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If only statcast had the technology to measure the launch angle and exit velocity of yankee balls that have been hit off of your chin.

Goo Punch
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Hank Chinaski
Hank Chinaski

Good fucking riddance. 

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What. A. Week. The best offense in baseball forgot to get a hit. Bartolo Colon outraced the world’s fastest human (almost). And one at-bat in Anaheim nearly lasted longer than the Anglo-Zanzibar War. So join us now as the Useless Info Department recaps the highlights!

THE 21-PITCH ROAD TO HISTORY

Imagine what you could do in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. Cook up breakfast? Buy a new set of living-room furniture online? Watch a Carlos Gómez home run trot? All kinds of stuff!

But by now, you know what sweet-swinging Giants first baseman Brandon Belt did in 12 minutes and 45 seconds last Sunday. He dug into the batter’s box at Angels Stadium – and 12 minutes, 45 seconds later, he was still there.

Because Angels pitcher Jaime Barria couldn’t get him out, couldn’t walk him, couldn’t get him to move on with his life, couldn’t even call his lawyer and get a restraining order.

Along the way, here’s what transpired:

— Belt fouled off 16 pitches. In one at-bat.
— He fouled off 15 pitches just with two strikes.
— He fouled off 11 pitches in a row – after running the count full (on the ninth pitch of the at-bat).
— Barria threw 11 fastballs, six sliders and four change-ups – and mixed in four pickoff throws to first while he was at it.

So for all that time – 21 pitches, 16 foul balls, 12 minutes and 45 seconds – basically, nothing happened (until Belt finally flied out to right on pitch No. XXI).

And it was awesome.

“He fouled off good pitches,” the dulcet voice of the Giants, Duane Kuiper, told our Useless Info Department correspondents. “And he fouled off bad pitches. As it kept on going, you kept thinking, ‘Man, one of these guys has to get tired.’”

Well, maybe they eventually got tired. But if Kuiper and his partner, Mike Krukow, got tired of watching this 21-pitch extravaganza, it never showed. They were as highly entertaining as ever – despite the repetitive nature of what they were trying to describe.

“I will tell you this,” Kuiper said. “I’ve got ‘Swing and a foul’ down. I’ve got that call down pat: ‘The pitch – swing and a foul.’”

Asked if these were 12 minutes and 45 seconds he would like to get back, Kuiper laughed.

“If I saw it every day,” he quipped, “I’d quit. But once every 40 years, I’m OK with it.”

When a guy sees 21 pitches in one at-bat, though, it isn’t just amusing. It’s historic. So allow us to put that at-bat, that inning and Belt’s day in a little perspective:

—We are not allowing anyone to pronounce that this was the longest at-bat in baseball history – because remember, nobody was counting pitches back in the day when Old Hoss Radbourn was dueling Cap Anson in the afternoon sun in 1884.

Pitch-counting history only goes back 30 years. And in those three decades, we know of only two other at-bats that lasted 19 pitches or longer:

20 — Bartolo Colon vs. Ricky Gutierrez, June 26, 1998.
19 — Steve Bedrosian vs. Kevin Bass, July 23, 1988.

If it makes Belt feel better, neither of those guys reached base, either.

—  We know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “There must be some hitters in baseball who have never even seen 21 pitches in an entire game. Ever. Right?” Well, if that’s what you were in fact thinking, you would be correct!

The Elias Sports Bureau reports that Royals infielder Adalberto (formerly Raul) Mondesi has played 71 games in the big leagues – and never saw 21 pitches in any of them.

But let’s console Adalberto Mondesi. He should know that last Sunday, only one other hitter on Belt’s team (Andrew McCutchen) saw 21 in that game. And Brandon Belt saw 21 in one at-bat.

— Or how about the Orioles? They just went four games in a row (Saturday through Wednesday) without having any hitter on their team see 21 pitches in a game. And Brandon Belt saw 21 in one at-bat.

— But let’s look at the bigger picture, too. Belt fouled off 23 pitches just in that game, over five at-bats. Yes, 23. According to Elias, no one had even fouled off 20 in any game in over 15 years – since Joe Randa did that for the Royals all the way back on April 3, 2003.

— Meanwhile, poor Jaime Barria threw 77 pitches Sunday – and only got six outs. So in an unbelievable development, his manager, Mike Scioscia, had to pull him from a 0-0 game – in the third inning – because of an elevated pitch count. Granted, his bullpen then let two runs score that were charged to him. But in the pitch-count era, he’s the first starter ever to get gonged out of a 0-0 game with that many pitches thrown and that few outs!

— Finally, thanks to all those foul balls, here’s the most amazing development of all: Barria threw 49 pitches just in that first inning – and the Giants didn’t score! So how often does that happen? Never, of course.

Our friends at Sports Info Solutions have been tracking pitches for 17 seasons. It’s the first 49-pitch half-inning in their entire database in which zero runs were scored. And the most pitches in any shutout inning before this one was just 41, most recently in the eighth inning of a June 12, 2014 Orioles-Blue Jays game.

Have we mentioned in the last 30 seconds that you don’t see this sort of thing every day? All right, check that. You don’t see this sort of thing any day.

SPECIAL ROB MANFRED RULING ON 21-PITCH AT-BATS!

So here’s the deep, philosophical question we would pose after all that went down last Sunday in Anaheim – a 28-minute, 49-pitch first inning that resulted in no runs…and, especially, a 12-minute, 45-second, 21-pitch at-bat:

Was that baseball at its timeless best? Or baseball at its not-enough-happens worst?

“Well, because it’s never happened before,” Kuiper mused, “I’d say it was baseball at its best… Maybe not at its very best. But it becomes entertaining. And I think that’s what the commissioner is trying to get at.”

Is it? Can we be sure of that? Rob Manfred is, after all, a commissioner who is a big fan of speeding up the game, right?

“You know, actually,” Kuiper quipped, with a soft chuckle, “he might say we need a rule: ‘After 10 foul balls, you’re out. We need to speed this thing along.’”

Hmmm. Perhaps he’s right. So just to be clear, we got in touch with the commissioner himself. Is there any chance we could see a Brandon Belt Rule by, say, next week, in the spirit of keeping these games zipping along?

Well, we have an answer. This just in from Rob Manfred himself:

“That at-bat,” the commish told us, “was the type of interlude that makes the game great. I don’t put an epic pitcher/batter duel in the category of dead time.”

And how correct he is. So Brandon Belt, congratulations. You’re officially pardoned by the commissioner of baseball.

NO-HITTER OF THE WEEK

Should we just hand A’s left-hander Sean Manaea the Cy Young Award right now? Until last Saturday, only one starting pitcher in baseball had even won a game against the Red Sox this season (Masahiro Tanaka, in a 10-7 game). And then, miraculously, Manea no-hit the hottest team in baseball.

So how momentous was this feat? Thanks for asking. We have that answer!

—  Before they got no-hit, the Red Sox were working on an eight-game winning streak. Anyone remember the last team to have a winning streak that long which ended via a no-hitter? Of course you don’t – because it happened in 1884!

— According to Elias, the only other team in history to meet that fate was Old Hoss Radbourn’s 1884 Providence Grays, who had won 10 in a row before they got no-hit by Larry Corcoran and the Chicago White Stockings. We bet the tweets weren’t quite as pithy after Larry Corcoran’s no-no.

— The Red Sox came into Saturday hitting .293 as a team. And you might say it had been a while since a lineup like that got no-hit, too – since it last happened 40 years ago. The last club to go hitless despite a team average that hefty was Michael J. Schmidt’s 1978 Phillies, who were hitting .295 until they got no-hit by Bob Forsch on April 16, 1978.

— And how hot was that Red Sox offense before this? So hot, it had ripped off seven straight games with at least 10 hits. And no team had gotten no-hit after even five games like that in a row since Wade Boggs’ 1983 Red Sox. They’d unfurled eight consecutive games with double-digit hits before Dave Righetti no-hit them on the 4th of July.

— Before Sean Manaea came into their lives, the Red Sox had only had nine hitless innings in their previous 43 innings. To find the last time they’d had more than three hitless innings in a row, you had to go back two full weeks – to a four-inning hit-free zone against the Rays on April 7. Of course, they still managed to score 10 runs that day.

— And one last quirky note that has nothing to do with any of that. This no-hitter ended on a forceout at second base. Since a bunch of people in the Twitterverse wanted to know how rare that is, we asked Elias. It was the first no-hitter to end with any sort of forceout on the bases since Fernando Valenzuela finished off a June 29, 1990 no-no with a 1-4-3 double play (off the bat of Pedro Guerrero).

THE BARTOLO RELAY WATCH

This week on the Bartolo Watch, we’re going to ignore the majesty of Bartolo Colon, 44-year-old hurler. Because seriously, this week we’re way more transfixed by the magic of Bartolo Colon, 44-year-old high-speed racer.

If you haven’t seen this undoctored footage from an actual game last Saturday in Texas, we want you to take a moment to watch it now because this really happened. On our planet. Watch it and we’ll tell you how it’s possible. We’ll wait.

What you’ve just witnessed is our man, Bartolo (Usain) Colon, somehow outracing the ultra-swift Dee Gordon to first base, on an authentic baseball field. According to MLB Statcast wiz Mike Petriello, Sprint Speed data ranks Gordon as the sixth-fastest player in baseball this year. And Colon is, well, as elite in the realm of being extremely not fast as anyone alive.

The Statcast folks don’t regularly track pitchers’ Sprint Speed. But they tell us that the slowest position player in baseball is Astros catcher Brian McCann. Yet they have 10 instances of McCann running faster than the highest speed at which they’ve ever tracked Bartolo.

If we compare Colon to Dee Gordon, um, that doesn’t work out too hot, either – since, through Wednesday, Statcast had recorded 68 different instances in which Gordon was clocked running faster than Bartolo’s fastest time ever just this year.

So if Bartolo Colon could “out-Usain” Dee Gordon to first base, how can that not be simply trick photography? Oh, OK. There’s a logical explanation.

Gordon had to run all 90 feet to first base, obviously. Colon had to run a mere 64. That was helpful.

When ball left bat, Colon “sprinted” toward first base. It took 3.37 seconds for him to get close enough to catch the toss from first baseman Ronald Guzman. At that point, Gordon was already 73 feet up the line – but Colon, in that sneaky way of his, only had to cover 53 feet.

Gordon would motor those final 17 feet in .57 seconds. But Colon had to traverse a mere 11 feet. Gordon almost made up the entire six-foot difference in that blink of an eye. But even though his peak Sprint Speed was a world-class 29.7 feet per second and Colon peaked at a mere 21.3 feet per second, it wasn’t enough to keep Gordon from being the latest victim of Bartolo being Bartolo.

Which just goes to show you that even science and Statcast are no match for the inexplicable phenomenon that is Bartolo Colon.

THE OHTANI WATCH

Can’t let a week go by without a few vital Shohei Ohtani facts and figures. Such as…

— In his start Tuesday against the Angels, he threw four pitches clocked at 101 miles per hour. All starting pitchers not named Shohei Ohtani have combined for zero this year.

In fact, the last starter before that game to have any pitches clocked at 101+ by Statcast was Noah Syndergaard, who threw six on Sept. 19, 2016.

— Now let’s lower the bar to a mere 100 miles per hour. Ohtani is now up to 16 pitches this year that have been measured by Statcast at 100 mph or faster. Just so you know, 176 other pitchers have started a game this season. Those other 176 have combined for nine pitches that hit triple digits – four by Syndergaard, four by Luis Severino, one by Walker Buehler.

— But as you know, this man Ohtani doesn’t just pitch. So those triple digits don’t only apply to the rockets he’s launching with his arm. According to MLB’s director of research and development, Daren Willman, only one man in baseball has thrown a baseball 100+ mph and also hit a baseball 100+ mph this year. That man would be – bet you can guess – Shohei Ohtani.

—  Finally, there’s this cool nugget, from the Orange County Register’s Jeff Fletcher: Ohtani struck out the reigning AL MVP this week. That would be José Altuve. He has also homered earlier this year off the reigning AL Cy Young. That would be Corey Kluber.

So of course I spent an hour the other day trying to figure out how rare it is for anyone to homer off a reigning Cy Young and strike out the reigning MVP in the same season. And of course just after I found the answer, I saw it had already been tweeted by the YES Network’s James Smyth (@JamesSmyth621). But here’s the result of that research anyway:

Last man to do that? Madison Bumgarner, who did both against Clayton Kershaw (2014 Cy and MVP) in the same game – on May 21, 2015.

Last man to do it off two different award winners? Liván Hernández (with a homer off Tom Glavine and a bunch of whiffs of Sammy Sosa) in 1999.

Last man to do it in the American League? You have to venture back before the DH era, to 1970, when Mel Stottlemyre homered off Mike Cuellar and struck out Harmon Killebrew.

Shohei Ohtani. Not sure how he made it through another week without generating a Babe Ruth note. But there’s always next week.

THREE MORE WILD NUGGETS

—  Is there a more one-sided rivalry in baseball than the Twins and Yankees? They got a chance to hang out together at Yankee Stadium again this week. And once the Yankees had finished sweeping a four-game series, it meant that since 2002 (if you count the postseason), the Yankees have gone an incomprehensible 94-33 against the Twins. That’s the equivalent of playing like a 120-win team (or in the Twins’ case, the ’62 Mets) over a full season.

Next-best record by any team against any other team in its league over that same period: The Angels are 84-45 against the Tigers.

—  Max Scherzer got a hit off Clayton Kershaw last Friday. He’s just the third three-time Cy Young to get a hit off another pitcher who had won at least three Cy Youngs. The others:

Roger Clemens went 2-fo- 2 off Maddux on April 29, 2005.
Tom Seaver singled off Steve Carlton on Aug. 18, 1981.

Fun group!

—  And would you believe Jim Riggleman has now served as an interim manager for five different teams – the Reds, Nationals, Mariners, Cubs and Padres. He has won 148 games as an interim manager – which is two more than Rick Renteria has won in three seasons as a non-interim manager.

FIVE STRANGE BUT TRUE FEATS OF THE WEEK

— The Pirates turned the craziest double play of the year against the Phillies last weekend – a 1-3-4-2-5-8-7 circus in which seven men got involved, none of the outs were at first and the shortstop never touched the ball. So how bizarre was that?

Retrosheet founder Dave Smith looked at every game since 1940 and reports there have been just three other double plays in which seven different defenders got mixed up in the play:

2011 White Sox in Kansas City (9-2-6-2-5-3-4-1)
1969 Braves versus Cubs (3-6-2-5-1-4-7)
1969 White Sox in Minnesota (1-5-6-5-4-2-8-7)

— The Nationals scored 15 runs against the Giants on Wednesday. But what made that especially impressive is that the line score went: 300 322 230. In other words, no big numbers. Just 2’s and 3’s.

Our favorite numerologist, Eric Orns (@eorns), delved into that one and tells us it’s only the fourth game in the last 100 years where a team scored 15-plus runs, made up of all two-run and three-run innings. It hadn’t been done in almost 70 years, since the Cubs put up an 023-032-32x line on June 28, 1950.

—  On Opening Day, the Pirates beat the Tigers, 13-10. On Wednesday, the Tigers beat the Pirates, 13-10. Not surprisingly, that caught the eye of Doug “Kernels” Kern (@dakern74) – who reports that the only other time in history when two teams traded 13-10 games was in 1889, when the New York Giants and Chicago White Stockings pulled that off.

— The Twins’ Ryan LaMarre doesn’t normally pitch for a living. But he made it to the mound for five pitches Monday in New York – and promptly served up a home run to Tyler Austin.

The only other visiting position player in the last 50 years to give up a home run in any version of Yankee Stadium: Josh Wilson to Chris Young (the outfielder) on June 20, 2015.

— Finally, how about this box-score epic of the week? The good news for Marlins pitcher Trevor Richards on Wednesday was that he struck out 10 and only gave up one hit. The bad news was: He threw 100 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, so he didn’t even stick around long enough to qualify for a “win.”

H/T to Doug Kern, who tells us it’s only the second time in the live-ball era that any starter piled up double-digit strikeouts, allowed no more than one hit and didn’t get through the fifth inning. The other: King Félix Hernández, on Sept. 22, 2013. (The King only got 12 outs!)

 

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Any time a new medium is introduced — the printed word, the ability to record audio and video and certainly the internet — it’s not long before someone starts using it for erotic purposes. Thursday, a broadcast of a Major League Baseball game joined the list.

The game, between the Diamondbacks and the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, was the fourth game that MLB has broadcast nationally and for free on Facebook this season. Midway through the game, in the chat that appears next to the video feed when not watching in full-screen mode, comments began appearing from not-too-subtly disguised spam accounts for adult webcam services.

pornbot.pngpornbot2.pngpornbot5.png

“Join me dear, I’m live,” wrote an account under the name of Jessica Cox with a profile photo of a naked woman. Another account beckoned viewers to “See how I play Didlo [sic]” while a third encouraged viewers to “Treat yo self with a hot and seductive exclusive show.” Several of the accounts posted multiple times at different points in the game, and some viewers began jokingly interacting with them. Many of the spam accounts punctuated their comments with suggestive emojis.

“This is a concern and we are working with Facebook to ensure the proper safeguards are in place,” an MLB spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Athletic. A Facebook spokesperson relayed similar concern when reached by email:

“There is no place for activity such as this during these MLB broadcasts. These comments were posted by inauthentic accounts, which are not allowed on our platform. We have deleted these accounts and are working to prevent this type of abuse from occurring again.”

Last month, Facebook announced the implementation of “new machine learning techniques” to identify inauthentic accounts on its platform which are often used for scams. A blog post announcing the change suggested many such accounts are manually operated by a scammer hoping to steal financial information from unsuspecting Facebook users.

Facebook also has a “dedicated set of trained reviewers” tasked with taking down fraudulent accounts, but Facebook still relies to a certain degree on other users to flag those accounts when they appear. The Facebook spokesperson did not say whether Facebook would consider requiring all comments on future MLB broadcasts to be approved by a moderator prior to appearing in the comments feed.

Although the matchups have yet to be announced going forward, MLB has said a total of 25 games will be broadcast on a weekly basis exclusively on the social media platform this season. There are 21 remaining, and the Facebook spokesperson said Thursday’s broadcast was the first to have any issue with comments from fraudulent accounts.

That such a problem would arise is hardly surprising; fending off the virtual advances of porn bots has pretty much become the cost of being connected to the internet. But it does present a unique challenge for MLB’s efforts to offer broadcasts separate from traditional media.

Games broadcast on cable and network TV don’t feature a running comment section, although the idea of creating a communal online viewing experience is undoubtedly part of the appeal of MLB’s partnership with Facebook. In the press release announcing the broadcast deal, MLB Deputy Commissioner of Business and Media Tony Petitti lauded the “uniquely interactive experience” fans could expect “watching our games on Facebook each week.”

(The continued trend of people dropping their television packages in favor of streaming options like Hulu and Netflix is probably is a large factor in the league exploring streaming games on social media as well.)

But it’s the rare comments section that doesn’t eventually require strict moderation, and MLB surely would like to ensure families and children do not have to wade through a bunch of adult webcam scams to enjoy watching a baseball game. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have generally spotty track records when it comes to preventing abuses of their services. Bringing game broadcasts to Facebook offers interesting new avenues for MLB, but also all the headaches inherent to social media.

 

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wood

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1 hour ago, Rustic Horn said:

Love the Bucs throwback unis...

Don't see anyone else talking about this here, but y'all might wanna check the box score of that game.  Just sayin'...

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Welp, guess we can talk about it now. Nolan Kingham's brother Nick goes 6 2/3 perfect with 9 Ks so far in his first MLB start. He's been in the minors for 8 years, had TJ surgery, etc, & just got called up. Nolan and fam in the stands...

Pretty got damn cool.

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shnsajax

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5 minutes ago, spystud13 said:

Damn, Corey Seager out for year with TJ. 

At what point do you really begin to worry about the Dodgers if you haven't already? And to have this in a walk year for Kershaw too. 

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Sbbruin

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35 minutes ago, shnsajax said:

At what point do you really begin to worry about the Dodgers if you haven't already? And to have this in a walk year for Kershaw too. 

Kershaw has to walk away from $70 mil in the last 2 yrs if he opts out.  Not a guarantee he does that.

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6 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Kershaw has to walk away from $70 mil in the last 2 yrs if he opts out.  Not a guarantee he does that.

 

6 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Kershaw has to walk away from $70 mil in the last 2 yrs if he opts out.  Not a guarantee he does that.

He’ll get that plus another $175 million on a new 7 year deal at $35mm per. Hell, Greinke got $217 million over 7 in 2016. 

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On ‎4‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 2:51 PM, WBT said:

From the comments of that article, about Trevor Bauer:

zucxth0lwjpydn25fvhx.jpg

Eats a double burrito like a rabbit eating a carrot is a wonderful line.

Pretty sure Bauer has Asperger's or something similar.  I read an article a few years ago that said he had few friends in HS and usually ate lunch with his Physics teacher. 

He's insanely smart and not real athletic and basically taught himself (with his dad, an engineer) how to optimize.  He graduated from HS a semester early and was immediately in the weekend rotation for UCLA.  

When he was drafted, he told every team looking at him that he wanted to do things his way, and if that wasn't OK, don't draft him.  Of course, the team that drafted him fired their GM a couple of months later and cleaned house, so he got hung up in that.

After he got traded, the major leaguer I know told me (at a spring training game) that every one hated him and that "several guys in that other dugout (Cleveland) have asked me what his deal is."

I still really like him and hope he succeeds.  

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The coldest, snowiest, rainiest, sloppiest April in modern baseball history is finally over. It’s enough to make you want to slip into a pair of shorts, lather on some sunscreen and head for a ballpark near you, isn’t it?

So, what has the first month of this crazy season taught us? Glad you asked – because we’ve been contemplating that question. Now here come the answers, in this list of 10 Things We’ve Learned from this hellacious April of baseball we just survived:

1. THE BALL IS NEVER IN PLAY (WELL, SEEMS LIKE IT)

It was only a few weeks ago that we wrote about how much more fun baseball is to watch when something actually happens on that field below. But if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that that concept we used to know as “action” is becoming a more endangered species than the Siberian tiger.

That ominous trend was already well underway before this season ever started. But what April taught us is that not a darned thing has changed. Here are the terrifying first-month developments on the Disappearing Ball in Play front:

MORE STRIKEOUTS THAN HITS: Did you know there has never been a season in history with more strikeouts than hits? But not for long, we’re afraid. So far, we’ve seen an astonishing 343 more whiffs than hits. And that’s shocking. As recently as three years ago, there were almost 5,000 more hits than strikeouts. Now, the hits are vanishing, and the swings and misses are multiplying. Help!

STRIKEOUTS, STRIKEOUTS, MORE STRIKEOUTS: Until last year, there also had never been a season – ever – with 40,000 strikeouts. Now, there might never be a season with under 40,000. At the current rate, we’ll finish this season with 42,525 K’s (which computes, amazingly, to almost one per inning). That would be about 10,000 more whiffs than just 10 years ago. And 5,000 more than five years ago. And about 2,500 more than last season. Yikes! At least the air flow in the park will be picking up on hot summer nights.

THREE TRUE OUTCOME UPDATE: Nearly 35 percent of all plate appearances (34.6 to be precise) now end with either a strikeout, a walk or a home run. Guess which way that percentage is trending? It was 33.5 percent last season. It was 32.3 the year before. It was 30.3 five years ago. Ten years ago, it was 28.8. Can anything reverse this pattern? Not that we’ve noticed.

THE GRIM TOTALS: Finally, let’s translate all that for you. At this pace, there will be 2,000 fewer balls in play this season than last season. And 5,000 fewer than just three years ago. And 10,000 fewer than nine years ago. Wow. Every ball in play is a highlight video waiting to happen. Except now, it’s a highlight video that never gets a chance to happen.

2. THE BASEMENT RACES ARE HOT!

We’ve got a personal moratorium in place on applying that word “tanking” to this sport, unless there is no avoiding it. But whatever you want to call it, the race for the bottom of this sea has never been more heated.

In case you hadn’t caught on to this, eight teams ended April on pace to lose 100 games – the Reds, Royals, Orioles, White Sox, Marlins, Padres Twins and Rangers. That would break the April record for that sort of thing in the wild-card era, previously set in these two seasons:

Year 100-loss pace Finished with 100 losses
2000 7 teams 0 teams
2016 7 teams 1 team (Twins)

As you can see, at least past Aprils haven’t proven to be real predictive of future 100-loss seasons. But the scary part this year is that it isn’t just the losses. It’s the lopsided losses.

The Royals (on the road to minus-376) are actually on pace to break the modern record for worst run differential in a season (minus-349, by the 1932 Red Sox). And the Orioles (minus-312) also would wind up at negative-300-plus at this rate.

So, how rare is that? Only two teams – the 2003 and 1996 Tigers – have finished at minus-300 or worse in the 57 seasons since the ’62 Mets set the standard for post-expansion ineptitude (with a 40-120 record and minus-331 run differential). And the last time more than one team pulled off the negative-300 trick in the same year was 1939 (A’s, Browns, Phillies). So, who cares how early it is. This is not a pretty picture. It feels – already – as if there are more hopelessly bad teams than in any season in recent memory.

3. THE AL PLAYOFF TEAMS ARE ALREADY DECIDED

Wait. What? The races are over? With like 135 games still to play? Oh, all right. Not technically.

But going off what we’ve witnessed so far, would anyone bet against the Astros, Indians, Red Sox and Yankees making up four-fifths of the American League postseason field? Anyone?

“The only race in that league is for the second wild card,” one NL executive said this week, with no equivocation whatsoever. “You’ve basically got the Angels, Mariners and Blue Jays in a battle for one spot. That’s the way it feels, anyway.”

The Red Sox and Yankees – who hadn’t had nine-game winning streaks this close together since August 1939 – have taken turns playing the part of the hottest team in the league. The Astros look like they’re even better than the juggernaut that rode on the parade floats last fall. And while the Indians (15-12) haven’t even gotten heated up yet, the rest of their division is a combined 35 games under .500. So, in a league with such a minuscule middle class, those four teams all feel like locks – barring cataclysmic injuries.

4. THE NL ISN’T FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT

A month ago, the National League looked as if it were going to be just as predictable. But the Nationals, Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Mets and Pirates never got the memo.

The Nationals started out 4-0. They’re 8-16 since. Once, they seemed like such a sure thing to blow away the NL East that a rival NL exec joked in spring training: “They’re not going to play a game that counts until Oct. 4.” Oops!

Meanwhile, the Dodgers are already further out of first place (eight games) than they were at any time last year. They’ve lost Corey Seager for the year, and they’ve missed Justin Turner even more than they expected. They’d have laughed uproariously if you’d told them a month ago that Clayton Kershaw and Alex Wood would lose as many games in April (seven) as they lost all last season and that Kenley Jansen would blow more saves in April (two) than he blew all last year (one). But welcome to reality.

It was about this time last year that the Dodgers awoke from a 10-12 funk to rip off a historic 81-24 streak over their next 105 games. Well, if they still have that next gear in them, they’d better not wait long to find it – because their good friends in Arizona might really be this good.

The Diamondbacks just became the first NL team to win its first nine series of a season since Wildfire Schulte’s 1907 Cubs. Their rotation is averaging better than 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings. And their bullpen has been so dominant (.195 opponent average, just 17 extra-base hits allowed in 348 AB) that this team has only lost one game all year when it took a lead in the first three innings. So, with all due respect to the Pirates and Mets, the D-Backs are the most surprising team of 2018 – and the most dangerous.

5. OZZIE ALBIES IS THE NEW JOSÉ ALTUVE

He’s 5-foot-8, 165 pounds. He plays second base. But he isn’t José Altuve. So down in Atlanta, it is Ozzie Albies who has become baseball’s most eye-popping new mini-mite.

His hitting coach, Kevin Seitzer, calls him “the strongest man, pound for pound, in the league.” And who’s to argue?

All Albies did in March/April was lead the NL (or tie for the lead) in runs, hits, home runs, doubles, total bases and extra-base hits. That’s all. And his 22 extra-base hits (vs. just 12 singles) equaled the NL record for most extra-base hits before May 1.

You might want to know that only three players ever led their league in hits at age 21 or younger: Ty Cobb, Al Kaline and Starlin Castro. And here’s the group that led in extra-base hits at 21 or younger: Cobb, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Sherry Magee.

Got your attention yet? Thought so. Ozzie Albies. He’s a must-see attraction.

6. DIDI GREGORIUS IS THE NEW A-ROD

Here is Didi Gregorius’ month (and please allow us to employ a little poetic license in using the word “month” to describe what was actually April, plus three games in March):

.327 AVG/.421 OBP/.735 SLUG/1.156 OPS/10 HR/30 RBIs/24 Runs

Now, here’s a list of all the shortstops in the last 100 years who have ever had a calendar “month” like that:

Alex Rodriguez (August 2003): .340/.454/.849/1.303/15 HR/31 RBIs/30 Runs

End of list.

We’re allowing the March/April technicality because A-Rod actually had more plate appearances in his real month (130) than Gregorius had in his hybrid month (121). But this isn’t about the definition of “month.” This is about the definition of “superstar.”

“This guy’s a great defender,” said one scout. “He can run. And he can hit. And he’s hitting for power in a way nobody projected. And, most importantly, he’s changed his approach. He’s taking walks. He’s cutting down his strikeouts. So he’s an all-star. And if you’re an all-star in New York, you’re a superstar.”

7. SHOHEI OHTANI IS NOT THE BABE – YET

You thought Didi Gregorius had a tough assignment – to go out and be the next Derek Jeter? Well, that was nothing, compared with Shohei Ohtani’s mission: To go out and be the next George H. “Bambino” Ruth.

So, here we are, a month into this mesmerizing experiment. And Ohtani has put together a phenomenal highlight reel – from his home run off the incumbent Cy Young (Corey Kluber) to his seven-inning, 12-strikeout, one-hitter against Oakland, from the four times he hit 101 mph on the mound last week to the 410-foot rocket he launched Friday off a 97-mph heater from Luis Severino.

But where exactly is this season leading him? Is he going to make a significant impact as either a pitcher or a hitter – or both? Who the heck knows yet? He’s hitting .341/.383/.682 when the Angels let him DH. And he has punched out 26 hitters (vs. 14 hits allowed) in 20 1/3 IP. So, there’s no debate anymore about whether he has the talent to pull this off.

Yet he is only on pace to get 272 plate appearances and pitch 114 innings. That’s enough to seal his fate as the most interesting man in the world of baseball, my friends. But is it enough to earn him a place as the greatest two-way player since the Babe? Hmm. We’ll have to get back to you on that one.

8. THE ASTROS’ ROTATION IS RIDICULOUS

Mark this down for future reference. The Houston Astros just might turn out to have the most dominating rotation ever.

It’s a lot to ask for these dudes to crank out five more months like the month they just unfurled. But here is the pace they’re on – stacked up against the history they have a chance to make:

STRIKEOUTS – Current pace: 1,220. The record: 1,066 (by the 2017 Indians).
K/9 IP – Current pace: 10.82 per 9 innings. The record: 10.01 (by the same 2017 Indians).
DOUBLE-DIGIT K’s – Current pace: 49 for the season. The record: 35 (by Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling’s 2001 Diamondbacks).
HITS/9 IP – Current pace: just 6.36 per 9 innings. The record: 6.43 (by the 1968 Indians, in the Year of the Pitcher). Best in the AL since the mound was raised after that ’68 season: 7.04 (by Nolan Ryan’s 1972 Angels).
STRIKEOUT MACHINES – Current pace: Four different Astros starters are averaging at least 10.8 strikeouts per 9 IP. The record: Only one team in history has had more than ONE qualifying starter compile a strikeout rate that high – the 2001 Johnson/Schilling Diamondbacks.

So, are all these guys going to stay healthy enough to make all this history? Ha. That never happens. But we just wanted you to know it could – based on a March/April for the ages.

9. THE YANKEES ARE GOING TO BREAK THE HR RECORD

The all-time record for home runs in one baseball season is 264, by Jay Buhner’s 1997 Mariners. And this just in – if you’re currently enjoying the view of Mount Rainier or thumbing through your old Jay Buhner scrapbook:

Savor that record while you can – because it has five more months to live.

The Yankees somehow emerged from a cold, wet, hitter-unfriendly April on a pace to make 237 home-run trots. Which would be the sixth-most in the history of the Ruth/Gehrig/Mantle/Maris/Reggie/Etc. Yankees, incidentally. And they haven’t even gotten rolling yet.

So they are going to pass those 1997 Mariners. Book it.

Giancarlo Stanton hit 59 homers last year. He has hit five this year.

Brett Gardner hit 21 last year. He has hit one this year.

Greg Bird hit 12 in 189 at-bats last year, counting the postseason. He’s still on the disabled list this year.

We’re just beginning to find out what Miguel Andújar, Tyler Austin and Gleyber Torres are capable of. Neil Walker hit 23 homers in two different big-league seasons. Jacoby Ellsbury once hit 32. They’re all on this team’s payroll.

So, pretty soon, the sun will shine, the wind will blow out, and the baseballs will carry. You know what that means? It means the question isn’t whether these Yankees will make home-run history. It’s merely how much home-run history they will make.

10. THE MOUND VISIT RULE IS WORKING

Does anyone miss mound visits? Maybe Yadier Molina does. Maybe Willson Contreras does. But does anyone miss them who is just trying to watch a darned baseball game?

Last year, your typical team averaged nearly four mound visits per game. So, your typical game averaged 7.41 visits by the two teams involved.

This year, your typical team averages fewer than 1.9 mound visits per game. So, your typical game features an average of 3.90 by both teams. Big difference.

It’s all because of the new rule limiting visits to six per game per team. We’re now more than 400 games into this season. And exactly once has any team used up all six visits in a nine-inning game. So, the sport has gone on, largely unfazed – and with almost no sign-stealing controversy (aside from one minor Javier Báez flare-up in an April 22 Cubs-Rockies game).

So, when you take all those mound visits that don’t happen anymore and add them to the new rules tightening between-inning breaks, guess what’s happened? The average nine-inning game is nearly four minutes shorter than it was a year ago. That’s what. It has dropped from 3 hours, 5 minutes, 11 seconds to 3:01:34.

You know what that teaches us? It’s proof of just how much dead time can be surgically removed from a baseball game and inflict almost no pain on pretty much anybody if it’s done correctly.

It took one month of April baseball to teach that lesson. And here’s the moral of that story: It’s a sure sign that there will be more rules attacking more dead time coming to your favorite ballpark in the years to come. And the best news of all is, just about no one will shed a single tear.

 

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54341

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Posted
3 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

Brewers RP Josh Hader (Knebel’s backup) has himself a night: 2.2 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 8 K, SV. Wow. First time in history that someone has K’d every out in a save of 2.2 IP or longer.

You want to hear something more amazing?   7 of the Ks were either on 3 or 4 pitches.

That's absurd.  That's like a major leaguer pitching to a high school team.  

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