Did something change with the start of all star voting this year? I’m glad to see that they waited until after Memorial Day, this isn’t the old days with the Gillette punchcards. I just seem to remember it started earlier in the season in the past few years, before anyone could really get an idea of who’s just having a hot week and who is truly worthy of going to the game.
Although, yes, I know that fans will vote their favorites as well as well known names, regardless of the season they’re having.
No. Great teams do better in blowouts, not one run games. Last year the worst team in baseball, Detroit, was .500 in one run games.
Seattle has played an extraordinary number of one run games - almost half their games, far more than anyone else - and has won two thirds of them. Neither is sustainable. I mean, teams HAVE from time to time gone a whole year playing .700 ballin one run games, but don’t bet on it. And never this many games.
Houston is 4-12 in one run games, also a fluke, and that won’t continue either.
It feels like Houston has been bad to mediocre in games against good teams so far (haven’t bothered checking the numbers), which is a bit disturbing. OTOH there are more bad teams than good teams in the league so I guess that won’t hurt them too badly before the postseason.
The Giants are 3-0 so far this month, and have given up only a single run. Obviously, this trend will continue for the rest of the season, so I’ll certainly understand if the est of the NL West just wants to give up now.
Madison Bumgarner comes back tomorrow. I think the psychological impact of his return will probably be more significant than his actual physical presence on the field. Given the way the rest of the division looks right now, if they can avoid losing any more starters for extended periods of time, I think they’ve got as good a chance at the Division as anyone.
We truly live in a new era that a guy can strike out over 200 times a year and still be a good player.
Judge is on track to strike out 236 times this year. That would be the record. And yet he hits homers and get on base a lot. The strikeouts are crazy these days.
Aaron only threw out five men last year but has already thrown out five this year, which is odd. I’ll await more evidence before saying he’s Jesse Barfield, but I agree he is a very good outfielder; he has much better range than one might expect from a man his size.
Defensively Judge reminds me of Dave Winfield, who was a good outfielder in his youth but in this 30s started to lose his mobility because he was so damn huge.
I know there are those who oppose interleague ball and will fight against as if it is a Holy War. But, I’ll have to admit, I’ve enjoyed this blowout with the Washington Nationals beating up on the Rays. It hasn’t been a great game, but it is nice for me to watch a couple of teams that wouldn’t normally play each other.
People also tend not to realize Mike Trout led the AL in strikeouts in 2014 with 184 (also the same year he won his first MVP award). And he’s considered to be the best player of our era.
Supposedly on this day back in 1944x all the games were cancelled due to D-Day? Is that true? And why would they? France is 7 hours ahead of the US East Coast, I can’t imagine anyone knew much of the success or failure of the Normandy invasion by the afternoon when the ball games would start. It also doesn’t seem fair to the road teams back in the train travel era.
The cancelling of that day’s games seems to have something to do with our nation holding its collective breath as the fate of the war quite possibly hinged on the success (or failure) of the largest amphibious invasion in history.
Years earlier, within a month of the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR wrote that baseball should continue to be played for the morale of the country. It looks like continuing to play baseball after a tragedy is one thing - a symbolic one at that - and cancelling baseball with beforehand knowledge of a history-altering action is something altogether different.
Awww. Red Schoendienst has died. He might not be known to many outside St. Louis, but he was a fine player, coach, and wise man who wore the Birds on the Bat for 60 years. He was 95.
I met Red once in the Redbird Club at Busch Stadium. Well, met may be overstating it. I bumped into him as he was walking from the restroom back to the box where he watched all home games. I called out, “Hey, Red! How you doing?” Without breaking his stride he looked at me, smiled and said, “Very good young man. How are you?” Seemed like a nice guy and according to all stories he was.
2018 was the 74th year Red had donned a uniform as either a player, coach or manager. Until today he was the oldest member of the BBHOF.
Here’s the MLB schedule from 1944. It looks likeSunday, June 4 had every team in both leagues scheduled for a doubleheader. There were no games on Monday, June 5 or Tuesday, June 6.
Looking further on the schedule, there were other Monday-Tuesday dates where no games were played (May 8-9, June 26-27, and July 10-11, which was part of the All-Star break). According to this story,there were only two games that had been scheduled for June 6.
June 5 1944 was a Monday, there were very seldom Monday games in those days. There were often Sunday doubleheaders and Monday was typically a travel day.