Saw a graphic today showing that umpires are calling more strikes on Judge up in the zone than they were before. This may have something to do with the results.
Is this the one? It looks like that’s where he’s being pitched now. At least, that’s my understanding. It’s not like umpires are suddenly calling balls up out of the zone strikes. They’re calling high strikes in the zone because that’s where pitchers have been throwing them and Judge hasn’t been showing the ability to hit them. Pretty dumb graphic, IMO.
Just FTR, Devers was only the second lefty hitter ever to get a homer off him. Ever. And it was on a 103 mph ball, too.
I don’t think he’s quite done yet.
I’m sure fans everywhere were waiting for this - the MLB ballpark food safety ratings are out!
Safeco Field is tops, and Fenway Park is #2 for safest concessions.* With the exception of Toronto (#7), the rest of the AL East is dismal when it comes to food meeting inspection standards. Take the Yankees for instance:
“Yankee Stadium led the league with critical violations (62% of its stands), and an infestation of flies highlighted the inspections from late July in the Bronx. Inspectors handed out citations at over a dozen food entities around the ballpark for observation of flies and improper vermin-proofing.”
Blurgh.
The worst ballpark of them all was Tropicana Field. Shame, Tampa Bay.
https://www.si.com/eats/2017/08/08/mlb-food-safety-ballpark-rankings
*and undoubtedly the best lobster rolls.
Rafael Devers has now homered in 3 consecutive AB’s.
We were worried the Sox brought him up too fast.
The Cubs are beating the daylight out of the Reds tonight. The Cubs have a very favorable schedule the next two weeks which may allow them to finally put some distance between them and the rest of the NL central. 4 at home with the Reds, 3 at home with the Blue Jays, 3 at the Reds and 3 at the Phillies.
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If memory serves, their last regular-season games are against Cincy.
They were discussing this on MLB Network earlier today. The problem with moving Chapman out of the closer’s role is that he doesn’t want to pitch any other innings. I know Girardi should do it anyway since results are more important than feelings, but I’m not sure ownership would be so keen on the idea.
Let’s examine the facts about Aroldis Chapman: he has a 3.48 ERA this year. That’s the worst of his career and it’s still pretty good. He still throws a bazillion miles an hour. The home run he gave up to Devers is in fact the only home run he has given up all year.
Basically he’s about five earned runs all year higher than “extremely good” and is instead just pretty good. And he’s 29 years old. There are 30 teams in the major leagues; every single one of them would be better if they had Aroldis Chapman except the one that has him, who would be worse if he left.
I think we’ve just about run out of superlatives for the Dodgers. I’m trying to save my remaining enthusiasm for October. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying things like this:
The individual in question apparently lives in Northern California, but surely that’s not a factor…
The term “X games over .500” has meant “the difference between wins and losses” since before I was born, and really, it’s time for people to just accept that.
How many consecutive games would the Dodgers have to lose to be at .500? Fifty. So there, it makes sense.
I’m not a Dodgers fan but I sure am a fan of great baseball and man, that is one great baseball team. I’m rotting for them to win the World Series and take their place among the greatest teams ever. And they’re young. They could win a few.
It’s interesting being on the “die-hard fan” side of a season like this. When I’ve seen other teams on 100-plus win paces, they have seemed mythical to me. But this is a team (one of two) that I follow day-in and day-out, so my perspective is a little different.
I watch them strike out and hit into double plays and waste scoring opportunities. They can still be frustrating in the ways that any team you root for can be frustrating on an inning-by-inning basis. But they do it just a little less often than most other teams. And they come up with that big hit a bit more often. And they pitch out of trouble just a little more often. And night after night, they’re just a bit better than the good teams they play. And significantly better than the bad ones. Consistently so. And all of a sudden, people are talking about them being among the greatest of all time.
And then you realize how fragile that all is if they don’t, at the very least, win a best-of-five series and a best-of-seven series when they get to October against a couple of very good teams.
As a Cub fan, I had this sensation all last year.
And started a triple play last night.
That’s the key, of course. “Just a little bit better.” The Dodgers came to LA when I was 3 years old, so “lifetime fan” is really true. This is the best team I’ve ever seen them field. Roberts now has the enviable problem of what to do when people come off the DL.
I’m sure Seattle Mariners fans can tell you about that. 116 wins and they blew out in the ALCS.
It can happen. It would be cool, though, to see the Dodgers win a really epic number of games and totally roll.
At their current pace they’d win 115 games, one off the all time record. So they probably will not win 115 games, because even a great team isn’t really THAT great, but you never know. It would be awfully cool if they won 117.
Even if they do win the World Series only time will tell how truly great a team it is. IMHO, there’s more to greatness than winning a crapload of games and a World Series. A truly super great team
- Has several Hall of Famers, and
- Does not just have one championship season, but has that season amidst other championship seasons.
To my mind the 1998 Yankees are clearly a superteam, whereas, say, the 1984 Tigers are not. The 1984 Tigers were a great team but their only other win in that era was a division title in 1987, and the team had a lot of very good players but no Hall of Famers (though a few guys would be pretty good inductions.) The Dodgers will have “great players” covered by at least Clayton Kershaw, of course.
Reasonable to expect that Kershaw makes the HOF, particularly if he ends up with a championship at some point. Adrian Gonzalez is in the Hall of the Very Good, I assume. Maybe more. I would say the same for Kenley Jansen. Chase Utley, also (not that he’d go in as a Dodger, but it would certainly aid your argument for making this year’s team an all-time one). And as you say, we’ll have to wait and see on Seager and Bellinger (and Puig? Could he possibly still be on the rise)?
Fun to speculate that we could be watching that much greatness.
If Kershaw (God forbid, of course) wrecked his back tomorrow and couldn’t pitch again, I’m pretty sure he’d still be inducted to the Hall of Fame.
I love these discussions.
Clayton Kershaw is already a Hall of Famer. If he retired after this year I would totally support his induction.
Chase Utley is interesting in that he’s probably good enough to be a Hall of Famer. Honestly, though, I think it very unlikely he will get in. Utley, statistically, merits it, but he doesn’t have a huge number of career highlights - no MVP Award, no batting titles and stuff. No one ever thought Chase Utley was the best player in baseball. Like Lou Whitaker or Dwight Evans, he’ll be unfairly relegated to the next tier because he did everything really well, but nothing so well he got super famous for it.
I don’t think Adrian Gonzalez has any chance at all of making the Hall of Fame. A very fine hitter but there’s lots of fine hitting first basemen not in the Hall of Fame. Adrian Gonzalez isn’t as good a player as Fred McGriff was.
Kenley Jansen is a terrific pitcher but he has thrown 461 innings in his whole career, and the thing is that there’s a lot of relief pitchers like this now. Only ones who really, really stand out with playoff heroids and very long careers have a shot at the Hall.
Everyone else is a dream; any of these guys COULD have a Hall of Fame career, but who knows, right?
Heroids?
Is that like steroid-powered heroics? 
I agree that Kershaw would (or should) easily go in if this were his last season. Three Cy Youngs, an MVP, career WHIP under 1.000 and career ERA under 2.40. With the exception of his rookie year, he’s been dominant for basically his whole career.
I didn’t mean to imply that Jansen already qualified. I was basing that on him potentially maintaining his current trajectory.
Mariano Rivera had nearly 1,300 innings under his belt when he retired. I think Jansen would have to get into that territory with similar success. If you project Jansen to pitch the same number of innings as Rivera, but with Jansen’s current WAR pace, he’d wind up with a career WAR of 40.6, well shy of Rivera’s 57.1. Rivera would also have a slight edge in the number of saves (652 vs. a projected 615), but Jansen would blow Rivera out of the water on strikeouts (1173 vs. a projected 1982 — Jansen already has 712 in his career). Obviously, no guarantees that he has that kind of longevity or maintains his current level of pitching. Just thinking about possibilities.