Cup of Coffee: May 16, 2024

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

And away we go!

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Orioles 3, Blue Jays 2: Toronto led 2-1 for most of the game but the O’s rallied in the bottom of the ninth with Jordan Westburg hitting an infield single — on which he shoulda been out but Isiah Kiner-Falefa misplayed it — and Adley Rutschman socking a two-run walkoff homer. After the game Rutschman said this:

I think 95% of baseball quotes involve guys finding ways to say “winning is a fun and positive experience” without just saying that.

Brewers 10, Pirates 2: Five Brewers homers — from William Contreras, Gary Sánchez, Sal Frelick, Joey Ortiz and Jackson Chourio — made this one a laugher. Contreras went 3-for-5 with four RBI. After the game Ortiz said “It's fun. Putting up that much on anyone is a good day. It's definitely exciting.” See, that’s preferable to making some sort of grand pronouncement like Rutschman did. We don’t have to read too deeply into it, man. Say what ya feel.

Marlins 2, Tigers 0: Miami blanks Detroit for the second game in a row, with Trevor Rogers and four Miami relievers combining on a seven-hit shutout. Bryan De La Cruz’s first inning two-run homer held up the whole dang game. Detroit has shown some flashes of quality this year, but they need a bat or two fairly soon if they wanna make noise.

White Sox 2, Nationals 0: Garrett Crochet and three relievers tossed a three-hit shutout. They needed 155 pitches to do it, so I guess that was a team Ryan. Or a team Unit. Or whatever it is we settled on in the comments yesterday. Korey Lee went 3-for-3 with an RBI and Tommy Pham drove in the other Chisox run.

Diamondbacks 2, Reds 1: Christian Walker homered early and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit a tie-breaking RBI double in the eighth. Brandon Pfaadt allowed only one run on two hits and struck out nine over seven as the Snakes take two of three from the Reds.

Rockies 8, Padres 0: Austin Gomber allowed two hits over six shutout innings and Brenton Doyle and Jordan Beck homered in a game that was never close. Beck also singled in a run. Colorado is really on a roll, sweeping the Padres and winning their seventh straight overall. San Diego, meanwhile, is now closer in the standings to last place than they are to first place.

Mariners 4, Royals 2: Bryan Woo allowed one run over five and a third — so yesterday he was Bryan Woo! — Ty France hit a solo shot, Josh Rojas had an RBI single in the seventh and Luke Raley added an RBI single in the eighth. The fourth run scored on an error. Ten pitchers and 288 total pitches seems like a lot for a 4-2 game.

Phillies 10, Mets 5: Bryce Harper homered, doubled and drove in three and Ranger Sáurez picked up his eighth win on the year and reduced his ERA to 1.37 after going five innings and allowing only a couple of unearned runs. Philly has won 16 of 19 and stand at 31-13, which is baseball's best record.

Rays 4, Red Sox 3: Yandy Díaz broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth-inning with a two-run single. Wilyer Abreu and Rafael Devers homered for Boston.

Cubs 7, Atlanta 1: Javier Assad pitched six shutout innings, allowing just four hits while striking out seven. Pete Crow-Armstrong went 2 for 4 with a triple, two RBI and a run scored, and Seiya Suzuki and Mike Tauchman homered. Nick Madrigal had three hits. Atlanta would be leading every other division except the AL East but they find themselves three back of the red-hot Phillies.

Yankees 4, Twins 0: Aaron Judge went 4-for-4 with a 467-foot home run and three doubles. Despite his nightmare April, he’s now hitting .255/.386/.540 (162 OPS+). Including postseason matchups, this was the 162nd game between the Yankees and the Twins since 2002. With this win, the Yankees are now 118-44 against the Twins in that time. Crazy pants.

Rangers 4, Guardians 0: Jon Gray pitched shutout ball into the seventh while Marcus Semien hit a two-run homer in the fifth and Adolis García hit a two-run homer in the sixth. Texas snaps its five-game losing skid.

Astros 3, Athletics 0: The evening’s sixth shutout came courtesy of Framber Valdez’s seven innings of two-hit ball with Seth Martinez handling the final two frames. A Kyle Tucker double + a throwing error scored one Houston run and a couple of sac flies scored the other two. That’s four wins in a row for the Rangers. I’m wondering now what the record is for shutouts on a single day in MLB history. I’m sure it’s more than six — we’ve had a couple of dead ball eras over the past 150 years — but I bet it hasn’t happened that often recently.

Angels 7, Cardinals 2: Nolan Schanuel, Zach Neto and Taylor Ward homered, Willie Calhoun had three hits including an RBI double, and Griffin Canning pitched six innings of one-run ball. I didn’t see any of this game but according to the game story Ron Washington did not do anything ridiculous and inexplicable here, which is an improvement over Tuesday night. If you don’t know what that’s referring to, check out the Ron Washington item down in the Daily Briefing.

Giants 4, Dodgers 1: Logan Webb pitched six scoreless innings, Mike Yastrzemski hit a two-run homer, and center fielder Luis Matos leaped and reached over the wall to rob Teoscar Hernández of a home run in the fourth. Given what happened to Jung Hoo Lee when he tried to rob a homer earlier this week it had to make everyone’s sphincters clench a bit to watch Matos do that, but he came out of it fine. Anyhoo, the Giants avoid a three-game sweep and to snap a six-game losing streak vs. the Dodgers.

The Daily Briefing

Ronel Blanco suspended for ten games 

As expected, Major League Baseball suspended Astros starter Ronel Blanco ten games for having a foreign substance in his glove in Tuesday night’s game against Oakland. He also gets an undisclosed fine.

It was reported that Blanco will appeal the suspension. So he’ll likely make his next start, but eventually he’ll have to sit out for one or two.

Cardinals president warns fans: keep buying tickets or things will get worse!

Via Dayn Perry’s Cardinals newsletter Birdy Work, we learn that St. Louis Cardinals president and future owner Bill DeWitt III made a recent media appearance in which, when asked about declining attendance at Busch Stadium, he warned Cardinals fans that they have to keep buying tickets, even if the team sucks, because if they don’t the team will suck more:

As Perry notes, the inherent claim here is that the Cardinals owners don’t really make any money; they just take the revenue and give it to the players. Which, as Perry explains with reference to what is known about the team’s finances, is obvious horseshit. And it’d be horseshit even if one couldn’t simply look around downtown St. Louis and see how much money the team has invested in — and how much revenue its generating from — its stadium-adjacent real estate empire.

But the broader sentiment is just as insulting and comes from a place of extreme entitlement. In effect, DeWitt is saying that it’s irrational for fans to not want to pay for a crap product. And, of course, he does not explain how, after 18 straight non-pandemic-affected years of attendance north of three million, the product became crap in the first place. If DeWitt’s premise is to be believed the club should still be dominating the NL Central instead of being destined for its second straight sub-.500 finish.

Maybe let’s give the fans’ way a try first and see if that doesn’t inspire some better management of the baseball operations department.

Ron Washington does not give a fuck

I didn’t have time to write about this in the recaps yesterday morning but something amusing went down in and after the Cardinals-Angels game on Tuesday night.

The Cardinals held a one-run lead over the Angels in the eighth. The Angels were batting. There was one out and the bases were loaded. What’s more, Cardinals reliever JoJo Romero was unraveling, having walked two straight batters — one on a pitch clock violation — and had gone to a three-ball count on each batter he had thus far faced. Angels second baseman Luis Guillorme was at the plate.

Given, the score, the number of outs, and the fact that the bases were juiced, there was no other reasonable option than to let Guillorme swing away. Most balls in play that weren’t tailor-made double play balls would score a run. A hit could break things open. And, of course, Given how Romero was faring, there was a decent chance that he’d walk Guillorme. So what did Angels manager Ron Washington do?

He ordered a suicide squeeze.

It made no sense at all, but Washington is the boss, so the runner on third broke for home. Guillorme attempted to put down the bunt but the pitch was way outside and Guillorme couldn’t make contact. The runner was nailed at home, the Angels went quietly, and they ended up losing by one run.

If that was all that had happened, it’d be terrible. But that wasn’t all that happened. After the game Ron Washington ripped Guillorme!

To say that Romero was “throwing strikes” is ridiculous. As noted, he had just walked two guys and had thrown 14 of his 26 pitches for balls! It’s “Oceana has always been at war with Eastasia” stuff. But for Washington to have then ripped Guillorme for failing to execute his stupid-ass call is Joker-level insanity. Some managers have ripped their players in the past but I honestly can’t remember a manager doing so so blatantly when it was the manager himself who bungled the whole deal.

If I had to guess, I’d guess that Washington never believed he’d get another chance to manage at his age, after such a long time out of a top job. If I had to further guess, I’d guess that Washington presumes that he won’t get another chance to do so after his time in Anaheim is over, so why bother paying attention to clubhouse politics and stuff?

Of course, given that this team isn’t going anywhere any time soon it probably doesn’t matter, so I’m all here for the YOLO Angels. At least they’re interesting.

A Pete Rose book that may actually be worth buying

As a rule I avoid books and even in-depth articles about Pete Rose unless there’s a very, very good reason to read them. The guy is a total scumbag. A pathological liar. A tax cheat and a convicted criminal. An un-charged but pretty obvious statutory rapist. A degenerate gambler who almost certainly compromised the competitive integrity of baseball. I grew up at a time when Pete Rose was held up as a sports hero and role model but now we know better and I have no interest in spending any more time thinking about him than I already have.

However, based on Patrick Sauer’s review of the latest Pete Rose book — Keith O’Brien’s biography Charlie Hustle — I may have to make an exception and buy it:

Note above that I say I might actually “buy” this book, not “read” it. I say that because, personally, I knew most if not all of these things about Rose thanks to my line of work. But I could see myself purchasing a couple dozen copies to hand out to the people — especially older people from Ohio — who, to this day, defend that piece of crap as if he’s Jesus H. Christ himself. It’s a group of folks who are not as pathetic as Pete Rose, but they’re pathetic all the same.

Everything you wanna know about that bat speed data stuff 

As you may have seen, on Monday Major League Baseball publicly released a bunch of bat-tracking data. Swing speed, swing length, sweet spot contact and stuff like that. It’s the sort of information that clubs have been tracking internally for some time but which is now available to everyone on the league’s Statcast platform.

I am not a numbers guy — I am, at best, part of the liberal arts wing of the Sabermetric Movement — so I am not someone who can provide any real insight into the bat-tracking data. And, if I’m being honest, I kinda don’t care about it. Like, I’m not going to dismiss it as dumb or unimportant — I’m not a luddite or anything — but it’s just not a thing that I feel is going to enhance my enjoyment of the game. Or, for that matter, my understanding of the game given the level at which I choose to consume it. But I appreciate that I am not everyone (lucky for everyone) and that many of you will love this kind of thing and will use it to enhance your understanding of the game. And that’s wonderful. We should all find joy and stimulation wherever we can.

If you are one of those people, or think you may be if you knew more, Friend of the Newsletter Noah Woodward has put together an excellent primer on the bat-tracking data over at newsletter, The Advanced Scout. It has everything you need to know about swing length and “swords” and stuff like that.

Go crazy, y’all.

Other Stuff

This seems necessary

“Happy Gilmore 2” has been officially greenlit by Netflix. And yes, Adam Sandler will return for the sequel. Who says Hollywood has run out of ideas?

Still, I’m not happy about this news. No, not because it’s further evidence of the cynical calculations of our corporate entertainment industry or the broader cultural bankruptcy of our time. I’m unhappy because Sandler waited until Carl Weathers was dead to announce this project. If there’s no Chubbs, I’m not watching.

And yes, I know Chubbs died in the original movie, but he showed up as a ghost at the end with Abe Lincoln and the alligator and there’s no reason he couldn’t have done that again in a sequel filmed a couple of years ago. Missed chances, man. Missed chances.

That’s one way to kill TikTok

From Semafor:

This would be the same Frank McCourt who was hellbent on tearing down Fenway Park and then managed to bankrupt the Los Angeles Dodgers, who may as well be called the Los Angeles Cash Registers.

The U.S. government wants to put TikTok out of business in this country via legislation, but it probably doesn’t wanna deal with all of the litigation that would cause. Seems like a much easier way to kill the company would be to do everything it can to help put Frank McCourt in charge. Everything he’s touched that isn’t a parking lot has gone to shit.

No thanks, I already have a Big Brother

From Google:

Stopping scams? Great. Keeping it all on the user’s phone so it’s only for them? Sensible. Technology that purports to judge telephone conversations for problematic content and subsequently create reports about them? Privacy violations and potential civil rights violations waiting to happen.

I try not to skew alarmist with this kind of stuff, but we live in an age in which authorities have already used tech company data to track people’s communications in an effort to determine if they’e going to get an abortion, and have vowed to go further in that regard. And that’s before acknowledging that we have long lived in a country in which authorities have used any means necessary to surveil the activities and communications of people who are merely exercising their First Amendment rights.

Google can say anything it wants about how it will deploy protective measures to keep such technology from being abused. But we have seen, time and again, how quickly corporate America — particularly technology and communications companies — will roll over for law enforcement and other parts of the government if they are even gently pressed to do so. So, nah, no thanks.

Mitt Romney says Biden should’ve pardoned Trump

Yesterday I wrote about how J.D. Vance had humiliated and debased himself for Donald Trump more than any other political figure. I still think that’s true, but Mitt Romney is neck-and-neck with him.

I don’t know that anything will beat that dinner Romney had with Trump following the 2016 election. The one in which Trump was allegedly considering Romney for a spot in his new administration but, in reality, it was a set up by Trump to humiliate Romney — who had called Trump a “con artist” and “a fake” — and to force him to beg for a cabinet job that was never, ever forthcoming:

If I was ever caught in a photo like that I’d never show my face in public again, but Romney somehow managed not to shrink into a corncob after that and continues to serve in the Senate.

Though Romney will likely never top that, he still pops up every once in a while to embarrass himself. Like when he went on MSNBC last night and said this:

At the outset that’s simply wrong. As a matter of principle, you do not pardon a guy who has gone his whole life never, ever suffering consequences because of his wealth and power, because it’ll simply embolden him to commit even more crimes. As a matter of practicality, you do not give quarter to someone who has never, ever given quarter to anyone in his life. Romney’s suggestion to the contrary represents a failure to appreciate the current political landscape that is so massive that I actually feel sorry for the guy and, on some level, I am worried about this sweet summer child.

It’s weird, too, given that Romney is one of the only Republicans who was in favor of Trump’s impeachment and removal from office and has stated that he’ll never vote for the guy. This is the guy you come out of relative obscurity to speak up for? Really?

Actually, Romney offered something even worse later in the interview when he said, “I don’t know if that’s [Trump’s] ambition to bring people together. I’m not sure exactly what it is he hopes to do if he gets a second term.”

Mitt Romney has been in politics for decades. His family has been in politics for generations. If he genuinely doesn’t know that Trump doesn’t give a shit about bringing people together by now, and if he doesn’t know what Trump plans to do if he regains office — hint: Trump has told everyone who will listen — he’s the stupidest person alive. Alternatively, if he actually knows better but is simply saying this stuff because he’s trying to remain relevant in Republican circles, he must think the public is stupid. It has to be one or the other.

Go back to sleep, Mitt. There’s really nothing more for you to do here. The world has, quite clearly, passed you by.

Have a great day everyone.