Juan Soto to the IL with a shoulder strain. Just what the Nats need.
wow heres a lesson on how to burnout in baseball in 6 /7years or less
Kirby, right, thanks, and (I looked this part up) it was also Don Wilson with the Astros a few years later–I’d forgotten that Gomez had managed Houston. In both situations Gomez’s team was down by a run late in the game, so of course you pinch hit. I was pretty young but I do remember the uproar. Fun stuff.
I didn’t know about the Astros thing.
I can see why Padres fans were upset, especially since pinch hitting didn’t work.
This is a stretch, but when he managed Toronto, Cito Gaston hated to use pinch hitters, and he would always say he felt hitters could not succeed in that role. There is in fact a ot of evidence that pinch hitters do really badly; as a group, pinch hitters do much more poorly in PH appearances than they normally do, and unless you’re hitting for a pitcher or someone with a really extreme platoon disadvantage, it might well be a negative expectation move. (I am not standing behind this 100%; I don’t have sufficient data and there could be other elements at play here.) I’m not sure Gaston had access to those facts in 1989 when he started managing, though, and I wonder if some of his aversion can’t be traced to his being one of the most infamous pinch hitters of all time.
Interesting about Gaston and his aversion to pinch hitters – I hadn’t known that.
All I really remember about him from his playing days is that he used to hold the bat up very high, almost parallel to the ground (if I am recalling correctly and maybe I am not, but I’m pretty sure that was Gaston).
I can’t off the top of my head think of another manager who faced this pinch hit-no hit dilemma even once, though perhaps I am overlooking someone obvious, so to have it happen twice to Gomez is…well, it’s different.
The Don Wilson Not-Quite-No-Hitter:
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1974/B09040HOU1974.htm
Wilson, like Kirby, pitched eight innings but gave up 2 runs (two walks, sac bunt, error by the shortstop) and was behind 2-1 when he was pinch hit for (Tommy Helms). Again, no runs scored, hits in the ninth, and a loss. Deja vu for Gomez all over again
Don Wilson was a pretty darned good pitcher. Amazingly, he had already pitched TWO no hitters. The second of those, in 1969, came the day after the Astros had themselves been victims of a no hitter by Jim Maloney. And just to add to the remarkable nature of the feat, it was also Maloney’s second career no hitter.
Is that a unique event in MLB history? Incredibly, it is not; it happened just the year before. Gaylord Perry no-hit the Cardinals one day, and the next day Ray Washburn no-hit the Giants to return the favor.
After the 1974 season, Wilson accidentally died by filling his own car garage with CO when he closed the garage door with his car running. Tragically, his son, in the bedroom above the garage, also died. Wilson was inebriated, and the authorities concluded he likely fell asleep in his car. It was a horrifying tragedy and yet is almost totally forgotten now.
For the record, Don Wilson’s death made an impression on me (at the age of about 13-14), though I was not a particular fan of the Astros. Another indication that baseball players were not immortal (see Roberto Clemente a couple years earlier). And there was something about the image of the car running in the garage, filling the place with CO, that really bothered me…though we did not have an attached garage or indeed any garage at all, and neither did most of my friends and relatives, so any cautionary morals didn’t directly apply to me.
Anyway, I remember it! Even if I’m one of the few. And Wilson was indeed a fine pitcher.
Max Scherzer with 7 strikeouts after 5 innings, 86 pitches. This guy can pitch
Yet another Yankees loss, although it’s acceptable against a team like the Braves.
Who is this Cubs team that’s hammering the Mets?
I love days like this when I can just enjoy my MLB.TV package. Cards/Nationals and then I switched to the crazy Twins/A’s game for something completely different in that crazy 13-12 game.
Maybe that particular personalization. I think “best of luck” would be more appropriate than “best wishes” coming from Pete Rose. 
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The Mets have a way of just absolutely collapsing on defense, don’t they? Reminds me of that Nationals game where we lost 25-4.
Hildenberger threw some…interesting pitches tonight.
The Jays won 6-3 last night. It should have been 16-3; Garrett Richards had absolutely nothing for the Red Sox. Nothing. He had no command and nothing on his breaking ball, but the Jays let him off the hook again and again. Richards’s career might be over before the pandemic is.
Anyway, the Blue Jays are off again today, which is weird. They were also off Monday. Then next week same thing; off both Monday and Thursday.
I think the extra off days are to help reschedule games postponed by weather or Covid. I bet the teams don’t love front loading their off days when it means long periods of games in August. But, baseball is a business.
Cubs ended up sweeping the Mets in extra innings last night on a Jason Hayward walk-off single.
The Cubs just did it again. They whipped Milwaukee’s buttocks 15-2.
This deGrom guy might know how to pitch.
Brewers starting pitcher Corbin Burnes is off to a pretty good start, too. In four starts (24 1/3 innings):
- 8 hits
- 1 earned run
- 40 strikeouts
- 0 walks
- ERA of 0.37
- WHIP of 0.329
Jacob deGrom is an absolute beast. It’s not even fair. 2-hit shutout against the Nats tonight, and he even managed to get some run support. From himself! (Quick, somebody tell me how I should feel about the DH.)
How’s this for a final out?
Just superb the whole way through.
I don’t care if the NL keeps the DH, but deGrom hitting a double doesn’t negate the ugly truth:
All pitchers in 2018: .115/.144/.148 That’s good for a -25 WRC+. Maybe, akin to the new intentional walk rule, managers could just wave from the dugout…yeah, he’s out, no need for him to walk over there.