And just think, if they had released Hoch less than 10 days ago, they’d have saved $3 million.
Well, my plans for tonight have been ruined. What I thought would be a great minor league matchup between the Pirates’ #1 pitching prospect Gerrit Cole versus the Cleveland Indians’ #1 pitching prospect Trevor Bauer has been switched to Joe Martinez v. Andy Oliver. Well, I guess a night at the park is better than a stick in the eye…
Almost invariably. 
Even when your guys lose, a night at the park is magical.
I don’t know how I managed to miss this, but the Reds had signed Mark Prior back in March and apparently Tuesday he pitched really well in AAA Louisville and is slated to pitch in relief today against the Angels.
How weird is that? The guy has had a LONG road to recovery (hasn’t pitched in the bigs since 2007) and is now reunited with the manager that many people blame for “ruining” him.
I am looking forward to seeing him out there. If he’s healed up after shoulder reconstruction and is remotely like his old self the Reds may be onto something with him.
Different owners, different team, different hitting coach, same problem. Can’t hit with runners in scoring position. At some point last night, Vin mentioned they were 2-for-20-something in the series. Even the runs they scored on Opening Day, outside of Kershaw’s homerun, were scored on outs, if I recall correctly.
And the Tiger’s bullpen is the worst case scenario after three games.
Let’s hope for a success story, but don’t expect one. As bad as Boston was last year, they didn’t consider bringing him up, and no wonder - he couldn’t get guys out in AAA ball.
Well, he didn’t pitch today, but the Reds won to take the series, so that’s good.
Washington’s Jordan Zimmermann got rocked today, actually giving up a run. Is it time to push the panic button in D.C.?
Carlos Marmol needs to lose his job tonight. Two chances to close out games and he almost blows them both.
Chris Davis seems to be hitting okay for the O’s.
I don’t know…Lincecum of last night looked like Cy Young compared to Lincecum of last year…
…with a dash of Harry Houdini thrown in for good measure. 3 hits and 7 walks in 5 innings, and only 2 (unearned) runs?
Fun fact of the day: The ERA for Giants starting pitchers so far this year is 0.00 
Well, it was nice for the Blue Jays to finally win one.
An interesting thing I picked up from the game; J.P. Arencibia hit two home runs tonight (both stunning displays of pure strength.) Arencibia has now hit two home runs in a game seven times. That might not sound like much but he’s only hit 45 home runs in his entire career. So about 30% of his homers have come in multi-homer games (all 2-homer games, he’s never had a three-homer game.) That must be a weird ratio, though it seems appropriate to Arencibia, who usually looks like he couldn’t hit water falling out of a boat and then for a few games will look like Hank Aaron.
I just picked through guys at random - David Ortiz has hit a lot of home runs, but “only” about 19% of his homers are in multi-homer games (he has never had a 3-homer game, to my amazement.) Manny Ramirez hit 555 homers, and again just short of 20% were in multi-homer games. (He hit three twice.) A guy who had a 4-homer game, Carlos Delgado, got about 22% of his homers in multi-homer games. Other notables:
Jim Thome: 16%
Ken Griffey Jr.: 18%
Mike Schmidt: 17%
Hank Aaron: 16.5%
Mark McGwire: 24%
Ralph Kiner: 23%
I just find this fun to play with.
Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes: at least 23% (I don’t know if he had another multi-homer game besides the Opening Day game in which he hit 3 of his 13 career home runs).
And since we’re already 3-4 games in to the season, it’s already past time to name the award winners.
AL MVP: Chris Davis is 7-for-11 with 3 homers and 11 RBI in three games. That’s a decent month.
NL MVP: Gerardo Parra’s off to a hell of a start.
AL CY: Yu Darvish, obviously.
NL CY: Clayton Kershaw, equally obviously.
You will be overjoyed to hear that he did. Later than same month, Karl lit up Darryl Kile twice on April 28.
We’re only three games in and there is only one unbeaten team and one team without a win.
I just noticed that all three teams whose names start with the letter “A” are now in the same division.
Oh no, my wife is going out with her friends tonight and we have all this beer left over from a party. I guess I could watch then Nats play the Reds and order one of those “pizza” things (is that how you even spell that word?) and watch the game while drinking beer.
I suspect the Marlins will continue to be winless for a while. The Nationals may have more trouble keeping up their unbeaten status.
Sack up, man! We all have to make sacrifices. 