I sit here on Wednesday night watching the Philadelphia Phillies beating up on the New York Mets yet again. The Phillies won the first two games of the four game series this week and are trending toward a third straight win. The division race is over and suddenly, they are creeping closer to grabbing the #1 seed in the National League. The Mets have been bad, losers of four straight, heading toward a fifth consecutive loss tonight. However, the broader question is this.
Are the Phillies getting hot at the perfect time?
The Phillies are celebrating their latest good stretch of baseball. Credit: Yahoo
This week did not start out so good. The left side of their infield, Trea Turner and Alec Bohm, were placed on the injured list. Bohm will be back as soon as ten days have concluded while Turner could miss the rest of the regular season. A first round bye would be welcome for the club. Since August 1st, Philadelphia is 24-13 and has won six of eight games to begin September. Bryson Stott has awaken from a season long slump, hitting .333 over his last seven games. Same for Brandon Marsh, who is at .344 over his last 30 contests. Ranger Suarez struck out a career high 12 batters on Tuesday. Jhoan Duran and David Robertson have lifted the entire bullpen. This stretch has come with some significant adversity. Both Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper are hitting under.200 over the last month. Ace Zack Wheeler last pitched August 15 and is done for the year. Bohm and Turner are now going to miss a minimum of ten games. 11 games over .500 with so many issues? It sounds like a squad that is peaking.
Just wait until Harper and Schwarber resume hitting. The injured infielders get a little bit of a break before the hardest part of the season. After a tough trip to Los Angeles and Arizona, the Phillies close out the year at home vs. the Marlins and Twins. Everything is pointing to the continuing torrid stretch exhibited by the team. The next question is, will it carry the Phillies to a Word Series championship?
I get it. The world was starving for the NFL season to begin and tonight represents the final game of Week 1. The Minnesota Vikings at the Chicago Bears is a tasty prime time matchup, a good way to close the schedule. How will Ben Johnson fare in his first game as head coach? J.J. McCarthy makes his NFL debut after being injured all of last year. So many storylines, so much intrigue….
Who cares? The Mets start a four game series against the Phillies tonight at Citizens Bank Park.
Big series this week between these two teams. Credit: northjersey.com
There is angst in the house. Matthew expects the Phillies to win three of the four games, the only Mets’ win coming on Nolan McLean‘s start this evening. Caitlyn got the awful news that both Alec Bohm and Trea Turner have hit the injured list. Personal rivalries aside, this is a big series. Even though the Phillies lead the Mets by seven games in the National League East, a Mets sweep would put them at only three back and owning the tiebreaker. For whatever reason, the blue and orange uniforms bring out the worst in them, much like the Red Sox seem to spook the Yankees this season. Realistically, the Phils will remain in first place through the end of the season. They also have designs on the #2 seed and a first round bye. The Mets are running out of time to get into the first Wild Card spot and play their opening round at Citi Field. The series is getting some love nationally with tonight’s game being broadcast on MLB Network and Thursday’s game televised on Fox.
I am just as happy as the next person that the NFL is back. It is America’s most popular sport. But the calendar still says Summer and the clock is ticking on the regular season. Therefore, nothing is taking a back seat to Phillies-Mets to start the week and Yankees-Red Sox to close the week.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are off to a sizzling 5-0 start with all five victories coming away from home. Hot starts are nothing new for the Bucs; in 2023 they started 20-9 only to finish the year with a record of 76-86. This year feels different. After two consecutive seasons of 100 losses and last year’s 4th place finish, the great and patient baseball fans of Pittsburgh deserve to have meaningful baseball in September. The National League Central can be won by any of the five teams which means the Pirates need to make an impact move. Fortunately, the big move is from in house: calling up Paul Skenes.
Paul Skenes should be in Pittsburgh later in 2024. Photo from Fox News..
By all accounts, the first overall selection in the 2023 Draft is on the cusp of the Major Leagues. All that needs to be done, seemingly, is to build up his arm for the rigors of professional baseball. In 2023, Skenes pitched 122 2/3 innings for LSU and then another 6 2/3 innings in limited Minor League action. It’s easy to understand why the Pirates did not want him to break camp with the big club out of Spring Training. However, that should not stop him from reaching Pittsburgh in August. Think back to the Tampa Bay Rays of 2008. Late in the season, they called up David Price, who, like Skenes was the #1 draft pick the year before making his debut. Price was drafted in 2007 and by the end of the following season, he helped pitch the Rays to the World Series. After not having a record over .500 since 2018, Pittsburgh needs to do everything in its power to make a legitimate playoff push.
Skenes started off 2024 in dominant fashion. Pitching for the Triple A Indianapolis Indians, he hurled three perfect innings, striking out five batters. Each one of his starts will be noted to all of us who have the MLB app. Skenes has the ability to be the Pirates’ biggest star since Andrew McCutchen in his prime. Excitement is building for the Steel City. Skenes can generate even more of it and help the Pirates to their first playoff appearance in nine years.
Things have certainly started off swimmingly for the New York Yankees. They have won their first three games of the season against the rival Houston Astros. Making it sweeter is the fact all of the victories have come at Minute Maid Park. After the Easter Sunday finale, it’s off to Arizona for three games against the National Champion Diamondbacks. What a start for the new look Bronx Bombers if they can go, say 5-2 against two of the best teams from 2023. It will certainly set the Yanks up for a season that will make memories from last year’s mediocre campaign disappear quickly.
Oswaldo Cabrera rocking at the plate and rocking new threads. Photo from Yahoo Sports.
Two of the new arrivals into the Bronx have paid immediate dividends. Juan Soto is already 6 for 12 and saved the opening win with a throw to snuff out the game tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Marcus Stroman did not allow an earned run in six innings on Saturday. Returning youngster Oswaldo Cabrera already has two home runs and six RBI’s in three games. His play means that DJ LeMahieu can take all the time he wants to come back from his foot injury. There is another change New York has made not affecting the field of play that makes me smile.
The new road uniforms are a great look. For a team that hasn’t changed their uniforms much over the last one hundred years and are steeped in tradition, these grays are fantastic. They remind of the road uniforms that Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle once wore. Soto’s home run in that classic gray could have been Lou Gehrig going the opposite way in 1931 vs. the Philadelphia Athletics. Not all uniform changes are for the better. Changing the design of an iconic uniform such as the Yankees’ can be a tricky proposition. No need to worry. The updated look is a home run.
Major League Baseball is all about numbers. No other sport has the type of rich numerical history and memory recall that baseball enjoys. Because of the way the game is played in 2024, some of the iconic or routine numbers of the past no longer apply today. With that being said, there are some difficult, but potentially obtainable numbers I would like to see take place in 2024. I doubt they will be reached this season but with a renewed emphasis on speed, perhaps we are closer than we think to a couple of these milestones.
Willie Wilson’s 705 at bats in 1980 is one of my favorite stats. Photo from MLB.com
100 as in steals. Since 1900, only four players have stolen 100 or more bases in a single season: Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock, Vince Coleman and Maury Wills. Coleman was the most recent to accomplish this feat, swiping 110 bags in 1985. Growing up, I was spoiled watching Henderson and Coleman dueling to get to 100 and also witnessed guys like Ron LeFlore, Omar Moreno, Willie Wilson and Tim Raines push 80 and 90 steals. While we are a long way from getting back to the go-go 80’s, seeing a superstar like Ronald Acuna steal 73 bases means that perhaps this category is getting renewed attention. Making the bases larger before last season entices runners to take an extra base. The odds are extremely long to get to 100 but 80 from a daring player is not out of the question.
250 as in innings pitched. The days of starting pitchers hurling 300 innings are never coming back. Reasons are varied but the chief factor is the advent of the five man, and in some cases, six man rotation. In fact, the barometer is not 250 innings anymore, it is more like 200. In 2023, only Logan Webb, Zac Gallen, Gerrit Cole, Miles Mikolas and Chris Bassett matched or exceeded 200, with Webb leading the way at 216. Sooner or later, management will trust their eyes more than the analytics and leave a pitcher in for more than six innings when he is throwing well. The game needs to de-emphasize strikeouts which require more effort, and focus on just getting guys out. If and when these two things happen, expect more pitchers to hit 200 innings and maybe, just maybe get to the magic 250.
700 as in at bats. At bats are different from plate appearances. At bats do not include things such as walks, a hit by pitch and sacrifices. Hundreds of players have had over 700 plate appearances in a single season but only four have had 700 at bats: Jimmy Rollins (716), Willie Wilson (705), Ichiro Suzuki (704) and Juan Samuel (701). Whit Merrifield had 681 at bats in 2019 so someone reaching 700 in 2024 is certainly within reach. It has to be someone that plays every day, bats at the top of the lineup and doesn’t walk a lot. Acuna comes to mind as he plays nearly every day and leads off. However, he drew 80 walks last year; in order to have a shot at 700, he would have to cut that in half. In fact, the stars of the Braves play almost every day and they have been one of the most successful teams in baseball over the last five years. Maybe more teams will get the bright idea to play their best players as much as possible. We will have a much better chance to see a 700 at bat player when that happens.
20 as in triples. In my opinion, the most exciting play in baseball is a triple. You can have your home runs with the silly bat flips. Nothing is better than watching the game of will he or won’t he as a hitter flies around the bases. Maybe triples are exciting because they are a little rare. Sam Crawford has the most career triples with 309 and the single season record holder is Owen Wilson (shockingly, not the actor) with 36. 2007 was the last season that saw a player with 20 or more triples as Curtis Granderson had 23 while the aforementioned Jimmy Rollins banged out 21. Rollins’s number is especially interesting as half of his games were in Citizens Bank Park, a rather small ballpark. With the game becoming more speed oriented, it wouldn’t come as a shock if someone lands on 15 or 16 three baggers this season. Maybe we won’t see 20 in 2024 but I have a feeling we will witness it some time before the end of the decade.
This past offseason featured much speculating about where the “big” free agents were going to land. For the majority of the time, we kept wondering if and when Blake Snell, Matt Chapman, Jordan Montgomery, Cody Bellinger and Sonny Gray were going to sign with a new team. All but Montgomery have found destinations and with the regular season less than a week away, we are no closer to finding out his new home. The guy I am waiting for to sign and for whom a contending team really could use is Tommy Pham.
A playoff contender needs to sign Tommy Pham. Phot from the Cincinnati Enquirer
Pham could be working on his eighth team in 11 years. There could be a myriad of reasons to this but perhaps two reasons that seems to make the most sense is that he speaks his mind and that he is intense. I’ll venture to say certain organizations are uncomfortable with a player being so open, honest and serious. However, all I know is that the guy is a winning player. Look at the Arizona Diamondbacks from last year. Is there any doubt that Pham made a difference to the D’backs after he arrived from the New York Mets? He brought leadership and intensity to a team in desperate need of both. If you doubt that he is not a good teammate, do you recall Game 2 of the 2023 World Series? Pham went 4 for 4 in that game, yet when he had the opportunity to tie a record with a fifth hit, he gave up that chance in order to have Jace Peterson get a World Series at bat. Former reps from previous organizations, among them Buck Showalter and Francisco Lindor, have praised Pham as a teammate and leader. This was even after Pham called Showalter’s Mets, “the least-hardest working group of position players I’ve ever played with”. These two articles from the Athletic and the St. Louis Post Dispatch are wonderful resources if you would like more reading on what makes Pham tick.
Any team that is in a position to have a playoff year should want Tommy Pham on their team. I want the New York Yankees to sign him. The Yanks could use someone like him to stir things up. Pham has simple requests: play hard and win. That should be the unofficial motto for every Major League team. Unfortunately, not all organizations subscribe to that philosophy. The one that signs Tommy Pham will not regret it.
The first game of the Major League Baseball season took place today with the Los Angeles Dodgers defeating the San Diego Padres by a score of 5-2. This was no ordinary first game as this contest took place in Seoul, South Korea. This is not the first time MLB has ventured outside of the United States to begin the season. The first time it happened was in 1996 when the Padres played the New York Mets in Monterrey, Mexico. However, if you are of a certain age, the first game of the season should be reserved for one city.
That city is Cincinnati.
There is nothing like Opening Day in Cincinnati. Photo from WLWT.
For so many years, up until the early 1990’s, the first pitch of the season was thrown by a Reds’ pitcher. Like so many other traditions, be it in baseball or life in general, this was sacrificed in pursuit of greater riches. Contrary to what I believed to be true, Opening Day in Cincinnati was not because the Reds are the oldest professional baseball team. Early on, it was the southern most city in the National League, making it the most likely to have the warmest weather. According to this article in the Cincinnati Enquirer, when the league wanted the Reds to open on the road in 1935, general manager Larry McPhail pointed to the 60 year old tradition of starting the season in the Queen City and he also told the league the franchise could use the money from the sellout. The Reds still generally play their first series at home. Since 1876, the only years the Reds have played on the road have been 1877, 1885, 1888, 1966, 1990 and 2022. Even though the tradition of playing the first game is gone, Cincinnati still celebrates Opening Day, with thousands of people skipping work and school to attend the parade that celebrates the start of another season.
I am glad baseball is back. It feels like a year since the last out of the World Series was recorded. However, I would take the start of the baseball season beginning a week or two later if the tradition of Opening Day returns to Cincinnati.
On Monday morning, I was watching an exhibition game between the Los Angels Dodgers and the South Korean national team. Professional baseball at 7 AM in South Korea? I and millions of other fans saw this movie four years earlier. While viewing Max Muncy hit a run scoring double, my mind flashed back and I couldn’t help but remember that it was at this very spot on the couch that we were introduced to pandemic baseball.
Daniel Palka played KBO baseball in 2020. Photo from si.com
Back in that May of 2020, my kids and I would have the same routine as began our new lives. We would eat breakfast in the living room and watch live baseball from South Korea. During those early days of the pandemic, this was was the only live sporting event to watch. Not only did we see the best of South Korea in a nearly empty stadium, but we saw some familiar faces playing in the KBO. Aaron Altherr, whom we watched at Citi field hit his first New York Mets’ home run, became one of the best power hitters in the KBO with 31 home runs. There was former Arizona Diamondbacks’ prospect turned Chicago White Sox first baseman Daniel Palka trying to work his way back to the Major Leagues. On the mound, former Philadelphia Phillie David Buchanan posted a stellar 2.54 ERA in 31 starts.
Back then, it didn’t matter if there were MLB players in Korea or not. We were just excited to watch professional baseball. Seeing names we recognized was the cherry on top. It was a new world with a lot of confusion and sadness. Being able to watch three innings of baseball before departing to our respective areas for work and school made this new reality a little bit more bearable. It allowed us to bond a little bit more over our love for baseball. Four years later, we will be watching professional baseball under much better circumstances: Opening Day!
Have you ever heard of Immaculate Grid? It’s a game played online along the lines of Wordle. Most of the game consists of finding one player that has played with two different teams located in a specific spot. The possible combinations to describe are endless so the best thing to for an idea is to look at the picture below. To play the game, simply click here.
The Immaculate Grid. Photo from The New York Times
The object, of course is to fill up the entire table with correct answers. One wrong answer doesn’t end the game but you will not be considered “immaculate”. The name of the game is a nod to an immaculate inning, which is nine pitches and three strikeouts. At the end of each game, whether you are perfect or not, you receive a score. The lower the score the better as it indicates an answer has not been used by many game players. For instance, in looking at the grid above, choosing Robin Ventura as your Yankee and Met would result in a higher percentage of a guess than say, Ray Burris. My personal lowest rarity score is a 27.
Immaculate Grid is a game my family plays faithfully each night. The toughest category is first round pick because the draft in baseball has only recently been given more coverage. The easiest for me would be All-Stars thanks to my vast 1970’s and 1980’s baseball card collection. Certain editions of Topps during that time period would indicate who was an All Star. That assists me in getting a low rarity score. I suggest playing Immaculate Grid immediately to test your baseball IQ. It’s a fun activity playing solo or with a group.
I’m a little late to the party on this one. This blog did not begin until March and by then, one of my favorite offseason stories took place at the beginning of February. Bobby Witt, Jr., the young, superstar shortstop with the Kansas City Royals, signed a massive contract extension with his team that lasts well into the next decade. For a franchise that has struggled since their 2015 World Series victory, this signing represents the building block to the next great Royals era.
Bobby Witt, Jr. is the face of the Kansas City Royals. Photo from the Sporting News
OK, so a lot still has to go right for Kansas City, which is coming of a rough 2023 season. It is still a smaller market franchise that will not spend lavishly on free agents. However, the Witt signing is just another indication that the Royals will spend money on their own players. A decade ago, it was Alex Gordon. More recently, it was Salvador Perez. The extension with Witt is by far the richest contract in the organization’s history and it shows their fanbase that they are committed to start the process of becoming competitive for the next ten years. This offseason, in addition to the Witt news, Kansas City signed a number of proven veterans such as Seth Lugo, Hunter Renfroe, Michael Wacha and Will Smith (the pitcher). They will most certainly improve on their 56 win season from a year ago but will it elevate them to playoff contender?
With 30 home runs and 49 stolen bases a year ago, Witt is one of the most exciting players in Major League Baseball. At the end of this contract, he may be considered no worse than the second best player in franchise history behind George Brett. If he leads the Kansas City more than one World Series title, maybe we can debate who is the greatest Royal of them all.
Threeunassisted 