Judge has more RBI AND more runs scored than games played.
I am pretty sure the last played to have more runs scored than games in a season was Rickey Henderson in 1985. It’s a very rare feat, rarer than RBI>games. Most of the times it happened were either in 19th century baseball or the extreme hitting years of the 1920s and 1930s, with Babe Ruth doing it six times.
Meanwhile, Vladdy finally hit a home run (off Spencer Strider, returning from a year off. Strider was actually pretty damned good, but he lost because the Braves can’t hit.)
I am unconcerned. He’s swinging the bat well and seeing the ball well, it was just a fluke. the fact the Jays as a team aren’t hitting home runs again makes me think Don Mattingly is behind this though. Consider:
The Jays are third in the AL in batting average.
They are sixth is walks, but have the second FEWEST strikeouts.
They have the second most doubles.
And yet they’re next to last in home runs.
They are hitting the baseball. They have guys who clearly CAN hit dingers - Vladdy, Santander, Bichette, Springer and so on. But they do not hit dingers. And their most influential coach openly says you should not try to hit dingers. Why the hell is that loser still employed?
Anyway they’re 11-8, so I can’t complain in general, I didn’t expect them to be good. And they likely won’t be for long, but it’s been OK baseball so far.
Mattingly is one of my all-time favorite players so I’m extremely biased, but isn’t his message more that you should hit the ball where it’s pitched and not try to pull everything? Either way, the all or nothing approach that’s infected the game for the past few decades has made the sport duller.
Some baseball players have returned to pro ball after back surgery to repair degenerative disc problems (notably, that article doesn’t specify how effective they were). Max Scherzer returned after back surgery, though not as yet to a high level of performance.*
*reportedly it’s his thumb that’s now bothering him.
The Brewers’ Christian Yelich had microdiscectomy surgery last August, to relieve back pain which had plagued him for several years.
He’s been playing pretty much every day so far this season, but is off to a very slow start so far (.172 BA). It’s undoubtedly too early to say if he’s just in a short-term slump, versus facing a longer-term decline in his skills, but it’s concerning.
In the latest Chicago Cub “the sky is falling because they’re not undefeated,” fair-weather fandom (which I freely concede is mostly confined to a few Facebook groups I follow), rookie 3B Matt Shaw was optioned to Iowa after getting off to a slow start. He was just 10-for-58 with one homer and three RBIs. He has 18 strikeouts in 68 plate appearances.
Some people (the aforementioned fair-weather fans) are glooming-and-dooming this move and labeling him a bust. Of course, Kyle Schwarber, Javy Baez, Anthony Rizzo, and Ian Happ were all optioned back to Iowa during their early Cub careers, and they seem to have turned out okay. At least while playing in Chicago.
And now I read Jim Bowden is ripping the Cubs for demoting Shaw.
Look, Jimbo, you ain’t there. To some extent, you can look at these decisions from afar and see that a decision like this is right or wrong. Sometimes the numbers really do indicate the front office is out to lunch. But in this case, Shaw was not hitting well, and he also wasn’t FIELDING well. The coaching staff likely sees something we don’t - that his confidence is shot or he’s struggling to get sleep or there is a significant mechanical issue. Yes, he had a hit in each of his last two games and he wasn’t comically inept - he was drawing walks at least - but on an edge case I always assume the coaches know more than I do, because of course they do.
This is what baseball is all about. And, yes, the winds here are crazy as we’re gonna get hit with a huge thunderstorm tonight bring temperatures way down. 74 degrees F now down to 45 degrees overnight
Six home runs, and yeah, the wind (pretty steady all day at 20-30 mph) is blowing out of the southwest here right now which is effectively going out to straightaway center field at Wrigley.
And Arizona putting up a 10-spot in the later innings and still losing. To an extent, Chicago under the right conditions can be just like Colorado - no lead is safe.
True. But the Cubs did fall victim to one of the rarer MLB rules.
Ethan Roberts was the Cub pitcher brought into the game in the 8th inning, when the Cubs were trailing 8-7 with two outs. He gave up a home run, but then managed to get out of the inning. The Cubs took the lead in the bottom of the inning, while he was still the pitcher of record, putting him in line for the win.
Ryan Pressly pitched the 9th inning for Chicago, and closed the game out.
However, the official scorer didn’t feel like Roberts deserved the win, so he awarded it to Pressly instead, and no save was awarded.
Kyle Tucker hit a ball into right field. The right fielder misjudged the direction of the ball’s ricochet off of the wall, and the ball rolled back in towards the infield. The 2nd baseman actually picks the ball up. Tucker is standing on third base.
The box score reflects that play as Tucker tripling to second base (since the 2nd baseman was the person who fielded the ball).
50 hits, 11 home runs in that one.