you know I wonder if the dodgers dodged a bullet on that one …
Blue Jays first base coach Mark Budzinski left Toronto’s first game of a Saturday doubleheader when, horribly, he was notified that his 17-year-old daughter Julia had drowned.
There is of course no timetable for his return. The team has not won since.
If you take the Royals’ bullpen out of the discussion, they haven’t played as terrible lately as their record would indicate. Unfortunately, bullpens are incredibly important, and getting walked off like 4 times in the last week isn’t great for morale. I don’t know why Cal Eldred still has a job, it’s really embarrassing that he’s still around. Dayton Moore is a good person - but his character flaw of not being able to separate the personal with business is hurting this team (and has hurt it on many occasions in the past).
Anyway, if you have a Twitter account, you need to follow Pitching Ninja. If you don’t have an account, just bookmark his page and visit it dozens of times an hour. Either way, I need to start making it a priority to watch more Sandy Alcantara starts.
wow something new today
the sox cant catch a break can they ?
I wonder if any of the baserunners were any of the players that TLR told to “slow down”.
In last night’s start for the Jays, Yusei Kikuchi faced just 14 batters. He walked five of them and hit two.
Kikuchi has a $50 million arm and a 50-cent head; he is just the weirdest pitcher. He has a tremendous four seamer and a great slider and a good enough changeup, but throws the most hittable cut fastball in MLB… and will just throw the cutter, over and over, shaking off any other sign and sometimes obviously throwing the cutter when the catcher called for something else. He has apparently been instructed to never throw it and he just refuses to listen; the instant anyone gets so much as a single he starts throwing the cutter and either missing the zone by a foot or getting hammered. It’s almost a psychological tic, like he has some weird variant of Steve Blass Disease.
After every bad start now, which is almost all of them, Charlie Montoyo will go in front of the media and throw him under the bus, ripping him in a way he NEVER rips any other player under any circumstances. And then, five days later, Kikuchi is the starter again. It’s a bizarre and clearly unhealthy situation, and suggests there is some sort of major organizational disagreement behind the scenes; Montoyo seems to not want the guy on his team, but is being forced to start him, quite possibly by a front office unwilling to admit signing Kikuchi was a mistake. Kikuchi obviously doesn’t want to suck, but seems uncoachable and adrift. Meanwhile the team is 44-38, drifting lower in the standings, and disappointing everyone and in dire need of pitching. It’s going to be one interesting July.
My prediction is the Blue Jays will actually get worse; I think they’ll end the season something like 82-80, out of the postseason, and Montoyo will be the fall guy.
Nope. Adam Engel and Yoan Moncada took off and ran themselves out of the inning.
To be fair, it sure looked like a home run, or at least a double, off the bat.
Buxton is very, very good when he is healthy.
Reds manager David Bell, after his team’s pitching sprung a leak late in the game and a 3-2 lead turned into an 8-3 loss to the Mets:
“You’re going to lose sometimes. That’s what happened. They beat us.”
Profound.
The Reds now have their worst record for this point of the season since 1934.
WEll, right now it looks as if Toronto won’t quite be able to stuff the All tar team too badly; Bo Bichette, Santiago Espinal and George Springer aren’t quite making the starting lineup as it stands. Alejandro Kirk and Vladdy likely will but that’s ok.
I was surprised at how mediocre Bichette’s numbers are this season, mostly because for his career he’s batting .324/.366/.581 against the Yankees. He always seems like an all-star.
Since we can now do polls inside the thread: Did you cast an All Star Vote for the 2022 game?
- Yes
- No
0 voters
I didn’t. I have come to dislike the idea that the fans should choose who goes to the game. Let the players, coaches and writers pick, and let the fans do what they do best: complain about the choices others have made.
The local announces think it’s their job to encourage fans to vote for the guy from the home team.
That is, in fact, their job.
Okay, granted. That is their job. But it’s not my job to comply with their wishes.
While I’m not going to scream get off my lawn and demand a return to the paper ballots, I just hate the online system, I don’t use an ad blocker and the online system seems designed to do nothing but show me ads. And then there’s always injuries and guys opting out. I will watch, I hope they don’t use those awful uniforms from last year, but I’m sure they’ll find something worse.
I’ll still watch the game, been doing so since I was about 8 with very few missed. Of course, it’s the deadest time in sports as well
Who has the game this year?
It will be played at Dodger Stadium.
Sorry, I meant what station is broadcasting the game.
FOX will carry it this year.
Manfred is putting Pujols and Miggy in the All Star Game, using a new tool given to him via the new CBA. It allows him to add 1 player per team who deserves special career recognition. I think it’s an elegant solution to the problem we were talking about earlier. Let Pujols take the field, but be taken out in a defensive substation so he can get the recognition. He’s a star - he should be there, and it doesn’t take the place of anyone else.