Baseball 2016---Season On!

[DCPatriot]

Bryce Harpers record setting 4 game series with the Cubs.

1. Bryce Harper became the first player in the history of baseball to make seven plate appearances without having an official at-bat.

2. Those six walks in a single game were just the fourth time that's ever happened in MLB history.

3. Harper's series against the Cubs: BB, BB, single, BB, out, K, K, BB, BB, sac fly, BB, IBB, BB, BB, IBB, HBP, BB, IBB, IBB.

4. The Nats' right-fielder saw 27 pitches on Sunday. Two were strikes. That's a 93/7 ball to strike ratio.

5. Harper didn't have an official at bat on Saturday either, giving him a current streak of 11 plate appearances without one.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/bryce-harper-walks-washington-nationals-record-six-walks-chicago-cubs-intentionally-walk-050916

I'm afraid that his behavior the other night will result in a wide strike-zone for him.

He's showing tremendous patience by not chasing and waiting for 'that mistake'.

Ryan Zimmerman, hitting behind him is heating up lately, so it affords Harper more protection.  He'll hopefully see more strikes.

[DCPatriot]

Which 20-strikeout game was most impressive?
David Schonfield


How does a pitcher tie the major league record for most strikeouts in nine innings? When Max Scherzer struck out Miguel Cabrera swinging on a 1-2 fastball in the ninth inning on his 111th pitch of the game Wednesday, the pitch was clocked at 97.4 mph (98.1 mph on StatCast), and it was moving off the plate like a Frisbee.

It was the fastest pitch he'd thrown all season.

The other day, I speculated on why we hadn't seen another 20-strikeout game since Randy Johnson in 2001. One thing I pointed out is that the previous 20-strikeout games had all come in advantageous conditions: The Reds had an extremely weak lineup that night against Johnson; Kerry Wood's 20 strikeouts came on a dark, overcast afternoon at Wrigley; both of Roger Clemens' 20-strikeout games came against teams in the midst of team-wide strikeout slumps.

There weren't those potential indicators heading into Wednesday's game. It was a clear night in Washington, although the Tigers had struck out 14 times two nights before in a game Stephen Strasburg started. Plus, Scherzer was coming off a four-homer game and he'd been struggling with his fastball command. Nationals fans were just hoping for a solid performance, let alone a legendary one.

How does Scherzer's performance compare to those other 20-strikeout games? Well, because he gave up two home runs, his game score is easily the worst of the five. Here's a chart listing all the pitchers with 19 or 20 strikeouts in nine innings, with the MLB-wide strikeouts per nine innings rate for that season, the opposing team's strikeout rate per game (which would be slightly lower than its K's per nine after including extra-inning games), the number of times the opponent struck out 12 or more times that season, the opponent's wRC+ (the strength of the team's offense where 100 is average) and, finally, the difference between the pitcher's strikeout total and the team's strikeout rate.

more at:  http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/70646/which-20-strikeout-game-was-most-impressive

[Leto]

Well Red Sox fans are feeling real good today. Their hitting has been very solid, now David Price who had a miserable spring fixed some mechanical problems and pitched real well last night.

Our 2nd best pitcher will come off the DL soon and things will be well in Red Sox nation. +58 run differential 2nd best in baseball behind the Cubbies, how great a season are they having so far.

[DCPatriot]

Well Red Sox fans are feeling real good today. Their hitting has been very solid, now David Price who had a miserable spring fixed some mechanical problems and pitched real well last night.

Our 2nd best pitcher will come off the DL soon and things will be well in Red Sox nation. +58 run differential 2nd best in baseball behind the Cubbies, how great a season are they having so far.

Yep...seems like old time again....Red Sox chasing the Orioles...Yankees sucking wind...   

[BigHomer]

Yep...seems like old time again....Red Sox chasing the Orioles...Yankees sucking wind...   

Big Papi does it again! 

[Polly Ticks]

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2016/5/15/11679704/rougned-odor-punched-jose-bautista-in-the-face-in-the-biggest-mlb

Looks like Bautista chose the wrong guy to try a dirty slide on.  Holy smokes.

[BigHomer]

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2016/5/15/11679704/rougned-odor-punched-jose-bautista-in-the-face-in-the-biggest-mlb

Looks like Bautista chose the wrong guy to try a dirty slide on.  Holy smokes.

Best 'in your face' since Varitek re-arranged A-Rod's face in 2004

[sinkspur]

Odor clocked Bautista; apparently Jose is not the most popular player in the American League:

[Polly Ticks]

Best 'in your face' since Varitek re-arranged A-Rod's face in 2004

And let's not forget this classic:

[Polly Ticks]

Odor clocked Bautista; apparently Jose is not the most popular player in the American League:

You have a gift for understatement.
 

[EasyAce]

Sorry, gang, but the Rangers were in the dead wrong today.

You don't throw at a guy who flipped his bat in the ecstasy of the moment seven months ago
while hitting a home run that turned a division series around, playing for a team whose fans hadn't seen
live postseason baseball since early in the Clinton Administration.

You don't try "avenging" that bat flip by waiting until his likely final trip to the plate in the last game
of a series and the season against you. (You sure don't wait until you bring in a rook who
wasn't even in your organisation last fall to do the dirty work of an eleventh-hour throw at the bat flipper.)

And you don't get to cry foul when you're stupid enough to throw at him, then he exacts his own
little slice of payback by trying to slice and dice your shortstop on a double play bid. (Old school baby?
That's the way they did it in the old days, gang. Throw at me, you sonofabitch, if it's a
ground ball next your middle infielder's going down!)

If the Rangers really were stupid enough to think Jose Bautista needed to be taught any kind of lesson
in manners, why didn't they drop him a week and a half earlier when the two sides met in Toronto? Or,
since they didn't choose that route, why not drop him to open the set just concluded in Texas?

How stupid can you get?

That was then: The Texas Rangers (the law enforcement group) lived by the motto, "One riot, one
Ranger." (The motto was coined when one Ranger captain was sent just in case of a riot at---wait
for it---a prize fight.) This is now: The Texas Rangers (the baseball team), living by the apparent
motto, "25 Rangers, one riot."

[Polly Ticks]

Sorry, gang, but the Rangers were in the dead wrong today.

You don't throw at a guy who flipped his bat in the ecstasy of the moment seven months ago
while hitting a home run that turned a division series around, playing for a team whose fans hadn't seen
live postseason baseball since early in the Clinton Administration.

You don't try "avenging" that bat flip by waiting until his likely final trip to the plate in the last game
of a series and the season against you. (You sure don't wait until you bring in a rook who
wasn't even in your organisation last fall to do the dirty work of an eleventh-hour throw at the bat flipper.)

And you don't get to cry foul when you're stupid enough to throw at him, then he exacts his own
little slice of payback by trying to slice and dice your shortstop on a double play bid. (Old school baby?
That's the way they did it in the old days, gang. Throw at me, you sonofabitch, if it's a
ground ball next your middle infielder's going down!)

If the Rangers really were stupid enough to think Jose Bautista needed to be taught any kind of lesson
in manners, why didn't they drop him a week and a half earlier when the two sides met in Toronto? Or,
since they didn't choose that route, why not drop him to open the set just concluded in Texas?

How stupid can you get?

That was then: The Texas Rangers (the law enforcement group) lived by the motto, "One riot, one
Ranger." (The motto was coined when one Ranger captain was sent just in case of a riot at---wait
for it---a prize fight.) This is now: The Texas Rangers (the baseball team), living by the apparent
motto, "25 Rangers, one riot."

I don't have a dog in this particular hunt, but in my opinion they're all acting like idiots. 

I love baseball.  I watch it nearly every night.  But it is a GAME.  Let's not try to maim one another in the playing of it, yes?

[DCPatriot]

Sorry, gang, but the Rangers were in the dead wrong today.

You don't throw at a guy who flipped his bat in the ecstasy of the moment seven months ago
while hitting a home run that turned a division series around, playing for a team whose fans hadn't seen
live postseason baseball since early in the Clinton Administration.

You don't try "avenging" that bat flip by waiting until his likely final trip to the plate in the last game
of a series and the season against you. (You sure don't wait until you bring in a rook who
wasn't even in your organisation last fall to do the dirty work of an eleventh-hour throw at the bat flipper.)

And you don't get to cry foul when you're stupid enough to throw at him, then he exacts his own
little slice of payback by trying to slice and dice your shortstop on a double play bid. (Old school baby?
That's the way they did it in the old days, gang. Throw at me, you sonofabitch, if it's a
ground ball next your middle infielder's going down!)

If the Rangers really were stupid enough to think Jose Bautista needed to be taught any kind of lesson
in manners, why didn't they drop him a week and a half earlier when the two sides met in Toronto? Or,
since they didn't choose that route, why not drop him to open the set just concluded in Texas?

How stupid can you get?

That was then: The Texas Rangers (the law enforcement group) lived by the motto, "One riot, one
Ranger." (The motto was coined when one Ranger captain was sent just in case of a riot at---wait
for it---a prize fight.) This is now: The Texas Rangers (the baseball team), living by the apparent
motto, "25 Rangers, one riot."

Waiting until the 8th inning in the last game in which you'll face each other this season proves premeditation.

Jose Bautista should sue the Rangers, Odor, and the Rangers' manager/coaching staff.

Furthermore, I saw nothing wrong with the slide...per the new rule in breaking up DPs.

[EasyAce]

Waiting until the 8th inning in the last game in which you'll face each other this season proves premeditation.

Jose Bautista should sue the Rangers, Odor, and the Rangers' manager/coaching staff.

Furthermore, I saw nothing wrong with the slide...per the new rule in breaking up DPs.

The only part where the slide proves sticky is that he did drop into it a little late. Other than that,
Bautista never left the proper basepath.

The other sticky part will be proving not just the premeditation (that almost seems given) but
who actually gave the order for Bush to throw the pitch. (If he acted on his own, it could only
have been to impress his new teammates.) And why on earth would you have a guy throw
at someone when the thrower wasn't even in the organisation last October?

Baseball government's going to have a blast looking at all the replay angles. They'll be having
to figure out, too, whether Josh Donaldson got punched during the brawl, by Odor. (One
replay suggests it might have happened but the others tell you it wasn't all that clear.) And
since it wasn't the first time Odor brawled over a takeout slide in his career (he did it in the
minors in 2011, and he'd been the one to use the takeout slide in that instance!),
he could be looking at a fat suspension.

[DCPatriot]

The only part where the slide proves sticky is that he did drop into it a little late. Other than that,
Bautista never left the proper basepath.

The other sticky part will be proving not just the premeditation (that almost seems given) but
who actually gave the order for Bush to throw the pitch. (If he acted on his own, it could only
have been to impress his new teammates.) And why on earth would you have a guy throw
at someone when the thrower wasn't even in the organisation last October?

Baseball government's going to have a blast looking at all the replay angles. They'll be having
to figure out, too, whether Josh Donaldson got punched during the brawl, by Odor. (One
replay suggests it might have happened but the others tell you it wasn't all that clear.) And
since it wasn't the first time Odor brawled over a takeout slide in his career (he did it in the
minors in 2011, and he'd been the one to use the takeout slide in that instance!),
he could be looking at a fat suspension.

His momentum called for a slide to avoid a serious collision.  He went straight over the middle of the bag.

Odor jumped up and got in Bautista's face behind 2nd base...and no way, Jose is going to take laying down, being punched in the face... in front of the world.

I actually LOVED Bautista's bat flip last October.   Didn't give the Rangers a thought.  Could've been anybody.

[EasyAce]

His momentum called for a slide to avoid a serious collision.  He went straight over the middle of the bag.

Bautista admitted after the game that he wanted to send a message about getting drilled on the first
pitch from Bush---and added he wanted only to send a message, not injure Odor. I just watched a slo-mo
video of the slide. Bautista dropped into it a little late, when he was about four feet from the pad, but he
went down deep into the slide and was obviously not trying to injure Odor, just take him out hard from
the double play. If Bautista had slid out of the proper basepath it would have been quite a different
story on the slide itself. (Was it me, or did Odor look like he was actually trying to hit Bautista with
the relay throw? You're taught to throw low on the double play relay when a runner comes sliding
in toward you, but it looked to a lot of people like Odor was hoping for a moment that the ball might
catch Bautista in the chops.)

The same video also shows Odor shoving Bautista first after Bautista got back up from the ground
from the slide. Only then did Bautista extend a left arm to defend himself, and then
Odor threw the punch apparently heard and seen around the world.

I actually LOVED Bautista's bat flip last October.   Didn't give the Rangers a thought.  Could've been anybody.

What's not to love? It's like I said before: It happened in front of the home folks who hadn't seen
live postseason baseball since the first Clinton Administration. It meant a trip to the American
League Championship Series for the Jays. Even Hank Aaron would have flipped his bat
hitting one out like that in that circumstance with that on the line.

So the Rangers were P.O.ed over it? Then send Bautista the message the first time you face
him this season, not the last.

(Almost forgotten: When the Rangers and the Jays met in Toronto for the first time this season,
a week and a half ago, guess who Bautista got to bat against? Sam Dyson---the pitcher who
served up the ball he sent to the Aleutians last October. And Dyson, who'd done a little gum beating
of his own over the bat flip last fall, never threw anything close to a duster to Bautista this time.)

[DCPatriot]

DC, checking in.....


*  Earlier, I mocked my NATS getting swept by the Philadelphia Phillies.   Look at them now! 

1-1/2 games out...6-4 in their last 10.

* Tonight, it's Max Scherzer, coming off that 20 K outing against the TIGERS, against Noel Syndergaard.  Scherzer needs 15 strikeouts to break the all-time record for total K's over two consecutive starts.   It's NATS vs METS at 7pm on MLB Network.

* Also something I noticed...maybe somebody else too...Bryce Harper served his suspension last Sunday vs. the Marlins' Jose Fernandez...followed by an off day as they begin a 4 game series in New York.    Furthermore, league-leading hitter, 2nd baseman Daniel Murphy...suddenly felt 'sick'.

"Sick", no doubt that Jose's stuff is so toxic, players have taken a full week to recover from the experience.

We'll see if the strategy works, because the power numbers for the NATS just aren't there. 

* Predicting that Odor will get at least 10 game suspension for hitting Joey Bats.   Bautista will get no suspension.  (There'd be a freaking riot)

[DCPatriot]

@Polly Ticks

So sorry to hear about skipper Fredi Gonzalez, Polly!   

Often, it's a last ditch effort to gain back control of the clubhouse, and appeal to a player's competitive instincts to display his wares.


http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/118521/braves-fire-fredi-gonzalez-amid-one-of-the-worst-starts-in-mlb-history

[Polly Ticks]

@Polly Ticks

So sorry to hear about skipper Fredi Gonzalez, Polly!   

Often, it's a last ditch effort to gain back control of the clubhouse, and appeal to a player's competitive instincts to display his wares.


http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/118521/braves-fire-fredi-gonzalez-amid-one-of-the-worst-starts-in-mlb-history

I don't think Fredi can be held personally responsible for all the of the clubs recent woes, and he actually did some very creative managing in the past couple of years.  His days have been numbered for awhile, though, so it's not much of a surprise to see today's news.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here.

Go Braves!  <\ <| </ <| <\

[sinkspur]

DC, checking in..... 

* Predicting that Odor will get at least 10 game suspension for hitting Joey Bats.   Bautista will get no suspension.  (There'd be a freaking riot)

Nope. Odor and Bautista both five games.  Bautista is a thug and finally got the comeuppance he deserved.  That punch Odor threw will be in every highlight reel until the end of time.

[Wingnut]

This may sound strange but both Nascar and Baseball are to sanitized.  The Powers to be need to step back and Let "Boys Be Boys" again.  I say Let them get at it like cordouroy into a hemoroid.  It will liven the game up for the fans. 

[DCPatriot]

Nope. Odor and Bautista both five games.  Bautista is a thug and finally got the comeuppance he deserved.  That punch Odor threw will be in every highlight reel until the end of time.

No freaking way are the games going to be the same for each of them.

Bautista threw no punches.

It was a clean slide by any set of rules you wish to use.

[Polly Ticks]

Jose's stuff is so toxic, players have taken a full week to recover from the experience.

He is such a fun guy to watch!

[sinkspur]

No freaking way are the games going to be the same for each of them.

Bautista threw no punches.

It was a clean slide by any set of rules you wish to use.

Nope. It was a take-out slide, the very thing the major leagues are trying to stop.  Regardless of what happens, Odor is Nolan Ryan to Bautista's Robin Ventura.

[DCPatriot]

This may sound strange but both Nascar and Baseball are to sanitized.  The Powers to be need to step back and Let "Boys Be Boys" again.  I say Let them get at it like cordouroy into a hemoroid.  It will liven the game up for the fans.

"I can't go for that!  ....can't go for that!"

Being a baseball purist, that is.

It's a lethal weapon and the game has been played and respected for 125 years or more.

It would be tantamount to one of the duelers grabbing the pistol from the leather case and shooting his adversary AND the witnesses.

We must be CIVILIZED.