June 23–24, 2021
1. MLB has been overtaken by foreign substance checks
You’ve probably seen it by now, the weirdest, most unintentionally hilarious baseball story in years.
Pitchers taking their own pants off. Umpires sniffing hats. Managers nearly getting into fights. Baseball bizarro world, madcap comedy genius at play on the infield — and you have to wonder, if this is MLB’s big undercover ploy to get eyeballs back on baseball again, well it just might be working.
Some of the highlights, from the past two days:
Much more on the substance checks, further down in the newsletter.
2. Wander Franco, #1 prospect in baseball, had an amazing debut
Twenty years old, switch-hitting infielder from the Dominican Republic, having long been ranked as the best MLB prospect — and I was lucky enough to be there at The Trop to see his first game:
The first plate appearance, he comes up and works a brilliant walk from being down in an 0–2 count, with chants of “WAN-DER FRAN-CO” from the packed bleacher sections, in that rare scene when Tropicana Field actually feels electric. The next time up, he rockets a ball to deep center field, caught on the warning track. And then, with two runners on, his third time up to the plate, he does this. Three-run HR to tie the game.
After that, he ripped a double to the wall in left, and turned a brilliant double play. The MLB debut for the best prospect in the entire league, and it just doesn’t get much better:
3. Back to the madness — the Sticky Stuff Era kicked off with a Scherzer vs. Girardi face-off
You’ve likely seen it already, but we truly did witness a glorious moment of baseball theater out there on the field. Scherzer getting checked three times for a foreign substance with nothing on him, and the whole thing turning into a beautiful, strange charade that no one can quite turn away from.
For the whole breakdown, watch the Jomboy video — it’s brilliant. Possibly his best video yet, as he deduces exactly who Girardi was going after:
4. Clayton Kershaw chimes in on the entire situation
“You know how Girardi called Scherzer out? I think there should be a punishment, if they don’t catch anything on the guy. You better find something, if you’re gonna call him out like that.”
5. MLB is delving into crypto-currency
First, they tweet out this cryptic image (no pun intended) of the moon as a baseball, which no one quite grasped — a reference to the Field of Dreams poster for the upcoming games in Iowa; a plug for the Home Run Derby and the many Ohtani moonshots; a baseball game being played on the moon…
But no, as it turns out, it’s a sponsorship deal between MLB and a cryptocurrency “company” (firm? coin? exchange?). Call me a 28-year-old “Boomer”, but no, I don’t think I’ll be starting an MLB “Blockfolio” account.
6. Weird, first-ever-in-history Shohei Ohtani quirk of the day
The Giants playing the Angels in Anaheim, and for the first time in MLB history — well, just check out the tweet:
7. Baseball shifts are becoming way too insane
Manny Machado. He plays third base. And he ended up on the warning track last night in right field, trying to catch a fly ball:
8. The Phillies and Nats game yesterday was utterly wild
Here’s how the back-and-forth went:
The Phillies go up 5–0, then the Nats tie it in the fifth.
Then later that inning, McCutchen hits a grand slam.
The next inning, the Nats take the lead with their own grand slam:
The Phillies come back and take a 12–11 lead in the eighth.
And then, in the top of the ninth, Starlin Castro drives in two runs — and that’s how it would stay in the end. Nationals win, 13–12.
9. The All-Star Game uniforms came out, and people are unhappy
10. A kid from TikTok tricked the Angels’ TV broadcast
Bamboozled, hoodwinked, Twitter-tricked into looking like dunces.
11. The Padres swept the Dodgers in San Diego
A wild series, once again, a bit too hard to recap the entire thing here given the format, but here were some highlights:
The Padres are 45–32 now, and the Dodgers 44–30, just about even in the NL West, with both still a ways back of the Giants. And so another chapter closes, in this rivalry that some still claim is no rivalry at all — as things got heated in the stands at Petco Park:
12. Catch of the year: The guy who snagged Machado’s HR ball
There have been many “Catch of the Year” videos so far, but really — this might be the one. It’s going onto the list.
13. This week in D’Backs ineptitude and sadness
At this point, the team should just be allowed to sit this season out.
14. Gary Sanchez has somehow turned everything around
He went from one of the most promising young players in baseball, to one of the worst in the entire league, to, right now — he might just finally be back.
15. Stat of the day: From the Wander Franco debut
Here’s where those cliche sites online would go, “Do you feel old yet??”
16. Lastly, some roster and injury notes: Buxton, Conforto, Lucchesi
See you tomorrow, everyone. And my apologies for the late post. The new account I’ve started (@StickyCheck) blew up in the first 24 hours and kind of took over for about a day, but things are… now back to normal!
