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Cup of Coffee: August 17, 2020

Cup of Coffee: August 17, 2020

. . . and we're back!

Good morning! And welcome to the first real day of this newsletter.

The entries from Thursday and Friday last week were something of a shakedown cruise so I could get used to writing on this platform and you could get used to receiving it in the morning. I think we’ve figured the important parts of that out.

Today and tomorrow’s newsletter — in which the actual, current baseball content returns — will continue to be free to non-subscribers. Starting Wednesday, the daily And That Happened and news digests, which I’m going to call The Daily Briefing until I can think of something better, go behind the wall and only occasional things will be public.

I’m doing that because (a) I’d like non-subscribers to see what they’ll get for their money here; but (b) I also have to feed my kids. Which is to say that I hope, if you like what I’m pouring here, you’ll buy a cup:

So let’s get on with it, shall we?

AND THAT HAPPENED

Rays 3, Blue Jays 2; Rays 7, Blue Jays 5: The first one was the continuation of Saturday’s rain-suspended game. You know how it is in Buffalo, right? Wait, no, we have no idea what it’s like in Buffalo because there hasn’t been any major league baseball in Buffalo for 105 damn years. Anyway, it was decided by a ninth inning Brandon Lowe homer.

The game actually scheduled for Sunday was shortened to seven innings per 2020’s Official CalvinBall Rules of Major League Baseball.™ Except it was tied after seven and went to an extra eighth inning in which a runner was started on second base. Again, per 2020’s Official CalvinBall Rules of Major League Baseball.™ Willy Adames of the Rays smacked a two-run dinger to put Tampa Bay ahead and they held that lead, giving Aaron Loup the win. Loup also won that first game because he was the pitcher of record when Lowe hit that homer.

Welcome to the 2020 season, where everything's made up and the points don't matter. What does matter: the Rays have won 9 of 11 games

Indians 8, Tigers 5: At least some things are normal: the Indians beat the Tigers for the 20th straight time. They play each other again next weekend and, if Cleveland sweeps, they’ll tie the all-time one-team-beating-another-consecutively record at 23. That’s currently held by the Orioles, who beat the Athletics that many straight games in 1969-70.* In this one, Franmil Reyes hit two home runs, giving him three in the three-game series. Francisco Lindor, José Ramírez and Sandy León also homered.

*In the email this morning I used a turn of phrase about the Orioles-A’s dominance that, upon reflection, I was not comfortable with as it has some negative overtones. I didn’t mean such overtones, but nor should I open the door for such inferences to be made by others. Just because I can use coarser language here than I used to use doesn’t mean that I have to.

Brewers 6, Cubs 5: Last week my children introduced me to the group 100 gecs, which has been described as “an anarchic assault on the ears” and “shitposting in the form of music.” It’s clearly not intended for me or, for that matter, anyone who is not an open-minded and steel-eardrumed member of Gen-Z. My daughter Anna told me, “If you went back in time and played 100 gecs to small Victorian children, they would die.”

I mention this because the Cubs struck out 53 times during the four-game series against the Brewers, and I’m pretty sure if you went back in time and told that to Ernie Banks, he’d die.

Anyway, the Cubs came into the weekend red hot and then dropped three of four, and the last three straight, to Milwaukee. At home of all places. Well, of the two possible places they could’ve played this game. Here Keston Hiura and Orlando Arcia homered. Arcia had three hits in all and scored the go ahead run when Ryan Braun singled him home.

Nationals 6, Orioles 5: Max Scherzer gave up five runs over seven — blowing a four-run lead at one point — but he also struck out ten. It was tied at five when he threw his last pitch but he was still on the books when Juan Soto scored the go-ahead run on a throwing error by third baseman Rio Ruiz in the eighth. With the win the Nats are no longer in last place. That honor goes to . . .

Phillies 6, Mets 2: . . . The Mets. Who saw their big offseason free agent addition, Rick Porcello, lose to the guy they let walk in free agency, Zack Wheeler. The former allowed four runs on ten hits over six. The latter allowed two runs over seven. Andrew McCutchen didn’t get the start but he came in as a mid-game injury replacement for Jay Bruce, who pulled his quad, and hit a go-ahead, two-run home run in the sixth. After getting swept by the Orioles of all teams the Phillies sweep the Mets and are only two back of the Marlins and Braves despite having the worst damn bullpen in all of the Nine Realms.

Braves 4, Marlins 0: Five Braves pitchers combined to toss a two-hit shutout to give the Braves two of three from the “first place” Marlins, with said quotes applied because they’ve only played 15 games and, I suspect, quality will win or lose out over time, rendering this current run of theirs cute but non-predictive. As it is now they’re a few percentage points ahead of Atlanta. Nick Markakis — who pulled a Costanza and un-quit a couple of weeks ago — had a couple of hits and drove in three. It’s inspiring. Makes me want to see if I can still log on to the NBC server and cross-post this at the old site.

White Sox 7, Cardinals 2: This, technically speaking, is my first day of a new job. It’s still super early on that first day as I’m writing it, but I already know it’s going to go better than Cardinal pitcher Roel Ramírez’s first day in the majors. That was yesterday. It started well enough — he struck out the first batter he ever faced — but then it went like this:

Single
Single
Walk
Homer
Homer
Homer
Homer

Ramírez only gave up six runs instead of seven because one of those guys who hit a single was caught stealing. But he never recorded a third out before hitting the showers. He did accomplish something, though: he became only the 9th pitcher since 1901 to allow at least four homers in his big league debut. He's the only one of those guys, however, to allow the four homers consecutively. Be unique in everything you do, man.

The homers, which came from Yoan Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, José Abreu and Eloy Jiménez, looked like this:

Astros 3, Mariners 2: Tied 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, Kyle Tucker came to bat and smacked a walkoff homer, giving the Astros their fourth straight win and their fifth of six.

Twins 4, Royals 2: Max Kepler hit a two-run homer to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead in the fifth and the Twins got an insurance run in the seventh on a safety squeeze of all things. Which is exactly how you’d expect the club which set the record for the most homers in a single season just a year ago to do it.

Rockies 10, Rangers 6: The Rockies rattled off 14 hits — two from Charlie Blackmon, who I talk about down in the Daily Briefing — and got seven solid innings from Jon Gray. Ryan McMahon homered. Trevor Story drove in a couple. The Rockies snap a three-game skid.

Athletics 15, Giants 3: It was tied 2-2 heading into the fifth and then things ceased to be competitive. Chad Pinder hit a go-ahead, two-run homer and Stephen Piscotty and Marcus Semien also went deep as Oakland scored nine times in the frame. Nine times? NIIIINEEE TIIIMES. Piscotty drove in five. The A’s have won four in a row. They’ve won 13 of 15. They have the best record in the American League.

The Giants? Well, their fans have fond memories of relatively recent triumphs on which to look back that will spare then of the dread and doom which looms before them, seemingly indefinitely.

Diamondbacks 5, Padres 4: Eduardo Escobar hit a go-ahead, three-run homer in the eighth inning to help the Snakes sweep the Padres, who have dropped five straight. This after I went on San Diego radio last week and called the first of those five games “pivotal” or something like that. Never listen to me pretend to be a regular baseball pundit, man. Just ignore it totally. If I ever talk about “keys to winning” or a “pivotal series” or any of the sort of crap you’d hear on Baseball Tonight, just tell me to shut the hell up. I’m way better talking about what has happened than what will happen or what should happen.

Dodgers 8, Angels 3: I refuse to believe that there’s a baseball player named Keibert Ruiz. That’s a name that is auto-generated by a second-rate baseball video game that is not licensed by the MLBPA and thus can’t use real players. It was made for your 486 PC circa 1996 and it came with keyboard hacks that let you make a mockery of the game because, well, that’s how all games worked then. Remember how you could embezzle money on SimCity four times but if you did it a fifth time a giant lizard attacked your city? That made zero sense at all but at the time we all said “Oh, OK, only embezzle a little to avoid the giant lizard.” This was around the same time people who claimed to be smart thought that history had ended since the United States won the Cold War and all that needed to be sorted out was whether we’d lead the world “awesomely” or “super awesomely.”

Anyway, this completely fictitious ballplayer, Keibert Ruiz, who was created by some bored programmer at Acclaim Entertainment or wherever, somehow made it onto the Dodgers roster and hit a homer in his first ever at bat:

OK, maybe Ruiz is real. Maybe I’m just having trouble getting my brain around the fact that the Dodgers just seem to pull talent out of the ground like it’s the damn fall harvest. “Hmm, we’re light on catchers?” *reaches into the dirt* “here’s one!”

Beyond him, Corey Seager hit a three-run homer and Los Angeles took its fifth straight. The Angels, in contrast, have lost four in a row. They got a homer from Anthony Rendon — his fifth in six games — to continue their seeming never-ending “great performances from a superstar or two and absolutely nothing else to back it up” pattern. A pattern they’ve stuck to since before Acclaim Entertainment stopped making video games and we thought history was ending in some sort of Pax Americana.

Yankees 4, Red Sox 2: Everything sucks in 2020. Most obviously on the merits — death, disease, unrest, upheaval — but also because the course on which we’re sailing is so utterly uncharted. We have no ready precedent for the horrors we have faced this year so, in addition to the substance of the horrors, we are suffering from a total loss of gravity occasioned by lack of familiar points of reference.

Well, not a total loss. We have at least one thing that is recognizable: the Yankees losing all of their superstars to injury but not missing a beat because guys who look like they got pulled in off of a construction site and hastily suited up simply stepped in and hit like Johnny Mize circa 1950. Yesterday it was Mike Ford, who singled in a run in the first and smacked a two-run homer in the third to help the Bombers to their third straight win over the Bosox and their fifth straight win overall.

You know who will step up and help the Yankees beat the Red Sox tomorrow? Yep, you guessed it, it’s you. Yes, you.

Reds vs. Pirates — POSTPONED: Get up, come on get down with the sicknessGet up, come on get down with the sicknessGet up, come on get down with the sicknessOpen up your hate, and let it flow into meGet up, come on get down with the sicknessYou mother get up come on get down with the sicknessYou fucker get up come on get down with the sicknessMadness is the gift, that has been given to me

THE DAILY BRIEFING

A-Rod is reportedly the leader in the clubhouse to buy the Mets

You have probably heard that Alex Rodriguez, Jennifer Lopez and a handful of super rich people have bid to purchase the New York Mets. At least one reporter is hearing that the A-Rod/J-Lo group is “the clear-cut favorite” win the bidding.

I’ve covered a LOT of team sales over the years and I’ve heard a lot of rumors about who is and who isn’t the favorite. I’ve also had would-be ownership groups try to use me to spread information and/or misinformation about themselves or the people they’re bidding against (Hi, Jim Crane, back when you were trying to buy the Texas Rangers!).

It’s pretty simple: Group A wants the word out there to be that Group B is light on cash. Group C wants to tell you that they ARE LOADED and are willing to outbid anyone. P.R. is super important to these guys and has at least some impact on the outcome, as Major League Baseball at least tries to get owners in place in whom fans and local leaders will have confidence.

Which is to say: while A-Rod and J-Lo may very well end up owning the Mets, take this report with a grain of salt. Nothing matters until the bidding is closed. In the case of the Mets, that’s August 31.

Some big injuries

The stop-and-start nature of “spring” training this year combined with the compact and occasionally interrupted schedule has caused a lot of people to worry about pitching injuries. And, in the event, we have had a lot of pitching injuries.

The most recent: World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg was put on the 10-day injured list by the Washington Nationals on Saturday because of “carpal tunnel neuritis of the right hand.” As someone who has had carpal tunnel issues in the past I can’t imagine trying to pitch with anything like that, but of course, I’m a middle aged wuss, so maybe Strasburg will handle it better. The Nats say he’ll be out for a while though. Given how short the season is and given how poorly the Nats have started it, one wonders if maybe he shouldn’t just be shut down until next spring.

Some big name position players have gone down recently too. They’ve gone down due to good old fashioned baseball injuries. Not that that makes anyone feel any better.

The big one over the weekend: Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu, who went on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left thumb. LeMahieu, who leads the league in batting average, joins his pals Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton on the IL. Another big one: Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Braves, who hit the IL due to a bum left wrist that has kept him out since August 12.

The Yankees are in first and the Braves are close to it so they can likely weather these ouchies, but having star players missing ten days or more definitely hits different in 60-game season.

Graceless

Former Cub — and (a) Arizona Diamondbacks announcer; and (b) occasional Cubs guest announcer — Mark Grace told a story on-the-air during Saturday’s Cubs game in which he referred to his ex-wife as a “dingbat” several times and said that he’d “go Archie Bunker on her.” It was sexist and, depending on your interpretation of “go Archie Bunker,” might be worse than just that.

Having a guy waltz onto a broadcast to tell stories that have nothing to do with the game is bad enough, but having him offer this garbage is even worse. Apparently he’s going to be off Cubs broadcasts for a while. Frankly, he shouldn’t be on there in the first place. Len Kasper and Jim Deshaies are one of the best broadcast duos in the business. They don’t need “help” from tourists like Grace.

How the other half live

I would guess that any players of even moderate stature would be retrieved on a team plane anyway — or they’d be driven via car service if it was close enough — due to safety concerns. As such, it’s probably best to read this as Boras engaging in self-marketing. I respect hustle but this is fake hustle. It’s Boras playing the Scott Boras role. Which he does quite a bit these days. Guess someone has to.

Charlie Blackmon’s quest for .400

There was a lot of talk late last week and over the weekend about Charlie Blackmon and his chase of .400. He took a couple of 0’fers on Wednesday and Friday and only had one hit on Saturday but roared back with a 2-for-3 day yesterday, bringing his average up to .446. That’s a pretty cool chase, even in a short season.

I’m a bit annoyed, though, at how quickly pundits want to run to the “HOW SHOULD HISTORY THINK OF IT?!” take.

How about this: Nothing really matters all that much in a 60-game season so the need to decide What It All Means shouldn’t preoccupy us. How about remembering that hitting .400 in any 60-game stretch is really hard and that if Blackmon does it — or if any other player sports an astounding rate stat this year — it’s still impressive. How about we just say, if it happens, “that was neat” and we resist the urge to compare it to George Brett in 1980, Rod Carew in 1977, Ted Williams in 1941 or even Tony Gwynn in 1994?

Some things in baseball can just happen and we can just let them be what they are. Not everything needs to be harshly judged, assessed for “legitimacy,” or considered to be of the utmost importance. Probably a lot more things than we think. If Charlie Blackmon — or Donovan Solano or D.J. LeMahieu or someone else — hits .400, we can just say “hey, good job, Charlie/Donovan/D.J.” That’s really all we need to do.

Negro League Stats to be Official?

Yesterday Major League Baseball celebrated the centennial of the founding of the Negro National League. Which was just one of many Negro Leagues, even if we now lump them altogether for the most part. It’s all part of a year-long commemoration MLB and the players union are doing of the Negro Leagues.

Here’s something not yet official, but which may be: per Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, MLB is considering elevating the Negro Leagues to official major league status, which would in turn cause its statistics and records to be part of the major league record book. It isn’t currently that now, with the excuse given that record-keeping was spotty and playing conditions, schedules, and such were not uniform. As Lindbergh ably notes, however, the same damn thing can be said about the Union Association, the Players’ League and The Federal League, all of which have official major league status. Hell, it could be said about the early days of the National and American leagues as well.

The reason the Negro Leagues have been considered less-than-major over the years has way more to do with the same factors that have made Black people second class citizens in this country for most of its history than it has to do with the specifics of baseball games, rules, and records. If MLB does, in fact, elevate the Negro Leagues to big league status, it’s an excellent move. One that is long overdue.

We age differently now

I fell into a Phil Niekro hole on Saturday (are we not doing phrasing anymore?) and came across a fairly insane photo of him in what was not, under any circumstances, the official Braves cap at the time. Which, in turn, made me think of Jim Leyland’s infamous “what the hell kind of cap is that?” photo from his 1986 Topps card:

I had no end of fun with those photos, but man, they made me think about how people age.

Given the Niekro cap and when the Braves were wearing that style (1972-1980), the absolute oldest Niekro could be in this pic is 41. He could be as young as 33! Given that Leyland’s pic is from spring training 1986, he is definitely 41 in that photo.

I am 47 right now. My bald head notwithstanding, I think I could still pass for either of these two guys’ sons as they appeared here. I realize health and beauty standards change over time and that smoking like Leyland ages a guy, but we need an in-depth study as to why, as recently as 30-some years ago, people in their 40s looked like they were in their 60s and what caused that to change.

Either way, if a guy looking like Neikro did in that photo ever comes up to you and asks you to help him load stuff into your van, do not, under any circumstances, agree to assist him, because there’s a 90% probability that he’ll make a person suit out of you.

OTHER STUFF

As you know, the whole reason I’m launching this newsletter is because NBC laid me off. Well, I’m not the only one that got laid off. My friend and long-time coworker Bill Baer and my friend and short-time-but-still-quality-time coworker Nick Stellini did too. Both of them have started newsletters of their own. Bill’s newsletter is called Baer in Mind — clever! — and focuses on MLB news and analysis. Nick’s is called Where We Are, and focuses on politics, social issues, writing and culture. I know it’s a big ask to support every one of us NBC refugees, but if you can lend any support to Bill and Nick please consider it.
I made a guest appearance on Episode 14 of the "Aggravating Circumstances" true crime podcast, which is chronicling the (in my view and the view of many) wrongful murder conviction of a man named Destry Cord McKinney in Alabama 20 years ago. The underlying story of the podcast is a self defense case in which the prosecution pretty clearly withheld exculpatory evidence until after the trial and . . . the appeals courts did not care. The bulk of the episode is me ranting about how the criminal justice system sucks. The host, by the way, is Laura Szeremi, who also writes a blog about eventing, which is called Tales From a Bad Eventer. My wife Allison is also an eventer and reads Laura’s blog, so it’s a case of worlds colliding. They collided because Laura asked her readers if anyone had any legal experience and could help on her podcast and Allison volunteered me. She’s persuasive that way. She can make worlds collide.
For the past couple of months Mike Ferrin, the host of “Power Alley” on SiriusXM's MLB Network Radio, Steven Goldman of the “Infinite Inning” podcast and of Baseball Prospectus, and I have been doing a Bob Dylan podcast. The name: “Everything is Broken,” and each episode we just gab for an hour about a given Dylan album. The latest, Episode 4, dropped over the weekend, and in it we discuss the synth-heavy, terribly misguided 1985 album “Empire Burlesque.” Something’s burning, baby. The previous three episodes covered better albums. The next one, to be recorded in less than two weeks, will be a damn masterpiece, but I’ll leave that until later.

Not all the newsletters will be this long, folks. I’ve been off work for two weeks, though, so I had a head full of ideas that were driving me insane. I’ll be more reasonable most mornings. Or at least I’ll break things up into two newsletters.

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