New thread for July.
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh hit his 33rd home run last night, tying him with Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa for the third-highest HR total by the end of June in MLB history, behind only Barry Bonds (39, 2001) and Mark McGuire (37, 1998).
Guardians were garbage in June. Hoping for a better July.
This is really a better halfway point than the All Star Game.
Who are the most surprisingly GOOD teams so far?
For reference, a guy compiled a bunch of reputable projections to average them all up here:
Tops has to be the Tigers, who I know made the playoffs last year, but most projections had them around 82-85 wins this year and they’re rather dramatically overperforming that so far.
The Angels are around .500, which is surprising, and the Rays and Blue Jays are the twop wild card teams right now, though most figured they’d be around .500.
The NL has no one REALLY surprising. The Cubs are ahead of their projection but they were still projected to do well and probably win the division. (Composite projections tend to push teams to 81-81.) The Cardinals are also doing better than most expected. They’re like the Rays, they always find a way. The Giants are doing well too.
Disappointing? Well, that’s gotta be your last place Baltimore Orioles, predicted to be a wild card contended and now ten games under .500, and the Braves, who were the consensus pick to win the NL East and instead have been fucking terrible (though they’ve scored more runs than they’ve allowed, so who knows what might happen.)
So long as they wait until after they play the Cubs, they could go undefeated the rest of the way.
I was delighted the Jays won on Canada Day, which they usually don’t; their all time record on Canada Day is terrible.
Happy Bobby Bonilla Day. $1.2 million to Bobby from the Mets today!
They did their patriotic best to gift wrap that game and hand it to their American cousins, but the boys in pinstripes insisted they enjoy the day instead.
Yeah, the back to back errors gave me a “you gotta be fucking kidding me” feeling but the Yankees just couldn’t do anything right the rest of the game. It was not a well played baseball game in general.
Braves pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach has a fractured right elbow.
If there’s a better defensive outfielder than Jacob Young, I’d like to know who he is.
Speaking of the YGBFKM feeling, tonight the Blue Jays were up 7-0 after ONE inning. And they blew the lead, folks. It was 9-9 in the 8th… and then they won anyway, 11-9.
Toronto and the Yankees are tied for first, and Tampa Bay is just half a game behind.
I don’t know how Toronto is doing it and still expect them to fade, but I really, really don’t, and never really do, understand how Tampa Bay keeps putting winning teams out there for no money. Like, where the fuck did Jonathan Aranda come from? Who’s this Caminero guy? He’s 21 and has hit 21 homers? Where do they keep finding pitchers?
The Yankees and Blue Jays are spending $290 million and $240 million this year, respectively - the two highest payrolls in the American League, by the way, as befitting their market size I guess - to stay exactly half a game ahead of the Rays, who are spending $79 million while in a borrowed spring training park. It’s amazing.
Clayton Kershaw becomes only the 20th member of the 3000 K club.
And only the 3rd to do it playing for a single team.
The All Star Game starters have been announced, and once again I’m mostly perplexed by the way fans vote on this thing. I’ve long since stopped letting it actually bother me, and I’m simply in the “huh, that’s weird, and not how I vote” camp, but I wanted to raise this question again. Without retyping everything, if you haven’t voted in this 2 year old poll already, please do so:
The other two were Walter Johnson (Senators) and Bob Gibson (Cardinals).
Kershaw may also be the last pitcher to record 3000 Ks, given how teams limit their pitcher’s time on the mound these days.
The White Sox definitely did not make it easy on Kershaw last night. I commented to a friend, “what, are they all friggin’ Joe Dimaggio now?” To see him do it on his 100th pitch, in what was certainly his last inning was really special. Kudos to Dave Roberts for doing the right thing and leaving him in for as long as he did. Kershaw knew he wasn’t pitching well last night, and basically said his slider sucked all night.
Freeman walking it off was the icing on the cake.
MLB has placed Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz on leave amidst a gambling inquiry.
As a follow-up to this post in last month’s thread, the Arizona Diamondbacks have banned fan Dave McCaskill for the rest of the 2025 season after repeated fan interference situations over the last few seasons. He has been involved in at least one incident in each of the last four seasons.
Dodgers are gaining a slight edge over the Tigers in the race for home-field advantage in the World Series.
Last month, I believe, we had a discussion regarding which pitcher can be awarded the win. And we correctly noted that a relief pitcher who was the most effective can get the win, even if his team was leading when he entered the game.
That exact scenario happened a couple of nights ago in Seattle for the Royals. Starting pitcher Michael Lorenzen pitched 4.2 innings, not enough for a win. When he left the game, KC led 5-3, a lead they never relinquished. The next pitcher, John Schreiber, finished the fifth, but allowed two base runners with one out in the sixth. He was pulled in favor of Angel Zerpa, who induced a double play to end the inning, but walked the first two batters in the 7th. On came Lucas Erceg, who got out of the inning, using a double play and a strikeout. Steven Cruz pitched a 1-2-3 8th, and Carlos Estevez did the same in the 9th. Cruz and Zerpa were each credited with a Hold, and Estevez got the Save. The win went to Erceg, who was judged to be the most effective reliever. An oddity: Zerpa got a Hold, even though he pitched before the winning pitcher.
Box score here on ESPN.
And oh by the way, the Blue Jays swept the Yanks and now lead NY and Tampa Bay by one game in the AL East.