Meanwhile, a bit south:
Tensions in the Padres clubhouse are rumoured to have escalated even further last night after yet another poor performance. Some very open conversations followed. Air was cleared, but many feel the tension remains. Team is in complete disarray. A huge two weeks ahead before ASG.
Also, Ronald Acuna Jr. is 1 HR and 4 steals away from becoming the first player in MLB history with 20 HR, 40 SB and 50 RBI before the All-Star break.
Chairman_Mao wrote:Is it even fair to call a perfect game against the A's a perfect game?
Yes. A look at the list of pitches to throw one makes pretty clear that it’s more luck than skill. Besides, the A’s offense is bad, but clearly not the worst in the league.
billt721 wrote:Chairman_Mao wrote:Is it even fair to call a perfect game against the A's a perfect game?
Yes. A look at the list of pitches to throw one makes pretty clear that it’s more luck than skill. Besides, the A’s offense is bad, but clearly not the worst in the league.
Reminiscent of the Chuck Finley/Whitesnake episode. Though in that case Finley was the one being abused.
This is absurd. Luis Arraez makes contact on 93% of his swings...
...on pitches OUTSIDE THE STRIKE ZONE
Shohei crush my esophagus with a rusted yield sign.
Also, Ronald Acuna Jr. is 1 HR and 4 steals away from becoming the first player in MLB history with 20 HR, 40 SB and 50 RBI before the All-Star break.
Just notched #40 tonight. Ridiculous.
Seeing the "debate" flying around, and while I was a "just trade Shohei" guy last year, the Angels literally cannot trade him now.
"But you can't let him go for nothing!"
Well, first, it's not a guarantee he's going to go. A likelihood, sure, but not a guarantee. Second, it is basically committing suicide with your fanbase for the next 5 years. Shohei deciding to leave is one thing, you guys trading him, beyond the obvious "we're not even trying to build a contender" angle, he is the single biggest star in the sport by a wide margin, and arguably one of the biggest stars in the world right now. Like, imagine how much the Angels' attendance would drop off.
If you were going to trade him (and there was never really a good time to trade him), it was before. You just can't trade him now.
EDIT: Also, I saw today that Stephen A.'s (yes, I know) argument was that Babe Ruth got traded.
Which, yes, he did. But that was before Babe Ruth was Babe Ruth.
Babe Ruth was on a potential HoF trajectory as a pitcher, but by 1918, he was starting to bat more and more. 1919 was the last season that Babe Ruth bat and pitched in any meaningful way. He was traded to the Yankees in 1920, when he basically stopped pitching and became the Babe Ruth we all know.
This is the third season of Shohei doing this nonsense. Like, I'm not saying he's better than Ruth, but Ruth simply wasn't doing both this well for this long.
Did Shohei Ohtani just have the best month in MLB history?
But this is an exercise worth teasing out, if only as an excuse to marvel at what Ohtani, the Los Angeles Angels designated hitter/starting pitcher, did in June. Over 126 plate appearances, he batted .394 and led the major leagues in on-base percentage (.492), slugging percentage (.952), OPS (1.444), home runs (15), RBIs (29), extra-base hits (25) and total bases (99). He also threw 30⅓ sterling innings, with a 3.26 ERA, 37 strikeouts and an opponent slash line of .228/.302/.368. He has strung together incredible performances, but nothing like this.
Well, today I learned that former Phil Mickey Morandini received 1 vote for 1998 NL MVP, in his first year as a Cub after leaving the Phils.
So, last night, the Reds played the Nationals. Nationals Davey Martinez complained to the umpires that the plastic knob at the bottom of De La Cruz's bat needed to be inspected.
So the game came to a halt for several minutes, as umps looked at the knob.
The attachment is a rubberized sleeve that normally houses a swing-tracking sensor that hitters sometimes use in the batting cage. De La Cruz said he’s used the sensor-less sleeve in games since 2021 in the minors because it’s comfortable, and Reds manager David Bell said the Reds proactively got the sleeve approved for game use for De La Cruz in the majors before he was promoted last month.
Anyway, at the time, the umps made Elly take it off, and he struck out.
In Elly's next at-bat:
That included a 455-foot home run in the fifth, followed by a pair of doubles – with a pause just long enough after connecting on the upper-deck home run to look back at the Reds dugout, hold up the handle of his bat and tap the knob two or three times.
“It’s just to tell everybody the knob is not the reason why I’m doing a good job,” he said through the team interpreter. “It’s because of all the work I’m putting out there.”
Even if it looked a little like biting the Nats in the tail.
“I love the way he plays the game,” Martinez said. “I didn’t like his antics after he hit the home run. We can do without that. He’s only got two weeks in the big leagues. But he’s gonna be a good player.”
Elly's "antics" wouldn't have happened without your "antics" preceding it, Davey. Consider not being soft as baby shit next time.
(Also, those were barely antics, he should've signed the knob and personally handed it to you.)
I would like to think that Elly was just calling Martinez a knob.
Another MLB: The Show update:
It's sad, but my God it's obvious that Franchise mode (on the Switch, at least) is a distant secondary... hell, tertiary concern for this game.
Like, the UI is awful for it (moving players around your organization is incredibly annoying, there doesn't appear to be an easy way to tell who's on your 40-man roster), the trade AI is horrific, there is very limited advanced stat tracking, there's no "Auto set lineups/rotations" button, and possibly most egregious, there doesn't appear to be a way to see how much energy your pitchers have left after pitching, so if you re-do your rotation, you could easily end up pitching a guy who pitched 2 days ago.
And the thing is, I can't even blame them for it.
From a player interest standpoint, the market has resoundingly spoken: Far, far more people are into online play/Diamond Dynasty or RTTS mode than Franchise. From the moment you turn on the game, it's pushing your towards Diamond Dynasty and similar stuff, it naturally assumes those are the modes people will be playing first.
And financially, I'm sure it makes sense too. Again, I have no idea how much they've made off of Diamond Dynasty, but I'm going to assume it's something ridiculous.
It's just sad to see how far off Franchise modes have fallen with the rise of various Ultimate Team modes. Basically, the only place to go now for a deep, meaningful baseball Franchise mode now is OOTP. (Which is on sale for $20 until July 13 and is always worth it, every single year.)
EDIT: tl;dr - MLB: The Show 23's Franchise mode is from 2005.
Yeah as much as I want a new college football game I know they will screw up dynasty mode somehow to make a collecting cards gacha mode be the big money maker instead. I almost hope it never happens and I'll just keep playing 14.
I would like to think that Elly was just calling Martinez a knob.
UPDATE: Elly just stole for the cycle.
Wow
lol
The first Cincinnati Red to do that since Greasy Neale in 1919. You gotta love a name like that.
The same Greasy Neale who, and I shit you not, won the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Another MLB: The Show update:
EDIT: tl;dr - MLB: The Show 23's Franchise mode is from 2005.
To be fair, even when they were supposedly actively trying to improve franchise mode, it just wasn't very good. I played it a bunch anyway because I wasn't aware of OOTP, so I guess it was better than no simulated baseball at all.
I love to see some players dragging and kicking MLB into being interesting to non-baseball-nerds again, I hope they pull it off this time.
Baseball is dead to me
Yankees add Starr Insurance patch to uniform, becoming 13th MLB team with jersey sponsor
Long live baseball
I'm waiting for my team's inevitable tie-in...
Cleveland Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 4!!!
The jerseys will be epic.
The Baltimore baseball team sponsor.
Baseball is dead to me
Yankees add Starr Insurance patch to uniform, becoming 13th MLB team with jersey sponsor
Long live baseball
There is something very funny to me about the Yankees doing this.
David Wells, who was pretty good for a very long time. Not much of a peak, just consistently good.
Someone made a game out of Lets Remember Some Guys: Immaculate Grid.
I especially like how after you finish, it generates links to show all the possible answers for a given square. In todays game, coming up with a .300 hitter for Cin was easy, but looking at the list afterwards I was reminded that Dmitri Young was a pretty good hitter (who gave almost all that value back by being a disaster in the field).
The top 3 payrolls in baseball are currently all missing the playoffs.
Delino DeShields. The original one.
The top 3 payrolls in baseball are currently all missing the playoffs.
Delino DeShields. The original one.
And two of the bottom three are the two best in the American League
So the Shohei Sweepstakes have not truly begun, but the Angels are "listening."
The only reason I'm not sure if he'll go anywhere is because LA's going to ask for literally the whole kit and kaboodle.
They'll certainly ask. But, when it comes down to it, they need to make a deal or get nothing. Of course this is the Angels, so I predict they are greedy and get nothing but memories.
As an alternative -- they could shell out the money to re-sign him. The fact that they've been unable to build a contender around him and Trout seems impossible, but he's already on the team. Sign him and do a better job.
Though, if an owner is looking to sell, which Moreno has been rumored to be for a few years now, teams generally try to reduce the amount of money guaranteed to players more than a few years down the road.
I don't think they can, all the scuttlebutt is that Shohei badly wants to win a title and doesn't think he can do it with the Angels. I don't think I've seen a single person say the Angels have a chance to re-resign him. They either get value on a trade now, or hope they can maybe slip into the postseason and convince him with that. Otherwise, he's walking.
EDIT: The Angels are currently 6 games out of the final wildcard spot and are 2-8 in their last 10.
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