Cup of Coffee: May 2, 2024

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

We had five shutouts yesterday and only one of the 15 losing teams yesterday scored more than two runs. That was the White Sox of all teams but, no, there weren’t a surfeit of fireworks last night.

Otherwise we have a jerk umpire to discuss, some injuries, a demotion, a money-laundering casino, the Red Sox hired The Bobs, a very brief bit on bees, don’t touch the rocks, and a farewell to Paul Auster.

And away we go . . .

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Twins 10, White Sox 5: Alex Kirilloff homered, two Twins runs scored on an error, José Miranda knocked in a couple as the Twins came from behind to win their tenth straight game and, ultimately, to do so easily. For the White Sox, Tommy Pham continued to show that spring training is overrated by doubling in a run in the first and hitting a homer in the third. Now the bad news for the Twins: Byron Buxton attempted to steal a base in the second inning and clearly injured himself while running. He came up obviously lame about two-thirds of the way to second base and was tagged out without even attempting to slide, after which he slowly limped away. That’s when first base umpire Rob Drake, quite obnoxiously, yelled at Buxton to get off the field. This is the same Rob Drake who, in October 2019, posted "I will be buying an AR-15 tomorrow, because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020" to Twitter. So you know he’s a sensible and reasonable guy who should not, in any way, be told to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

Anyway: the Twins won, Buxton was announced to have “right knee soreness” which, given that it’s the same knee on which he’s had two different surgeries, is rather scary, and Rob Drake can indeed, upon reflection, take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

Tigers 4, Cardinals 1: Matt Vierling hit a two-run homer and a sac fly while Kenta Maeda allowed one over six as the Tigers take the series two games to three. From the AP gamer:

I tend to think way back to historical precedents like that too — I still get annoyed at the Cubs and Pirates for beating Detroit in the 1907-09 World Series and I think of Yankees-Dodgers series as “rematches” from any time from the 1940s until 1981 — but you don’t often see the Associated Press make that kind of reference.

Brewers 7, Rays 1: Who needs a manager? The Brewers didn’t have theirs yesterday given some suspensions that were handed down — more below in The Daily Briefing — but cruised all the same. Willy Adames carried the big stick, hitting two homers and driving in four. Which is exactly what he did on Tuesday night too, so I’m pretty sure we’re living in a simulation. Meanwhile William Contreras doubled in two, Blake Perkins doubled in one, and Colin Rea shut out the Rays for six.

Padres 6, Reds 2: Jake Cronenworth hit a tie-breaking grand slam in the seventh and Jurickson Profar went 4-for-4 and knocked in a couple. And though it was in a losing effort, check out the catch from Stuart Fairchild:

Even good things happen in bad games.

Phillies 2, Angels 1: Kyle Schwarber’s two-run single in the second beat Ehire Adrianza’s solo homer in the second. This despite the fact that Angels pitchers struck out 18 Phillies batters on the day. According to the gamer, this was just the 11th time since 1906 that a Phillies team has struck out 18 or more time in a game. The gamer did not say how many of those 11 games the Phillies won, but I’m guessing it was just a couple of them max.

Atlanta 5, Mariners 2: A four-run fourth — all runs unearned thanks to a dropped fly ball from Mitch Haniger — was highlighted by a two-run triple from Austin Riley. That was enough for Chris Sale, who picked up his fourth win by allowing one over five. Atlanta avoids the sweep.

Athletics 4, Pirates 0: Ross Stripling threw six strong scoreless innings and five relievers completed the four-hit shutout. It was Stripling’s first win since 2022. Abraham Toro and Tyler Nevin went deep for Oakland. The A’s have won four in a row and six of seven.

Royals 6, Blue Jays 1: Michael Massey hit a three-run homer and Bobby Witt Jr. had two hits and drove in a run. Seth Lugo won his fifth game by allowing one run over seven. Also, I just looked and saw that Sal Perez his hitting .355/.418/.591 and leads the league in both average and RBI, with 27. Every few years he seems to just go on tears and find the fountain of youth or whatever. It probably shouldn’t surprise me at this point but it still does.

Yankees 2, Orioles 0: Lucas Gil pitched shutout ball into the seventh and three relievers completed the three-hit, ten-strikeout shutout. An Oswaldo Cabrera two-run homer in the fifth was all the scoring. The win avoids an Orioles sweep. These two are separated by percentage points at the top of the AL East.

Marlins 4, Rockies 1: A winning streak! Marlins starter Roddery Muñoz was making his second big league start gave up one run and three hits over six innings while striking out seven and walking two to pick up his first W. Luis Arraez and Bryan De La Cruz each drove in a run. Emmanuel Rivera reached base four times. They play this afternoon but the Marlins have already won the series. It’s their first series win all year.

Cubs 1, Mets 0: Shōta Imanaga tossed seven shutout innings in what ended up being a five-hitter for Cubs pitchers. Tough luck for Jose Butto, who only allowed a single run to score on a fifth inning sac fly. The Mets threatened in the ninth but the game ended on a controversial fly ball/play-at-the-late double play which required a four-minute replay review which concluded that catcher Miguel Amaya did not block the plate. Judge for yourself:

Weird play, as Amaya looked to be far closer to blocking the plate where he set up than most catchers do. But he did leave the front of it open and Alonso’s hand did come up when it could’ve stayed down and touched the plate. So close to be sure.

Red Sox 6, Giants 2: Boston wins its fourth straight behind a strong start from Cutter Crawford. Connor Wong was 3 for 4 with a run scored and an RBI. Jarren Duran reached base three times and had a triple. Rafael Devers hit an RBI double.

Nationals 1, Rangers 0: At the risk of this one sounding just like the A’s, Yankees, and Cubs recaps, allow me to say that Trevor Williams pitched five shutout innings and four relievers combined to finish the six-hitter. Only nine strikeouts here, so not quite as impressive as a couple of the other ones but I suppose you get more credit for doing it to the reigning World Series champs. Alex Call’s second inning RBI single was all the fireworks. The Nats are back up to .500.

Guardians 3, Astros 2: Cleveland took a 2-0 lead on a Will Brennan homer and a Steven Kwan triple in the fifth. A sixth inning Jose Altuve single and an seventh inning homer from Kyle Tucker tied it up. Kwan struck again in the top of the tenth, doubling in the Manfred Man, and that run held up. It held up in large part because Kwan made a great diving catch in the bottom of the tenth and then doubled off the Manfred Man to end the game.

Dodgers 8, Diamondbacks 0: OK, let’s to it one last time: Yoshinobu Yamamoto shut the Dbacks out over six innings and two relievers completed the seven-hitter. On offense, L.A.’s five-run second — highlighted by Andy Pages’ two-run homer — sealed it pretty early. Will Smith homered too. After the game Yamamoto was asked about his effectiveness this year: “I think I'm able to keep myself very calm and that's one of the biggest reason I'm able to execute my pitches,” he said through a translator. I had really, really wished that there would be no term for “execute pitches” in other languages as it was my hope that that conceptual contagion would not spread beyond English. Alas.

The Daily Briefing

Suspensions announced for the Rays-Brewers brawl

As I would’ve discussed yesterday had I published a newsletter, there was quite the fracas during the eighth inning of Tuesday’s Rays-Brewers game in Milwaukee.

The specifics were pretty straightforward: Milwaukee reliever Abner Uribe and Tampa Bay’s Jose Siri had words near first base after a putout, Uribe took a swing at Siri, Siri fought back — all the punching was rather pathetic, it should be noted — and both benches quickly emptied.

The background on that was that Siri had hit a home run against Freddy Peralta in the third inning, Peralta, believing that Siri took too long to admire it, hit Siri with a 3-0 fastball in the sixth inning, the ump correctly determined that it was intentional, and Peralta and manager Pat Murphy were both ejected. Then came the play in the eighth, the words, the haymakers, and that was that.

Yesterday MLB dropped the discipline:

• Peralta has received a five-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for intentionally throwing at Siri in the sixth;

• Murphy got a two-game suspension and an undisclosed fine as a result of Peralta’s actions and, per the release, “in addition to his inappropriate conduct towards umpires”;

• Uribe got a six-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for throwing the first punch; and

• Siri got three-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for swinging back.

Managers can’t appeal suspensions, so Murphy missed yesterday’s game against the Rays and will miss tomorrow’s game in Chicago. The other guys all appealed.

Grayson Rodriguez placed on the IL

The Baltimore Orioles placed starter Grayson Rodriguez on the 15-day injured list with shoulder inflammation. They called up John Means, who hasn’t yet made an appearance in the bigs this season, to take his place.

Rodriguez, 24, is 4-1 with a 3.71 ERA (100 ERA+) through six starts this season, with a K/BB ratio of 37/12 in 34 innings. He pitched shutout ball into the sixth against the Yankees on Monday. Here’s hoping it’s not serious.

José Abreu demoted to the complex league

Astros first baseman José Abreu has had a dreadful start to his 2024 campaign. The 2020 AL MVP is just 7-for-71 with only one extra base hit and 18 strikeouts in his first 22 games. Given how lost he is — and how much of a drag he has been on the Astros lineup — the club has optioned him to their Florida Complex League team in West Palm Beach. Given his service time Abreu had the power to reject the assignment, but he consented no doubt knowing that he has to work on stuff.

GM Dana Brown on the move:

It’s pretty damn rare for players on big league rosters to be sent down that far, especially veterans of Abreu’s age and tenure. When it does happen it’s usually pitchers who need to rebuild their mechanics or something. Given how lost Abreu has been, and given that he’s 37, I think it’s an open question as to whether or not we’ll see him back up again. Of course, he is under contract with Houston through 2025. He’s making $19.5 million this year and is slated to make the same next season, so you figure the Astros will try to get more out of him.

A Las Vegas casino was used to launder Ippei Mizuhara’s gambling payments

ESPN reported on Tuesday evening that The payments Ippei Mizuhara sent from Shohei Ohtani's bank account to an illegal bookmaking operation were forwarded to Las Vegas casinos where the money was deposited in gambling accounts, converted to chips, and cashed out to pay the bookie:

The article goes on to note that Resorts World is at the center of an investigation involving illegal California bookmakers who use legitimate casinos for this type of money laundering. Such a thing can only be accomplished, of course, if the legitimate casinos aren’t diligent about policing the sorts of people with whom they do business. To that end it should be said that Resorts World was run by a man named Scott Sibella, who was previously MGM Grand's president. He has since pleaded guilty to charges that, as president of MGM Grand, he failed to file suspicious activity reports about another Southern California bookie, Wayne Nix. Nix is a former minor league ballplayer who too bets for Scottie Pippen, Yasiel Puig and a friend and business manager for LeBron James.

There are other casinos and casino workers, the reports tells us, who have been linked to this sort of illegal gambling money laundering in connection with what, as the article explains, is a very small world of illegal bookmakers in California. But go on about how legalized gambling cures all of the ills and reins in the excesses occasioned by illegal bookmaking.

The Red Sox are hiring consultants

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that The Red Sox have hired an external consulting group, Sportsology, to conduct and external audit of team operations. My two takeaways:

• The Red Sox specifically and the Fenway Sports Group in general seem to really, really, really enjoy spending money on consultants, executives with vague mandates and other ministers without portfolio. I’m guessing they’re among the more top-heavy ownership groups in the league; and

• Too bad they didn’t have any consultants hanging around when ownership demanded that the team trade away a generational talent and perpetual MVP candidate for some magic beans back in February 2020. I’m guessing The Bobs would’ve told them to maybe not do that.

Anyway, I’m sure the consultants will come up with an amazing final report. Guessing it ends with a recommendation to do all manner of things that doesn’t involve paying good money for great players, which seems to be the red line the Red Sox have been drawing for the last four years.

Other Stuff

Quote of the Day

— A source close to Illinois governor J.B. Prtizker, reacting to the Chicago Bears’ plans to petition the state for public funds for a new stadium.

That really is the crux of it. There is just this entitled assumption on the part of team owners and leagues — which has been largely adopted by sports fans and sports media — that it’s just a Law of Nature that taxpayers should subsidize stadium projects. Even many who are at least somewhat disinclined to support a given project never go so far as to say “hey, that’s not your money” when it comes to the sorts of taxes, like hotel taxes or rental car taxes or whatever, that often go for that purpose. The onus is always on public officials or citizens to say “no” rather than team owners to explain why they, unlike most other businesses, are entitled to public revenue.

Not the bees!

As you certainly saw by now, a bee colony formed on the netting at Chase Field which delayed the start of Tuesday night’s Dodgers-Diamondbacks game by two hours before a heroic beekeeper came to clear the insects away and allow the game to go on.

The next morning I read this story in the New York Times about how honeybees invaded a writer’s house, but no one would help her get them out. Just another example of big money sports being given preferential treatmen—

[Editor: Craig, we know you enjoy that hammer, but not everything you see is a nail]

OK, fine.

Alfred Wainwright spins in his grave

Those of you who followed along with my Coast to Coast walk last year may recall that one of the rituals of that walk involves picking up a pebble on the beach at St. Bees, the walk’s starting point, putting it in your pack, walking it the 194 miles across the country, and then throwing the stone into the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay.

The local authority which governs St. Bees — the Cumberland unitary authority — would like you not to do that, however:

I was obviously bummed out when injury ended my Coast to Coast journey. I was realistic about it and I think I handled it generally well, but I’ll admit I got super emotional at one point. That came while sitting at the bus stop in the village of Osmotherley — the place I was when I realized I couldn’t go on any longer and began my painful journey home — I reached into my pack, took out the stone I had collected in St. Bees and threw it into the brush, feeling unworthy of holding on to it given that I couldn’t take it where I had promised myself I would take it.

At this point I’m going to admit something: over the past couple of months I have slowly begun to come around to the idea that I’m going to hike the Coast to Coast again one day. I’m not yet 100% certain I’m going to do it — there are a lot of other walks I’d like to take — but the feeling that I will eventually tackle it again has grown slowly as the months have passed. And while I tend not to put a ton of stock in symbolic gestures, part of what has motivated me to at least consider it is the idea of once again taking a stone with me across that entire distance and, finally, chucking it into the sea.

Which is to say, if I do indeed decide to go again, I’ll need someone to at least go with me to the starting point to create a diversion, because that trip is expensive as-is so I don’t really need it to cost me another £1,000.

Paul Auster: 1947-2024

The author Paul Auster, who wrote brilliant, postmodern/metafiction books like The Invention of Solitude, The New York Trilogy, and The Music of Chance died on Tuesday at the age of 77.

Auster has long been one of my favorite authors, and The New York Trilogy, which consists of the novels City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room is one (three?) of my favorite works by any author of all time. While I don’t write fiction, Auster’s use of a genre — detective fiction in this case — as the pretext for asking all of the important questions about life and existence, during which he eschews the genre for dozens of pages at a time because the questions become so much more interesting than the story ostensibly being told, is something that greatly influenced me as a writer.

Auster also spoke to me because he stared clear-eyed at tragedy — often his own family’s tragedy — and infused his fictional narratives with it, blurring the lines between his own reality and his characters’ reality. His critics often chided him for this, saying he was being cute and playing games, but what’s the point of ambitious fiction of any kind if not to help us better process and possibly understand the human condition? Unlike most writers Auster didn’t hide that that’s what he was doing and I liked that about him.

Another thing about Auster: after writing, baseball was perhaps his greatest obsession. He made frequent mention of it in both interviews and his own writing. Ten years ago he wrote a letter to the New York Times with a radical idea to speed up the game: make walks only require three balls and make foul balls with two strikes into strikeouts. I thought it was a bad idea at the time, but after the New York Daily News talked up the idea the Long Island Ducks and Bridgeport Bluefish of the Atlantic League played a game, with Auster in attendance, under such rules. It was kind of a bust — way too many walks and strikeouts and overly-aggressive batters trying to avoid getting punched out — but it was sort of amusing.

More substantively: back in 1995 Auster wrote an essay in The New Yorker called “Why Write,” which consisted of several anecdotes via which he explained what possessed him to be a writer and what animated his writer’s mind. Like most Auster pieces it started in the middle, went back and forth in time, and involved random chance and seemingly unconnected events.

The only one of the anecdotes which directly answered the posed question — why does Paul Auster write? — came at the end. In it he said that his writing life began at the age of eight, in 1955, when he missed out on getting an autograph from Willie Mays at the Polo Grounds because neither he nor his parents had carried a pencil to the game. Auster:

Rest in peace Paul Auster.

Have a great day everyone.