May 10, 2021
1. Jacob deGrom leaves his start with an injury
He was pitching brilliantly, again — dominating the early Cy Young talk, every stat leaderboard, even bunting his way on base for a hit:
And then to start the sixth inning, he leaves the game. The reports today are looking optimistic:
2. Mike Trout hops on the Dogecoin train
Former teammate C.J. Wilson commenting below the tweet:
“oh no. don’t shill shitcoins mike. please.”
3. An insane play to end the game — in NAIA Ball
Merkle’s Boner revisited, 113 years later:
4. Adolis Garcia had a walk-off outfield assist
The Rangers have won seven out of nine, they’re back up to .500 after a dead-last preseason prediction — and won a game over the weekend like this:
5. MLB.com’s power rankings update:
- Red Sox (22–13)
- Giants (20–14)
- White Sox (19–13)
- Padres (19–16)
- A’s (21–15)
And the team most people still think might be the best (this Newsletter included), drops out for the first time this year:
6. Saturday’s Braves / Phillies game had a wild ending
12th inning. Tie game.
And then came the errors — the Phillies score three:
Then, the bottom of the 12th. Braves down 7–4. And the catcher who’d made the first error (brother of Willson Contreras) come through with a bases clearing double to tie the game:
And finally, Ehire Adrianza, with the winner. Four runs in the bottom of the 12th to complete the comeback:
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8. Painful moment of the weekend: Mookie Betts
First the groaning, then him immediately laughing it off:
9. Home runs of the weekend
Jake Cronenworth hits a kayak on the fly
Nolan Arenado hits his first HR against his former team:
And Paul Goldschmidt, homering while the Cardinals announcers are joking about… him homering (listen):
10. The Yankees have back-to-back walk-off wins, back above .500 now
On Saturday, Gleyber Torres hit a dribbler for the win in the 11th:
And then on Sunday, Giancarlo Stanton. And the Yankees, last place in the A.L. East almost all season, are back up into second.
11. More on the Mets dubious “rat / raccoon” story
Real or not, clubhouse drama or not — the Mets came out of the weekend with a sweep, a five-game win streak, a first place team.
Doesn’t look like anyone on the team is worried:
The Mets’ GM on the whole thing: “Not ideal.”
12. Error of the weekend: Mariners catcher Luis Torrens
He thought it was a force-out play. To his chagrin, and to neutral baseball fans’ delight, it was not:
13. When life gives you stop signs, run through them (sometimes)
Eternal, vaunted words of wisdom.
14. And never bunt down 13–0, or Clayton Kershaw will laugh at you
To be fair, the Angels scored 11 runs and almost came back and won after this, but still — when life gives you a blowout loss, do not bunt!
15. The White Sox had ten hits in the first inning on Saturday
Final score of 9–1.
And you have to love that about baseball — one big scoring outburst in the first 15 minutes, and then you can relax. No more scoring needed, no more effort.
16. Lastly, in closed captioning errors: Bobby Dalbec = “Barbie doll back”
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