Padres won 2-1 and are once again tied with the Dodgers for the NL West lead. They play two more games this weekend and do not face each other the rest of the season. The Padres have the major’s second-easiest strength-of-schedule (.457) in their remaining games, although, at .478, the Dodgers also have a favorable SOS.
In their series with the Red Sox, the Yankees so far have 4 runs and 5 errors.
This please me.
Cal Raleigh hit 2 HRs today in a 11-4 rout of the A’s. That’s 49 this year so far. A new record all time for a catcher and there’s still more season left.
His next record to chase is Mickey Mantle’s 54 HRs for a switch hitter in a season.
The Dodgers beat the Padres today and once again the two teams are tied for the lead in the NL West. The SOS website shows that San Diego has the easiest remaining schedule in the majors, while the Dodgers have the 4th-easiest. They do not play each other again.
Cubs completed a series sweep of the Angels (their first sweep this year, I believe) and the Brewers lead is down to 5.
The Cubs remaining SoS is the 2nd lowest in the league at .456, Brewers have the 10th highest at .511.
The two teams don’t play again in the regular season.
How much season is left? Does he have a realistic chance at 60?
I’m going to say no because I don’t want to jinx it.
I mean, he on average gets a HR every few games. At that rate, get could very possibly get to 60 by the end of September.
If I were to guess, he’ll be around 55, beat Mantle’s record but still fall short of the overall record Judge set. Just my gut talking here.
They have 31 games left, including tonight hosting the Padres.
AND he just hit #50!!! First time a catcher has hit 50 homers in a season.
So he needs 10 in 30+ games. Certainly doable, especially considering how hot he is right now.
I hope he reads my post here doubting him and it pisses him off enough to just keep slamming homers the rest of the year.
And today the most important sporting event of the year concludes with the Mariners winning the Vedder Cup!
I just saw that, and also learned that Vedder is a Cubs fan. Seems a tad odd.
For those, like me, who had no idea what the Vedder Cup is:
That article has a LOT of rivalries. Some of which have pretty interesting backstories.
To be fair, this is the first year there has ever been a physical trophy. It was just some imaginary prize in previous years.
Good news: Cardinals had a walk off win.
Bad news: lowest attendance in the history of the stadium and the first time attendance has been below 20,000 since it opened in 2006. St Louis is such a good baseball town. The league is better for it when they have a good team.
Ron Washington revealed that he had a quadruple bypass 8 weeks ago.
I ran across this article today so I’d like to revisit my answer:
It points out that Cal is only 1 HR behind where Judge was at this point in the year he set the record. And to summarize a lengthy and detailed article, with the way the Mariners’ schedule looks the rest of the year, it’s very possible for him to match or beat the 62 HR record by the end of the season, even taking in the possibility that teams may want to walk him more.
I just checked. The weather was nice all day, albeit a little cool compared to recent nights. So that’s not it.
Lots of people take kids to Cards games. I think that was the first Monday of the school year for many districts. So that would exclude a lot of families with kids.
But big picture, this is bad news.
After years of being a powerhouse, the Cards’ three years of bare mediocrity at a time when MLB in general is suffering from a fan base rapidly dying of old age may show the path forward for all but a very few teams. The death spiral of few middle-aged fans, few to no young new fans, crashing ticket sales revenue and all the rest.
Before this season, Raleigh had hit 20 career homers right-handed . This season he now has another 20 batting righty. Kinda cool.
They were talking on the radio yesterday about how Raleigh said he had worked on his right hand swing in the off season. Apparently, it worked. His stats right-handed are dramatically better this year, and not just the HRs.
Will this be his career year and an outlier? Or has he come into his prime and just beginning a years-long run of excellence? If it’s the latter, that’s a helluve team friendly contract.