MLB 2014 season thread

Smashing a liner through the middle could clock a pitcher on the head.

Badass.

 

And it's in no way the intention of the batter to hit the pitcher. That isn't always true when the roles are reversed.

 

So concede the inside corner before you put somebody's eye out.

 

Is that you, Seth Smith, is this me?

2B, 3B, HR, 4 RBIs. 1st homer since hitting 2 in the first 3 days of the season.

 

The Braves continue their struggles. Through 20 innings of a 3-game set against the Cubs, Atlanta has scored just five (5) runs.

 

They are also a few innings away from sweeping that series.

 

Current division leaders and magic numbers:
Orioles - 126
Tigers - 123
A's - 124

Braves - 125
Brewers - 120
Giants - 123

 

Giants finish a hellacious road trip by taking 3 of 4 in LA after sweeping Atlanta and dropping 2 of 3. The series vs. the Dodger may have been some of the most intense May baseball I've seen in a while.

 

Michael Beschloss, in the Times, The Upshot:



This is one of the earliest photographs ever taken of a baseball game, and it happened by accident. The photographer, Henry P. Moore, of Concord, N.H., was focusing on the well-uniformed Union soldiers of the 48th New York State Volunteer Infantry, but he also captured their baseball-playing comrades in the background.

The “hurler” (as pitchers were called), wearing a white shirt, is tossing underhand (by the rules of the day) to a “striker” (batter), with bent knee. At the time, baseball had yet to achieve anything like the level of importance it later attained; for Moore, it was just something that got into your picture frame when you were trying to photograph soldiers on display.

It was the second year of the Civil War, and the scene was Fort Pulaski, Ga., which stood on an island at the mouth of the Savannah River. After falling to the Confederacy in 1861, the fortress had been bombarded for 30 hours and seized back in April 1862, preventing the rebels from using the vital port of Savannah. Like an increasing number of both rebel and Union soldiers, Pulaski’s warriors were encouraged to divert themselves from time to time by turning to baseball.

http://nyti.ms/1llal3O

 

Playoff tickets on sale yet?

 

Odd the article doesn't mention Elysian Field in Hoboken, which is considered by many to be where the first game was played.

 

The Giants' Brandon Hicks went deep off Clayton Kershaw on an 0-2 curveball today. Depending on who is doing the counting, that is either the first or second home run Kershaw has allowed on a curve in his seven-year career.

Article from preseason saying he has never allowed one in the 2,155 times he has thrown a curve: http://www.baseballanalytics.org/baseball-analytics-blog/2014/1/20/clayton-kershaws-215-million-curveball.html

Fan blog citing that it's the second: http://lasordaslair.com/2014/05/11/dodgers-lose-another-extra-inning-game/

Either way -- that's pretty wild.