(Roughly) Halfway through the season. Let the dog days of summer begin.
As noted in last month’s thread, Kershaw just went on the DL. Could be a brief stint, but maybe not. The Indians come into July on a 13-game winning streak. No first place team has less than a five-game lead in their division—will July be the month that someone puts a division out of reach (I’m looking at you, Cubs)?
Orioles had a pretty good June. Still hanging on to first place in the AL East, they set the record for home runs in the month of June (and were just a few shy of the record for any month), and spent the last half of June beating up on the Rays and Padres. It’s not going to be near as easy the rest of the way, but it’s been fun so far.
Boston is banned from signing foreign amateurs for a year, and had 5 teenage signees declared free agents.
This stems from the organization circumventing signing bonus rules.
Exactly two home runs per game in June. That’s pretty damn impressive, considering that the AL average last year was about 1.1 per team per game, and even in the heyday of power hitting in the late nineties and early 2000s, the average was only about 1.2 - 1.3.
It’s all that power that helped them keep winning. They gave up exactly 5 runs per game in June, which is too many in a league where the average is about 4.4. They’ll either need to keep mashing those homers, or get some better pitching, if they want to stay ahead.
Aside from the Kershaw issues the big question for the Dodgers is if Cory Seager has had the best half season of anyone not nominated to an all star team.
Seriously, the kid leads rookies in every category except home runs where he’s second. He’s first or second in every category on the shortstop list, he’s in the top 10 for homers and he’s played fantastic defense. It would probably help if people in the second largest market could see him dominate but damn what else does a guy have to do?
Isn’t having to pay Rusney Castillo’s contract enough punishment?
The only punishment that would be worse (baseball-related) is having to be a pitcher for Dusty Baker
A sentence or two you don’t read very often: “Shortstop Ryan Goins pitches out of trouble in the top of the inning. Bottom of the 18th coming up!”
Losing three straight to Oakland didn’t kill San Francisco. They only lost one game in the standings over the Dodgers.
Cleveland has now won 13 straight games, outlastimg the the Blue Jays in 19 innings. Darwin Barney took the loss.
14, actually. And Barney threw a gem of a pitch to strike out Napoli and end the top of the 19th. Too bad (for him, I actually like the guy) he didn’t throw that pitch to Santana!
I watched that whole 6.5-hour game. What an ordeal. 
When Barney played for the Cubs, I originally thought that he could fill a “Fernando Vina” role at the top of the order. I’m not sure he ever really got a fair chance during his Cub years
Angels 20 Red Sox 2 and it is only the 8th inning! I’ve got to
see the end of this game on MLB TV!
Remember when we Sox fans were always so frustrated with Buchholz for being so inconsistent? Gotta give it to him, he’s gotten pretty damn consistent lately.
Jake Arrieta seems to have regressed from last season. No surprise; no one could keep the pace from last season.
Just an awful game from the Cubs, Lester only gets 4 outs and I’m already thinking of changing the channel.
I’m right there with you, dale
So the Mets will sweep a four game series from the Cubs. I take back everything bad I said about Alexander De Aza and Terry Collins’s decision to bat him first.
Strasberg was pulled after no hitting the Reds for 6 2/3.
A good move. It’s his first game off the DL, and he really ran up his pitch count in a tough first inning.