After a rather disappointing early season, Juan Soto had a good June - 11 HR and a .322 BA - and was named NL player of the month.
Mets’ Juan Soto named NL Player of the Month for June
Not good enough to make the All Star team, but at least moving in the right direction.
Kinda like Seiya Suzuki. Among the league leaders in home runs, leading both leagues in RBI, but Kyle Schwarber, while putting together a solid season, isn’t having as good a season as Suzuki is, gets the All-Star instead.
By which metric? Schwarber has more WAR and a higher OPS. The RBI lead is nice, but it seems Schwarber deserves it.
Suzuki has more hits in fewer plate appearances, and a higher slugging percentage to go along with those RBIs. Suzuki has also played more games in the field (DH:61, RF:14, LF:12 for Suzuki vs DH:84, LF:6 for Schwarber), so his all-around contribution has been more impactful.
Seems like my doubts about the wisdom of the A’s big off-season signing of Luis Severino (3 years, $67 million) may have been justified.
After Saturday’s loss to the Giants (5 ER in 4 1/3 innings), Severino is now 2-10 on the season with a 5.30 ERA and leads the AL in earned runs and hits given up.
With his second hit of the game against Arizona, Manny Machado of the Padres just became the 297th player to reach 2,000 hits.
Well, fine by me. Fangraphs has them as virtually identical (2.3 WAR for Suzuki and 2.5 for the other guy.) If I was the NL manager and had the decision making power, I’d leave them both off and take Soto, though. I’ve never been a fan of the 3TO player, like Schwarber, especially if they don’t play defense. At least Suzuki is a bit more rounded out.
Given a choice I’d always take the guy who is REALLY the best player, not just the guy who had a good first half, and that’s obviously Soto. It’s too bad Seiya Suzuki didn’t make it, though.
Schwarber gets on base a LOT more, and that is a very, very big deal.
I still don’t fully understand how the Tigers changed after the All-star game last year to go from “not good” to one of the best teams in MLB. Did they really acquire that many good players or did their OK players just improve?
This year, they have the best record and are certainly one of the top 2-3 teams in the league.
It will be disappointing if they make it to the World Series and lose. The Tigers one it in 1984 and then have lost two World Series since.
The Royals struggled mightily offensively in June, especially at home, where they went 1-12. In those 13 games, they hit a grand total of four home runs.
Last night against Pittsburgh, in their first home game in July, KC hit four home runs. Those of us who cheer for the Royals hope that trend continues. But we are also not optimistic.
Brewers rookie pitcher Jacob Misiorowski had another strong outing tonight, against the Dodgers. In 6 innings of work, he gave up 4 hits and one run (a home run by Shotei Ohtani to lead off the game), while striking out 12 and walking just one, and earning the win.
In his first five major league starts, “The Miz” is now 4-1, with a 2.81 ERA, a WHIP of 0.90, and 33 strikeouts.
For those keeping track, in a head to head matchup Raleigh and Judge both hit home runs. 36 for Cal, 34 for Aaron.
It helps the Brewers that the Dodgers are playing like absolute crap right now. After a string of playing a bunch of weak teams, they got absolutely decimated by Houston, and apparently still haven’t recovered.
Mother Nature has been in the forefront of the news over the past week. She also added a bit of drama to a minor-league game last night. Watch the video embedded in this story.
If there is lightning that close they should be more worried about getting everyone under cover.
This may be interesting. Or not.
The Yankees have designated DJ LeMahieu for assignment.
At long last, what a bad joke. Cashman can be too stubborn sometimes.
Apparently so. The Brewers won again today, 3-2, giving them their first-ever sweep of the Dodgers in a series played in Milwaukee*. The Dodgers have now lost six straight, for the first time since 2019.
*- Bearing in mind that the Brewers were in the American League through 1997, so they have a relatively limited history of playing the Dodgers.