The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

5 for 5!

 

With a walk. Watching him play three years in college was a real treat. His record of 18 hits in a single CWS might not ever be equaled or broken.

 

With Pete Alonso on first base and another Met on third, Jeff McNeil fouled the first pitch down the first base line. Then was assessed a second strike because the clock started before Alonso made it back to first and McNeil wasn’t set in the box.

But McNeil hit a seeing-eye grounder through second to drive in the run, so, for this time at least, an automatic strike didn’t kill the at-bat.

 

Future trivia: First pitch clock violation was on Marcus Stroman.

 

Nice for the Tigers to suck in 2:14 instead of three hours plus

 

Andrew Vaughn comes through and the White Sox finally get a hit with runners on base.

Up 3-1 in Houston heading to the bottom of the ninth … where the bullpen adventure begins.

 

Well, by game time it was cloudy and in the low 40s, so they could have played, but it would have been a dark, dank day. Almost as dark and dank as it was in Tampa.
Weekend forecast is for cloudy and mid-upper 40s Saturday, then sunny and mid 50s Sunday, so actually it would have been a better-than-normal opening weekend.

 

I don’t know what the weather was in Tampa today, but it was breezy with a high of 83 today in St. Petersburg.

 

I think the perpetual forecast for the Tampa dome is 72 degrees and dark and dank.

Actually the one time I was there, for a Final Four, I'd have guessed it was 60-65 degrees inside the dome. It definitely felt chilly and drafty, for basketball at least.

On our off days we went to a baseball game in Lakeland and an afternoon tour of the Kennedy Space Center, and it was 80-some degrees.

As far as what MLB can do about cold weather openers, I don't really think there's much they can do. You can't load up all the dome teams or warm weather teams with home games early because that gives them an on field advantage which eventually would show up in the standings. Plus the dome teams don't want to waste a lot of home games in low attendance April dates.

One thing that baseball has definitely fucked up is that they haven't pushed harder for retractable dome stadiums in the major markets, ie New York and Chicago. It really makes no sense whatsoever the Mets and White Sox do not play in retractable dome stadiums.

 

*St. Petersburg

 

Loving the new speedup rules. O's-Red Sox, 10-9, 26 hits, full nine innings, all in 3:10. Last year that easily a 3:45 game. Twins-Royals, 2:32.

Even the M's game is in the 8th and it's not two hours old. The players are gonna ask themselves why this didn't happen 10 years ago. Who doesn't like getting off work 35 minutes early every day?