The Phillies hung 6 on the Nats’ Patrick Corbin in the first inning. I stopped watching after the first 4 runs scored. This is the second time this year, and I believe the second consecutive start, in which Corbin was pulled in the first.
Please tell me there’s some way we can get rid of him. Can we just buy out his contract or something? Or are we destined to lose every fifth game?
I just saw a link to his remaining contract today. $35m in 2024 alone?! Yikes - that’s a lot of bake sales.
All that dead money on Strasburg and Corbin have put the Nats in a bind. And the kicker is they didn’t even get to ring the register and enjoy the increase in ticket sales and merch in 2020 after winning the World Series in 2019
No it isn’t. It’s at 26,555 per game right now. 2019 was 28,203… and that was the fourth straight year of decline. The peak year remains 2007.
The number of teams with no chance at the playoffs isn’t up, it’s DOWN. Because of the expanded playoffs, more than half of all teams are either securely in the playoffs or have a good shot. The AL really only has five teams that are clearly out; the tenth of fifteen teams, Boston, is just 4 games out and is hardly a sad sack franchise. The NL is much more stratified, with really only 7 of 15 teams having a solid chance, but basically half the league having a shot is way higher than most seasons, historically. When baseball was really booming from the mid 70s to the 2000s, most seasons WAY more than half the league was dead and buried by August 1. In 1993, to use an example, the AL really didn’t have any pennant races at all, and in the NL there were four teams with a shot at two playoff sports. Eleven teams finished 20+ games out. The year before, three divisions had no playoff races, and the AL East had a fairly mild one.
There are clearly many, many reasons behind the attendance flatline, some of which aren’t in MLB’s control, but I’d point out that some of the attendance increase was kind of illusory, because we had the huge baseball stadium boom. Between 1989 (SkyDome) and 2020 (Globe Life in Texas) most MLB teams constructed new parks, either for new teams or as replacements that were spectacularly better than the parks they replaced. Only six teams have parks older than Toronto, and of those two were already excellent facilities that have been extensively renovated (Dodger and Kauffman) two are classics (Wrigley and Fenway) and two are genuinely bad old parks that are, not coincidentally, the two worst attended teams in MLB (Oakland and Tampa Bay.) It is noteworthy than the seventh oldest park, Skydome/Rogers Centre, is now slated for $300 MILLION in improvements to make it, well, a ballpark.
New parks had a lot to do with the attendance increases from 1989 on, but there’s not as much room for that sort of thing now. Realistically, only two franchises even really need one.
You need to also include the Los Angeles Angels, opened in 1966, extensively renovated in 1998 after the Rams left.
ok from an analysis perspective should dodger fans and the team be worried or is this the normal sportswriting " the sky might be falling " doom that they get paid to write? and is the mentioned trade that big of a deal?
“Sky is falling” bullshit, with a grain of truth underneath. Are the Dodgers short on quality starters right now? Yes. Is it a Big Deal? No. So what if the 5th guy in your rotation gets lit up every time? The Dodgers are what, 12 games up in the division? They can afford that 5th game for as long as it takes for everybody to get healthy (looks like 10 days to 2 weeks for the first of them.) That means maybe 2 games lost they should have won. Not going to be an issue unless a meteor hits batting practice one afternoon.
I didn’t think so but just had to make sure … like I said before I remember in august they lost most of their games but still won the div ,
The Mets did very well in the double header yesterday. Let’s see if the offense supports DeGrom today. I hate to make predictions, but I’m hopeful.
Pete Rose appeared on-field at a Phillies game this afternoon, during a salute to the 1980 team, five years after the team had cancelled plans to honor him, when allegations of statuary rape against him came to light.
When reporters had a chance to interview Rose afterwards, he was his usual “charming” self:
Cards outslugged the Yanks 12-9 today. Yesterday St. Louis won 1-0. Cards have won 7 in a row, while NY has lost 5 in a row. It’s the first time the Yanks have been swept in a 3-game series this year.
Cards now have a 2 game lead over the Brewers, but the Yankees still lead the Blue Jays by 9 1/2.
Some positive news for Yankees fans - Benintendi says he’s keeping an “open mind” on getting vaccinated against Covid-19. 
Even with Soto and Bell and injured pitching, the Dodgers just swept the Padres at home. I’m not too worried about the division title. Get into short series and it’s anybody’s game, of course.
His former teammate, Whit Merrifield, got the shot, and he scored the winning run today.
I’m glad I was able to shame the Mets into scoring a few runs for their ace pitchers, notably deGrom.
I’ll be available for the rest of the season.
Yanks swept by Cardinals but boy it sure seemed like the breaks all went St Louis’ way. The Yanks hit a lot of balls right at fielders and the Cards just seemed to get all the timely hits. Every championship team has some cold spells so it’s not time to panic-yet.
As a Cub fan, I’m not sure which of those teams I’d rather see lose.
Still sore about the 1932 World Series?
During the first half of the season, the Brewers led the NL Central for nearly the entire time, primarily thanks to great pitching.
Over the past month, that strength has faded; they are now in the middle of the pack on stats like ERA and WHIP, and the bullpen (which had been a particular strength, with Devin Williams and the now-traded Josh Hader) has given up a number of late-inning losses in the past few weeks. Yesterday, after the Brewers tied the Reds in the bottom of the 9th, Williams came on to pitch the 10th, gave up two runs, and got the loss.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals are playing very well (as noted, they swept the Yankees), and now have a two-game lead in the NL Central.
The Blue Jays and Orioles play over a quarter of their remaining games against each other. Can’t this be better balanced over the course of the season?