.
The other day, I was watching the visiting announcing crew call a Kansas City Royals game, when Jeff Francoeur came to the plate. Before it even began, I knew what was coming. The announcers started to praise Francoeur. You know, it was all the usual stuff—great leader, plays terrific defense, bat coming around, wonderful guy. And, suddenly, a question came to mind.
What player in baseball do you think has the most ANT—Announcer Nonsense Talk—spoken about them? ...Read More...
John Farrell and Torey Lovullo looked down toward the Twins bullpen. They saw some stirring, as Minnesota lefty reliever Brian Duensing had grabbed a ball and tossed it a few times.
Then Duensing sat down. It was then the Red Sox manager and his bench coach knew they had put the right people in the right places.
“It’s a good feeling,” Lovullo said after the Red Sox’ 12-5 win over the Twins Saturday night, “when all the puzzle pieces fit perfectly.”
It’s been an incredible couple of months for the previously unheralded second-year pitcher. Corbin came into spring training having to compete for the fifth starter’s spot in the rotation, but he entered his start on Monday night at Coors Field as one of the bigger revelations in baseball in the first month and a half of the season.
And he didn’t disappoint, beating the Colorado Rockies by throwing the first complete-game of his career, giving up just three hits in a 5-1 victory, the ...
With the score nothing to nothing in the sixth inning, an angry cow temporarily broke up a baseball game between factory employees recently at Altoona, Pa. The cow upset the players’ benches, charged the fielders and then disappeared.
Alex Sanabia is on the Marlins. The odds are at least decent that you’ve never heard of Alex Sanabia before. What’s he all about? Let’s see ... leads the league in losses ... kind of a control pitcher in the minors ... 24 years old ... drafted in the 32nd round, just a round after William Mays ... but pretty nondescript, mostly.
...Spitter. He’s the spit guy. The guy with the spit. Yeah, I remember him. Ol’ Spitface with the spit coming out of his face. Good spitter, that guy. Loves to spit. ...
Welcome back, JM Catellier…and his “own unique statistical formula”!
The average 20th century Hall of Fame starting pitcher has 258.3 career wins. That number is dragged down by Sandy Koufax’ 165 victories, but he can’t be omitted from this exercise as I consider him the best starting pitcher to ever throw a baseball.
Former Boston Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez retired following the 2009 season with just 219 wins and only two 20-win seasons. Is it possible that he’s a first ballot Hall of ...
But what really left teammates in awe of Sale was his performance on a charter flight to California. In a four-hour masterpiece, Sale packed two ice cream sundaes and, by one teammate’s estimate, around 30 bags of potato chips into one of the skinniest bodies the sport has ever seen.
“I may or may not have done that,” Sale said.
Sale is one of baseball’s most promising young pitchers, a dazzling left-hander coming off an All-Star season in 2012. ...
Seems as if The Barry Bonds Family Foundation has welcomed a new member.
“I don’t try to compare me to anybody,’’ Bonds said. “I was the best on the field. I did more things than he did. My game was different than his game. So comparing him, to me, there’s no comparison.
“He doesn’t have my MVPs. He doesn’t have my numbers. Well, not yet, anyways.
“But does he have that ability? Yes, he does.
“Does he have that gift? Yes, he does.’‘
...“Winning a Triple Crown is amazing to me,’’ Bonds ...
Boz pays homage to the gritty, gutsy, scrappy, first place 2013 underdog Yankees:
Perhaps for the first time in their history, the Yankees now epitomize exactly the kind of team that always used to try to beat them: a group of inspired-by-adversity, too-old-or-too-young, one-last-chance players who band together to prove that baseball is a team game, not just an aggregation of talent and fat contracts.
Put a few all-star seasons, such as Cano’s 31 RBI, Kiroda’s 1.99 ERA and Rivera’s 16 ...
Before we chatter today, let us please make sure we all have those in the path of the tornado in Oklahoma yesterday in our thoughts.
Today’s games include: Matt Garza’s first start of 2013, the Orioles try to break out of the free-fall, Strasmas comes to San Francisco and Greinke goes against Milwaukee.
Wonder if Paul Anka can pen another hit after this nosedive…
But the thing that was most striking about Pujols is that he was always exactly as good as he had been the year before. He never had a bad year. He never had anything RESEMBLING a bad year. They called him “The Machine.” If you take the WORST statistical totals he had those first 10 years – that is, the lowest batting average he had over those 10 years, the fewest home runs he hit, etc.—you STILL come up with this season:
There have been 188,593 pitches thrown thus far this Major League season.
When you break that down, it works out to 292 pitches per game, 32.69 per inning, 3.85 per plate appearance.
If you miss one here or there, even while in attendance, you are anything but alone. The sport generally allows us to take our time settling into our seats or casually conversing with our nearby neighbors or strolling the concourse in search of food. The pace and plot of the game are such that, while any pitch ...
