The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

For me, my Cubs are likeable this year. No matter what happens, they are easy for me to root for, and so glad they're going for it. This has been a fun stretch.

Also know I'll probably want to delete this in a few days.

Go Cubs.

 

Sorry, the Giants were winning then so forgot about everyone else.

 

Then for some unknown reason, Angels' closer Carlos Estevez decides to walk the first two Mariners (hard to do), give up a base hit and then a grand salami to recent Seattle call-up Cade Marlowe and Anaheim turns a 3-1 win into a 5-3 defeat.

Maybe Jared Kelenic should have booted that water cooler a month earlier ...

 

https://www.al.com/news/2023/08/maj...nounces-branding-for-rickwood-field-game.html

 

From The Athletic Pulse e-blast ...



Still the same old Angels

How many times can we do this bit? It feels old at this point. And yet, it keeps happening. Two incredible, independent facts about last night’s Angels-Mariners game:

• Shohei Ohtani started the game on the mound, throwing four scoreless innings. He also hit his MLB-leading 40th home run. He remains the unicorn. As MLB researcher Sarah Langs pointed out, Ohtani is the first player with a stolen base and a home run in a game he started on the mound since Mudcat Grant did it in 1964.
  
  
• The Angels lost, 5-3, thanks to Cade Marlowe’s ninth-inning grand slam.

What more can Ohtani do? Throw a complete game? Duplicate himself and bat twice in the lineup?

Since going all in at the trade deadline, the Angels have lost three straight. Go Groomsmen.

 

Britton is still available in the pen to this day.

 

With McClanahan going on the IL and very possibly headed to a much worse fate, the Rays went from one of the best and deepest rotations in the majors to banking on Tyler Glasnow Zach Eflin and Civale to stay healthy and perform like front-line starters. Just some brutal luck with injuries.

 

When do people (speaking broadly here, not to you) begin questioning how the Rays do things? If they don't have have more TJs than anyone else, it doesn't take long to call the roll.

 

It has happened enough to wonder if it is something they are doing. They have had pitchers blossom there after faltering elsewhere, but so many of those pitchers then go on to blow out their arms.

 

THAT EXACTLY. The Rays break pitchers. I really want to know why.

 

I wonder if having a pitcher pitch his best pitch more often doesn’t create usage issues. And I wonder if they haven’t optimized velocity to the detriment of reliability.

 

If this is true, Civale has no chance.