But you gotta like his walk-up music he brought back from Korea. 
I’ll never see the opening scene of Bridge Over the River Kwai the same way again.
Speaking of guys who hit well, Washington put up 23 runs today. Anthony Rendon drove in ten runs.
Even if Washington had been shut out today they’d still be leading the majors in runs.
Bryce Harper scored 32 runs in April, an all time record for this month.
Astros have had a pretty good opening month. Dallas Keuchel has been great, the bullpen has overall been pretty good, and the lineup has been strong even though of the “core 4” only Jose Altuve has hit very well - Alex Bregman, George Springer, and Carlos Correa haven’t been very good. Neither has Carlos Beltran - I’m not worried about the other 3, but Beltran is bound to get old at some point.
The relatively weak point has been the starting pitching outside of Keuchel - Lance McCullers has been up and down and the other three starters have one quality start each so far. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already asked about Estrada.
Chris Devenski is pretty good I think. And also an interesting case of how you just don’t know, especially about pitchers - he had a totally undistinguished minor league career, then had a pretty decent season at age 24 in AA, putting up a 3 ERA in a hitter’s league, but that’s at age 24, when real prospects are supposed to already be in their second year in the majors. He gets called up to the majors the next season due to some pitching injuries, and proceeds to just keep getting people out.
Victor Martinez, the Tiger’s fossilized 38 year old ex catcher, and statistically determined slowest man in baseball, pushed a bunt through the full shift infield for the first bunt hit of his career last night. 
Didn’t we have a thread about the possibility of a two run sacrifice fly a while ago? Well, I’ll be darned, it happened last night, as Ryan Goins did it for the Jays against the Yankees; Jacoby Ellsbury made a great catch but hit the wall doing it and couldn’t get the ball to Aaron Judge.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/227698000/goins-gets-rare-2-run-sac-fly-on-ellsbury-grab/
Goins is the first Blue Jays in franchise history to do this. I don’t know exactly how many times it’s been done, but I am certain it’s more rare than a no-hitter.
Probably should have been a sacrifice fly and a throwing error though. But that’s minor
I was wondering the same thing, too, but on reviewing the video, the scoring decision was correct. Ellsbury’s tossing the ball over Judge’s head probably didn’t matter. Both runners were tagging, and even if Judge gets the toss, Travis would have scored; it takes too long for Ellsbury to recover and make the toss, and Judge is still 400 feet from home. Go to 0:48 of the video and you’ll see the ball is stil len route to Judge when Travis, who runs well, is about to hit third, and he’s going full bust-ass tilt and already being waved home. I can’t see how Judge receives the ball, turns, make the throw to Gregorius, and Gregorius turns and make the throw to home to get Travis. Nine times out of then they don’t come close to getting him.
Not likely the Yankees scorer would give Ellsbury an error after that play.
In trying to research how often a 2 run sac fly happens (couldn’t tell you), I found a stat that I feel is rather astonishing. Mark Trumbo, last year’s MLB home run leader, hit zero sac flies.
Just doing a search for it, I can find only a few recent examples; Wil Myers did it in 2014, Mike Trout did it in 2012, Nate McLouth in 2010, and Albert Pujols did it in 2009. According to the Pujols story on the incident both Joe Mauer and A.J. Pierzynski did it in 2008. But when I found the article for Mauer’s 2-run SF it said that was the first time in seven years when Alex Ochoa did it. I can find no record of it happening prior to that going back to 1998. Clearly it is an unusual occurrence.
I can’t find an authoritative list of 2-run sacrifice flies ever, but as I always do would like to point out it has happened in the World Series once; Tommie Herr in 1982. The fact we can’t find any numbers on this suggests it’s a very obscure thing indeed.
Part of the problem is that sac flies have not always been counted as a thing, so some may be lost to history.
Interestingly enough, a fly ball scoring one run from second base happens at least once or twice a year. I found one reference that has that happening six times in 1998, twice in 1999, three times in 2000 (one of them scoring Jorge Posada from second base, so I can only assume the hapless outfielder had a heart attack after catching the ball) and so on.
Did anyone see this rather odd triple play that the Orioles pulled off against the Red Sox the other day?
Runners on first and second. Hitter pops it out into shallow left field, between the shortstop and the left fielder. Shortstop Hardy runs into the outfield, waving off the left fielder. But Hardy misjudges the ball, and it goes over his glove and hits the ground.
Meantime, on the bases, the runners at first and second have barely moved off their bases, and the hitter, either assuming that the ball will be caught or assuming that it’s been called an infield fly, is already wandering back to the dugout.
Hardy throws to second, where the Orioles second baseman tags the runner who has wandered off second base. He then steps on second to record a force out on the runner at first, and throws to first to retire the hitter.
The only explanation i can think of for all this is that all three Red Sox players assumed that the infield fly rule had been called, but there is no evidence of that on the audio, and the distance traveled by the ball suggests that an infield fly call would have been inappropriate anyway. Had the hitter run to first, and the baserunners at least gone further down the baselines so they could be ready to run, the best the Orioles would have done was a double play. More likely they would have only got one out, and they may have got none at all if the runners were fast enough to advance after Hardy missed the catch. But as it turned out, they got all three.
The Giants have been outscored 44-18 over their last 5 games. Somehow, they actually managed to win two of them…but right now they are a bad baseball team. Their hitting is bad, their pitching is bad, their fielding is bad, their baserunning is bad.
I’m not sure I can take six more months of this.
We need a crying emoji. This is the best we have. :mad:
Good news!
Its only 5 more months.
Toronto, the Royals and the Giants are all off to such poor starts that it seems very unlikely either will climb back into contention. I don’t think KC is a surprise at least.
On another note: Why oh why does Fox hate baseball fans so much. When will they finally let Joe Buck go?
As you are reading these words, the Mets have placed two more players on the disabled list.
The full list from the CBSSports depth chart:
DL
L. Duda
D. Wright
Y. Cespedes
B. Nimmo
T. d’Arnaud
N. Syndergaard
S. Matz
S. Lugo
The surprising thing is this team is not all that different than the one 2 years ago that put up the best record in the majors and won the WS. In the field, the only changes are 2B, RF and DH. You could argue the rotation is at least as good. The bullpen is significantly worse. Their core hitters are deeper into their primes - yet just can’t score runs anymore.
And hopefully the Reds sweep them today…
Wish: granted
Fuck.
The.
Cubs.
If this game holds up, my beloved Redbirds will be in second place after today.