There is no baseball outside of the Dodgers.
The Jays bullpen blew ANOTHER lead.
Of their last 10 losses, Toronto was leading six of them going into the seventh inning.
And people wonder why the Dodgers are one of the most-hated baseball teams.
I don’t. Envy of one’s betters is a common failing.
Those are some ugly uniforms the Miami Marlins are wearing. Orange jerseys with white chalk stripes, white pants and powder blue socks and caps They look like my 7 year old nephew trying to dress himself
i agree with silenus
From a tribute to Berra - in the Boston Globe:
“Quips like (Berra’s), hand in hand with the unrelated but popular “Yogi Bear” cartoon character born in the late 1950s, no doubt have played a part in blurring Berra’s standing in the game. His sayings were clever, sometimes unintentionally so, and over the years they’ve fashioned him somewhat of a kooky caricature than accomplished catcher.”
“A blessing and a curse,” acknowledged Lindsay Berra. “The Yogi-isms are what really endeared him to the American public, and that’s wonderful. I love so many of them … but it’s also kind of made people see him as this funny guy who said funny things instead of the amazing baseball player that he was. I think they kind of served to make him the underrated player that I think he is today. It’s made people forget how good he was on the field.”
I’m sure somebody else noted this before but it just occurred to me: another stupid consequence of the stupid extra inning “initial placement” rule is that a reliever could throw a perfect 1-2-3 inning and get tagged with a loss.
It almost happened to the Giants’ Travis McGee last night. Pitched a perfect 10th but gave up a run on a ground out and sac fly. Fortunately, the Giants came back with 2 in the bottom of the 10th.
Does anyone know if this rule is permanent, or just another Covid artifact?
It’s come up pretty often, usually when someone realizes that not only could a reliever be tagged with a loss, but a pitcher could throw a perfect game and still lose. While the rule may be kind of dumb, to me it just highlights how stupid wins and losses are for individual stats for a pitcher.
It’s probably permanent - they’re going to be trying to use every thing they can to speed the game up in the next few years. Other than, you know, the suggestions that would likely be the most successful at it.
The most important number about Berra is ten. That’s the number of World Series rings he won as a player, more than anyone else, ever.
Berra won 3 MVP awards and is in the Hall of Fame and I think he’s underrated.
I’ve read that Berra more than once turned an unassisted double play on suicide squeeze attempts. Pounce on the bunt, tag the batter, tag the runner coming in from 3rd. Amazing cat-like reaction.
(And when was the last time you saw a suicide squeeze?)
This article from Fangraphs looked at the 2019 season. The numbers, at least to me, would argue against the rule.
To start, some basic numbers. Of the 2,429 unique games played in the 2019 major league season, 208 went past the ninth. That’s already a relatively small percentage: 8.6%, or once every 12 games. Still, that means we got extra innings roughly every day. Most of those games, though, didn’t last very long. Of those 208 contests, 95 finished in the 10th, leaving 113 games that reached the 11th or beyond, or 4.6% of all games played — once every 22 games, or about every other day. And of those 113 games, 57 came to a conclusion in the 11th. We’re now down to 56 games that saw the 12th, or a minuscule 2.3% of the season. Your odds of watching a game that goes that long are one in 42; you might get one once a week.
Do the math, and the result is that 73% of games that went into extras and 97.7% of all games in 2019 ended in the 11th inning or earlier. That suggests that, for the majors, the time suck that is extra innings is a problem a minority of the time. The great majority of games never even get past the ninth, and in a fitting display of entropy, they usually run out of steam after one or two innings of free baseball.
Heck, if it wasn’t for the fact that the A’s just pulled one off against the Giants, I’d say it’s been years since I even saw a safety squeeze. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a live suicide squeeze.
I don’t think I have ever seen one live. I tried to google around to see if I could find the last time it’s been pulled off in MLB, and I found this video of the Brewers winning a game with one in 2013, but I couldn’t find a cite for it being done since then.
Twenty-one times so far in 2021, batters have driven in runners from 3rd with a sacrifice bunt. So squeezes aren’t even close to extinct. Short of seeking out game stories on all 21 games, there is no way to know how many were suicidal. Nor of course can it be determined how many unsuccessful attempts there were.
I’d like to know how many were the product of the extra innings, man on second, Manfred garbage. If you’re the home team and the game is still tied, two bunts and it’s over. Seems crazy not to.
According to Fangraphs, there has been 1 extra innings bunt for an RBI this season (by DET’s Robbie Grossman), and 36 extra innings bunt attempts (or rather, PAs with a bunt attempt).
Are you awarded an RBI if you drive in the phantom base runner? I know that it’s an unearned run on the pitcher’s ledger.
Not MLB, but this is worth noting:
The Class A Beloit (Wisconsin) Snappers took a perfect game and a 6-0 lead into the top of the ninth…and lost 10-7 in ten innings.
After 25 straight outs to start the game, the River Bandits followed with 10 hits in 12 at-bats with a hit batsman and a sacrifice fly.
I don’t know the Official Answer, but the box scores I’ve seen score it as a run scored to the runner and an RBI to the batter, but not an earned run to the pitcher.