Happy June! Gotta admit, absolutely shocked to see MLB embracing Pride Month openly this year.
Everyone has a 4 on their jersey today for Lou Gehrig Day.
The Brewers have won seven in a row, including sweeping the Red Sox last week, and the Phillies this weekend, to climb back above .500.
Christian Yelich, who had been scuffling below .200 for much of the season, has been on a tear; in his past twelve games, before today, he’d hit .356, with five home runs, bringing his season average up to .233. However, he was hit in the hand by a pitch in the first inning today, and wound up being pulled from the game. Initial reports are it’s a contusion, which would suggest he won’t miss much time.
The Blue Jays have been happily celebrating Pride for many years now, so ILB always had.
Anyway, took my daughter and my nieces to our first game of the season today. Jays pulled off a comeback win and the kids had a delightful time spending my money on food. Great day!
Not having as good a day; the Rockies, who lost their 50th game today, thus becoming the only team in modern MLB history to lose 50 games before winning 10.
Thanks for clarifying that. I am watching the Yankees and Dodgers; I saw the #4 on the Dodgers uniforms and thought they were honoring Duke Snider in some way. I guess I wasn’t paying attention enough to notice that the Yankees had a similar patch.
Washington Nationals dfa reliever Jorge Lopez, who had a strange stat line: 6 - 0, with a 6.50 era
The contradictory stats are partly because for a few of his wins, he came in, gave up runs, then the Nats scored in the bottom part of the inning to get him the W.
So maybe not such a great pitcher, but just unusually lucky?
Sure seems that way, and a case study for pitching wins being a pretty useless statistic.
He was an All-Star in 2022, when he was with the Orioles, and had an ERA under 2 (but still had six losses as a reliever); he was traded to the Twins shortly after the ASG, where he was not nearly as good for the rest of the season. Career ERA of 5.66, WHIP of 1.454, bWAR of -0.1 – essentially, the epitome of a replacement-level pitcher.
Washingtons game against Arizona on Saturday was unusual
- the Nationals scored nine runs in the top of the first inning before recording a single out
- CJ Abrams was hit by a pirch twice in the same inning, and three times overall
- it ended up being surprisingly close at 11 - 7
He vultured only two of his six wins and he didn’t pitch THAT badly in them. His other four wins, he was just the guy who last got someone out.
The Royals are calling up Jac Caglianone.
KC won 1-0 yesterday and lost 1-0 today to the Tigers.
At yesterday’s game I noted the A’s had patches on their sleeves saying “Sacramento.” Guys, just fucking admit you’re the Sacramento Athletics and allow yourselves to be called that.
Washington had the bases loaded with ten runs on the board before they got them out, so they were just a few hits away from history; the record for runs inthe first inning is fifteen.
After yesterday’s loss to the Mets, the Rockies are 9-50. They’re on a pace to lose 137 games.
They are 3-28 on the road.
They are now on an 8-game losing streak, already the fourth eight-game losing streak this year.
Interesting schedule today, not a single interleague game. Admittedly, it’s not a full slate of games as Monday is a common travel day, but still rare these days.
The craziest stat from that game is the Arizona starter Brandon Pfaadt gave up 8 runs on 6 hits and no walks. The other 2 runs came from the Abrams HBPs.
I don’t get it either, but I think it’s funny that it’s gotten under your skin so badly! Nothing riles you up more in these threads than The Athletics Ballclub of Athleticia.
Baseball is often unpredictable and strange. The Yankees lose the Fried vs. Gonsolin match-up but win the Yarbrough vs. Yamamoto game*.
Has a starting pitcher with a nine-letter last name starting with a ‘y’ ever faced a starting pitcher with a nine-letter first name starting with a ‘y’?
In Saturday’s Reds v. Cubs game, young Reds phenom Elly de la Cruz struck out for the 434th time. That ties him for 1584th on the all time list with Tony Gwynn.
Tony needed 10,232 plate appearances to do it, but Elly managed it in just 1,377!
The next Hall of Famer on the list is Roger Connor, who struck out for the 455th time in 1897 after 8,847 PAs. He also held the all time HR record until Ruth came along.
de la Cruz did lead the majors in striking out last year. He has struck out on 32% of his career plate appearances, which puts him in the company of such legendary whiff artists as Chris Davis (33%), Rob Deer (31%) and Adam Dunn (29%).
For those that haven’t watching him play much, he’s an absolute delight on and off the field. He’s one of the most electric players in today’s game, and his enthusiasm for the game is visible.
He also has worked really hard on his English skills, and was really cute to watch when he did his first non-translator interview last year. I don’t envy these kids coming to the MLB and having to both play at the most elite level, but to also be a fish out of water in a country where you don’t speak the language.
The Seattle Mariners are going to retire #51 for both Ichiro and Randy Johnson. The official ceremony will happen during the 2026 season.