That sounds like the Mariners for forever. Until this season, where they went all-in on a rebuild (and it’s showing).
In tonight’s Braves/Phillies game, Robert Acuna robbed Scott Kingery of a home run, but dropped the ball after bringing it back into the field of play. Showing fantastic hustle, Kingery turns it into an inside-the-park homer.
Ouch! Tough break for the Brewers: Christian Yelich fractured his kneecap and will miss the rest of the season.
I’m not going to tempt karma by tap-dancing on Yelich’s injury, so I’ll just say that it could be advantageous for the Cubs.
Yup, I saw that. It was a fluke, but an awesome one. For Phillies fans, anyway. My money was on the Braves, and I also like them, so I can’t say I was HAPPY to see what happened there, but it was pretty remarkable all the same.
So, why wasn’t it a triple plus an error for a four bagger?
Generous officials?
There’s no error on that play. The catch could not have been made with an ordinary effort, an the play at home isn’t an ordinary effort play, either.
I think you could give an error on that play. He did a lot of dancing around when he could have been picking up the ball.
The Mets get 9 runs and 11 hits on 9/11.
Oo.
That is a mental mistake, though. You cannot charge errors for mental mistakes - that’s actually specifically stated in the rulebook.
I agree they should not have allowed a home run on that play but, according to the rules, it’s a homer.
If they didn’t allow a home run, baseball would be less interesting. It’s cool to see an inside-the-park home run.
Best one I’ve ever seen was when Rance Mulliniks, who by this point was 36 or 37 and ran like he was a war amputee, legged one out against the Rangers at Skydome with yours truly in attendance.
Texas’s left fielder than day was Kevin Reimer, who was the worst defensive outfielder I have ever seen play in the major leagues for whom playing the outfield was his actual primary position. Kevin was not substantially better than Ray Charles would have been. He had no range, usually broke in the wrong direction anyway, and spread butter all over his glove before every game, but he made up for it by having a bad arm.
So anyway, in the eighth inning with the Jays up 1-0, Rance lofted a short fly to left field. Reimer, as was his custom, froze. He then ran towards the ball, hesitated, and started running again, unable to make the decision most pro outfielders can make in a split second as to whether he wanted to try to catch it on the fly or get it on a bounce. (Absolutely 99% of MLB outfielders would have run in and caught it effortlessly.) At the last moment he decided that the best course of action was to fall down in the direction of the ball and hope for the best. This didn’t work; the ball bounded past him, wholly untouched. The center fielder- Juan Gonzalez, which tells you all you need to know about how good the Rangers defense was - had started sprinting over from center the moment the ball was hit because Juan knew who his teammate was, but neither he nor Reimer had any chance at all. The ball bounced merrily into the left field corner and Rance, huffing and puffing, “ran” around third and headed for home while the sellout crowd stood and screamed, fifty thousand people yelling “FASTER RANCE! GO GO GO!” The throw wasn’t even close and Rance Mulliniks had hit the first inside the park homer at Skydome while the fans cheered like he’d cured cancer. It was wonderful.
But it wasn’t an error. Reimer was terrible, but he never touched the ball, it did not go through him - it kind of bounced to his right as he sprawled helplessly - and hesitation is a mental error.
Dude…gimme this Bichette kid. Who do you want on the Red Sox? Who can I get you in a three way trade involving Betts??
I hate that announcer assessment “The batter wasn’t intentionally hit!! It was a breaking ball!”
Well dude…maybe the pitcher isn’t a cro-magnon who wants to break someones rib or annihilate a kidney! Maybe he’s under instructions from the manager and he’s fulfilling it without ruining a career.
So, re Betts, people in Houston, including me now, are sweating the likelihood that Betts will leave Boston after this year. And get way more than spotrac’s estimated market values of 28.5M per year.
The problem is George Springer on the Astros is also coming up on FA, is perhaps 85-90% of the player Betts is, has New England ties, and the Sox may feel that 24-25 a year to Springer beats paying 33-35 a year to Betts. Doubt the Astros can match Boston in a bidding war, even if you discount Cole staying after this year, or Correa remaining an Astro when he hits FA.
As for ‘LOL! 33-35 million a year? Put the bong down…’ Go see what fangraphs thinks Betts is worth on the open market per year.
Who’s the NL MVP with him out? Bellinger?
Especially if it’s the third guy he’s hit in 2 innings, down by over 10 runs. Obvious without being obvious.
First article I found at Fangraphs about him estimated $300 million total. If it’s an eight or nine year commitment, sure, that’s right. He’s better than Bryce Harper so why not?
I would have voted for Bellinger anyway.
Speaking of guys who hit home runs, more fun facts about how cheap homers are now:
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Two teams, the Yankees and Twins, have already broken the record for homers in a season by a team (set just last year.) The Astros and Dodgers have a good chance of surpassing the old record as well, and remember the Dodgers usually have a pitcher batting ninth.
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The overall league record for homers has already fallen.
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The Orioles have already surrendered 280 homers, a new record.
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Speaking of the Orioles, Dan Straily has surrendered 22 bombs. He’s only pitched 47 innings.
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Back to team records… the following teams have all, still with a few weeks to go, broken their team records for homers in a season; Yankees, Twins, Dodgers, Astros, Braves and Padres, and the A’s, Red Sox, Cubs, Brewers, Mets, Reds, Nationals, Pirates, and Diamondbacks will all break theirs at current pace.
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The Marlins and Tigers are the only MLB teams that don’t average more than a homer a game.
My favourite team, the Blue Jays, is terrible, and yet they have smacked 221 bombs, a huge number - far, far more than in their 1992-1993 World Series years when their offense was famously good, and almost as many as the 2015 team which was one of the best offenses in modern baseball history. Their two starting middle infielders, Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette, have both gotten to double figures in bombs despite being midseason callups; the Blue Jays did not have a middle infielder hit 10 home runs in a season until the ninth season of the franchise’s existence (and then it was just 10.)
61 of those homers were surrendered to the Yanks which is a weird record, most homers ever surrendered by a team to a team. Of those 61 Homers, Gleyber Torres has 13 of them.