HOW WILL THE ANGELS LOSE TODAY?!

Don't look now, but the Tigers are beginning to resemble an actual baseball team: seven straight wins since the break, and a 38-27 record since May 7 (when they were 9-24).

Yermin Mercedes has returned to the White Sox Triple-A team:

In a bizarre turnabout, the White Sox announced to reporters that Mercedes is in uniform and on their Triple-A club’s active roster for tonight’s road game in Durham … In a new Instagram post of a phoenix rising, Mercedes writes that his dream is to be an established Major Leaguer and that he owes it to his family, the White Sox organization and his fans to continue working toward that goal. “I love everybody, I’m back,” he wrote at the end of his post.

Anyone can have a bad day.

Tampa going for jugular. Yanks need Gallo now

Nelson Cruz to Rays for RHPs Joe Ryan & Drew Strotman, their #10 & 17 prospects.

dylan carlson leads off the game with a home run, then follows in the third with a bloop double.

after goldschmidt strikes out, arenado launches a homer to left center.

3-0 cards ...

it's early. keep scoring, chaps.

Kim is looking pretty good one time through the lineup at least.

Spoke too soon. Second time through the lineup with two outs, the Cubs score two runs.

Breaks his scoreless streak at 20-some innings....

2 months of Cruz for a lot of prospect value - is the other guy in the trade valuable? Cruz will re-sign with twins in offseason so it’s all goodness for them.

Bader having a couple of nice days. On both sides of the field. That was a nice catch. I get it's not as spectacular as the side diving or going deep catches, but I was pretty positive that was going to drop. (They say it was 172 feet he had to run to make that catch, that seems like a lot)

Since when is a team's #10 and #17 prospects "a lot of prospect value." Twins will be lucky to get 4 career WAR out of the pair of them. Ryan did bubble up to #98 on BA's pre-2020 list and is having a nice season at AAA. He's also 25 already. Strotman is 24, has a career-high 58 IP this year, doing OK with lots of walks.

Just for comps:

1. For all I or anybody else knows, Joe Ryan is about to become the next deGrom. He has a 11.8/1.6 K/BB at AAA this year and is 12.8/2.1 for his career, you'd think that might have grabbed more prospect hound attention that #10 in a system.

2. But if we look at all pitchers who debuted in the majors in 2014, 10 of them have made it to 8 WAR; another 10 have made it to 5 WAR; another 10 made it to 3 WAR.

A few of those were pretty big prospects (Robbie Ray, Stroman, Aaron Sanchez) and I assume quite a few more made the top 100 but there are plenty of Ryan types here. Chase Anderson never made a top 100, debuted at age 26, has 175 starts and 9 WAR -- the Twins would be ecstatic with that. That's the realistic upside. The expectation is more like Jesse Hahn (probably not that good) who never made a top 100, has bubbled up almost every year from 2014-21, has 50 career starts, 311 IP and 1.9 WAR. The realistic downside is never making the majors.

It's a perfectly good trade for the Twins. You hope to collect enough guys like this and hope for a Chase Anderson and maybe the big surprise. Ryan's peripherals suggest he's a good guy to place some hope in. It's also a good trade for the Rays -- if you get worried about what a Joe Ryan might become, you'll never make a trade.

i was curious on that bader catch about where the 2B was, since bader had to run so far.

but it was a great play.

oh dang. a walk with two out. why can't we just have what we want when we want it?

wow, reyes strikes out the last batter on a really nasty pitch to mariznik (sp?).

cards win!!!

good night and good luck.

In a 1-run game, Adam Eaton made a nice play and a great throw to gun down one hustle double, made a sliding stop to keep another double into a single, and then the Angels turned a double play. None of the infielders the Angels had been playing in right field would have made the plays Eaton did. If they hadn't signed Eaton, it would have been another blown lead.

The Angels pull one out! They win scoring just 3 runs or fewer for just the third time this season.

NY pitcher throws 4! wild pitches in the 10th, giving the Red Sox a chance to have the runner from second score easily after the first 2, then 2 more after a Xander walk and a sac fly by Renfroe wins it. That is one ugly win, but Red Sox fans will take it!

Stats By STATS
@StatsBySTATS
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The Yankees' Brooks Kriske is the first pitcher in MLB history to throw 4+ wild pitches in a single extra inning.

Kenley Jansen making the 9th inning exciting again. Started with a 3-1 lead, leaves trailing 5-3.

Well, that Kenley Jansen inning was a slow moving train wreck. There were several spots where anyone else would have been pulled. But closers gotta close and closers don't get pulled until they've lost the game. He got killed by his defense being slow on fielding a grounder, but he also just pitched horribly.

ladies and gents, meet your CLEVELAND GUARDIANS !

Is it just me, or is that an unbelievably crappy name for a sports team? I can't even put my finger on why.

I was kind of hoping they would go back to one of their old names, like Blues or Spiders.

As a native Clevelander (who hopes to catch some Sox games in late Aug. there), that name blows big hairy festering chunks.

I was kind of hoping they would go back to one of their old names, like Blues or Spiders.

+1

But expecting MLB to do something stupid will rarely disappoint you.

Cleveland Rocks

was that so hard?

Guardians totally has the vibe of being the output of a corporate marketing committee focus group. It feels completely fake, baseball teams don't guard anything and neither does Cleveland.

They couldn't go with Spiders though. If a casual fan has heard of the old Spiders at all, they know them as the losingest team ever.

Cleveland Rocks

was that so hard?

That name is more or less already taken.

Guardians totally has the vibe of being the output of a corporate marketing committee focus group. It feels completely fake, baseball teams don't guard anything and neither does Cleveland.

But think of the potential for co-marketing with Marvel.

If a casual fan has heard of the old Spiders at all, they know them as the losingest team ever.

That's why the '62 Mets changed their name to the New York Totallynotloserssoshutthehellup.

Wikepedia:

The Hope Memorial Bridge (formerly the Lorain–Carnegie Bridge) is a 5,865-foot-long (1,788 m) art deco truss bridge crossing the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. The bridge connects Lorain Avenue on Cleveland's west side and Carnegie Avenue on the east side, terminating just short of Progressive Field. Four pairs of statues designed by sculptor Henry Hering and architect Frank Walker – officially named the Guardians of Traffic[3] – stand on pylons at each end of the viaduct, symbolizing progress in transportation.[4] On July 23, 2021, the Cleveland Indians announced that they will change their name to the Cleveland Guardians at the end of the 2021 season, in honor of the Guardians of Traffic.[5]

The new logo reflects the statue.

“We are excited to usher in the next era of the deep history of baseball in Cleveland,” team owner and chairman Paul Dolan said in a statement. “Cleveland has and always will be the most important part of our identity. Therefore, we wanted a name that strongly represents the pride, resiliency and loyalty of Clevelanders. ‘Guardians’ reflects those attributes that define us while drawing on the iconic Guardians of Traffic just outside the ballpark on the Hope Memorial Bridge. It brings to life the pride Clevelanders take in our city and the way we fight together for all who choose to be part of the Cleveland baseball family. While ‘Indians’ will always be a part of our history, our new name will help unify our fans and city as we are all Cleveland Guardians.

”

-wkyc.com