Kurkjian: The Most Unappreciated Baseball Trait? Strength.

The strength of the players, especially in their hands, wrists and forearms, goes largely unappreciated: I’ve never met a position player who wasn’t really strong in those areas, even dinky, little middle infielders. Indeed, after Michael Jordan’s one year in baseball in 1994, one of his many observations about the game was that virtually every player on his Double-A team was stronger than him from the tips of their fingers to their elbow.

Awesome MLB Feats of Strength anecdotes at link.

Yasiel Puig fired by his agent over a reported behavioral issue

This doesn’t bode well for Puig.

Angell: Long Wait, Great Win

As happens so often in a long series, the joys and triumphs of the winners and their rooters remain pure, while the rest of us, and not only the Dodger fans, try not to think about several inexorable but excruciating failures and pains. We must put aside, for instance, what today must look like for Yu Darvish, last night’s Dodger starter, who was gone after those two innings, and who had lasted for a bare five outs in his Game One start, while coughing up six hits and four runs. Dodger first baseman Cody Bellinger struck out three times last night and seventeen times in the Series, in the end resembling only an embarrassed high-school swinger up there. He set the record for the most strikeouts in the post-season, twenty-nine. Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw pitched four useful innings in a relief role last night but now must ponder his astounding eight homers surrendered in the post-season. Yasiel Puig and his bat, although close, will undergo some counselling this winter. He by turns licks, gnaws, whispers to, and kisses his partner between pitches, but throws her violently to the dirt when she fails him. They probably love each other, but this is an abusive relationship.

Turner Ward helping Yasiel Puig succeed | MLB.com

Puig isn’t new and improved. He’s just better than he was, and he can thank Ward for the change of pace. The timing is perfect. The Dodgers and Astros split the first two games of the World Series presented by YouTube TV in Los Angeles, and now the Series shifts to Houston for three games starting Friday.