[JAKEPEAVY21]

Hopefully the dodgers and giants beat up on each other..

[boscokid]

Snell gotta be getting close no? I saw he had a decent rehab start at A level but haven't seen any additional news if he is doing another start at higher level before returning to SD

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Snell gotta be getting close no? I saw he had a decent rehab start at A level but haven't seen any additional news if he is doing another start at higher level before returning to SD

Yeah, that's what I have read.

You are really holding out hope for the Snell of 5 years ago...as I told you a month or 2 ago, I wouldn't bank on him to be that great. Hopefully he proves me wrong..

[boscokid]

Lol no. He is more like a 6th starter for me but I still wouldn't mind seeing 10 wins, ERA under 4 and a SO per inning.

That's Josiah Gray level numbers. Bosco not expecting miracles here

[JMobile]

Padres vs Cleveland game was postponed due to rain

[jrgum3]

Padres vs Cleveland game was postponed due to rain

That kind of sucks for me as Cleveland was my dog of the day in the contest SBR is running. Oh well I kind of just throw darts at the wall in that contest and don't do any real handicapping the night before games. Mostly just look for the biggest plus money dog I can find and base it off of who is pitching that particular day.

[EmpireMaker]

The Mariners announced that center fielder Kyle Lewis has begun a rehab assignment in Triple-A tonight, his first competitive assignment since he tore his meniscus last May. Foreshadowing what may come when the 2020 AL Rookie of the Year makes it back to the majors, the 26-year-old Lewis swatted a home run on his first swing back in minor league game action. Equally encouraging for M’s fans is manager Scott Servais’s assessment, who according to MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer notes the team can be “a little bit more aggressive than we’d normally be” in promoting Lewis.
Cutting a 20-day rehab assignment short would be a bold move for a player who played in just 36 games last season, but clearly speaks to the team’s confidence in Lewis’s recovery. For what it’s worth, the Mariners aren’t exactly hurting for offense at the moment, as they rank third in the AL in runs scored. The high-upside outfield trio of Jesse Winker, Julio Rodriguez, and Jarred Kelenic, as well as a mishmash of DH options, have yet to really get it going however, and seem likely to cede time to the right-handed Lewis in the coming weeks.
Some additional injury updates from around the league…

• Mets reliever Trevor May is headed to the 10-day IL with triceps inflammation in his throwing arm, per Tim Healey of Newsday Sports. The typically reliable right-hander is off to a rough start in the 2022 season, allowing sixteen batters to reach base and half of them to score across eight appearances. The Mets currently sit atop the NL win column with an 18-8 record but if there’s one nit to pick with the team’s outstanding play so far it’s the bullpen, who have been a bottom-half unit in terms of run prevention this season. A return to health and vintage form from May will go a long way to shoring up the bullpen and taking pressure off the team’s lineup and rotation, both of which rank as top-5 groups in the sport. Right-hander Adonis Medina, who was acquired from the Pirates in early April, has been recalled to fill the bullpen vacancy.
• The Rangers meanwhile welcomed back right-handed starter Jon Gray from the IL today after he sprained in his knee in his previous start. Gray, one of several splashy signings made by Texas this offseason, has yet to get into a groove with his new club. The 30-year-old has already been placed on the IL twice during the young season, and was pulled after 60 pitches in tonight’s match against the Phillies. A rough first inning ballooned his ERA up to 7.50 on the season, but a quiet pair of ensuing innings is what the Rangers and their beleaguered pitching staff will be looking for more of moving forward. Right-handed reliever Albert Abreu, acquired from the Yankees in April’s Jose Trevino trade, heads to the IL in Gray’s stead with a sprained ankle. Abreu has managed a solid 3.57 ERA on the year, albeit with a worrying 11 walks in just over seven innings of action.
• The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly rolled out a cavalcade of positive health updates on ailing Giants players today. Notably, injured infielders Evan Longoria and Tommy La Stella will join recovering outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr. on a rehab assignment in Triple-A. Outfielders Joc Pederson and Mike Yastrzemski are nearing full-time returns as well after a right adductor strain and positive COVID test interrupted their respective seasons. Right-handed starter Anthony DeSclafani has also made progress in his recovery from the right ankle inflammation that recently landed him on the IL. Healthy returns from the listed players would be a boon for the club, who currently have several regulars out for COVID-related reasons. Despite sporting an IL that is more recognizable than the starting lineup, the Giants haven’t missed a beat from last season. The team is currently a half game out of first in the NL West, behind the Dodgers and Padres, with a top-3 bullpen and offense that only figures to get deeper in the next few days.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Padres vs Cleveland game was postponed due to rain

Double header today and first game at 10:10am...breakfast and baseball

[PaperTrail07]

Rain should hold off

Double header today and first game at 10:10am...breakfast and baseball

[boscokid]

Franmil Reyes makes Adam Dunn look like penetrating Tony Gwynn. 38 strikeouts in 19 games??

Dude probably needs to take a week off and get Lasik

[Cross]

Love the Adam Dunn reference Bosco! Lot of Dunn type hitters these days.

[JMobile]

Franmil Reyes makes Adam Dunn look like penetrating Tony Gwynn. 38 strikeouts in 19 games??

Dude probably needs to take a week off and get Lasik

I see Josh Nailer playing for Cleveland

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Franmil Reyes makes Adam Dunn look like penetrating Tony Gwynn. 38 strikeouts in 19 games??

Dude probably needs to take a week off and get Lasik

The Indians have a ton of former Padres

So do the Mariners

[Cross]

Reds fans, I’m happy you have the Bengals.

[jrgum3]

Hopefully the dodgers and giants beat up on each other..

Kind of glad the Giants only played a two game series against the Dodgers because they suddenly forgot how to hit and the Dodgers kicked their asses tonight. Giants seem to either score a bunch of runs or get very little there's no in between.

[EmpireMaker]

The White Sox have been arguably the team most affected by injuries in the first month of the 2022 season, with many of their position players and starting pitchers having missed some time, whether they’ve gone on the injured list or not. These various maladies have dragged them down to an 11-13 start to the season. It appears they’ve taken yet another blow, according to Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times, with Andrew Vaughn likely headed to the injured list before the team opens a series against Boston on Friday.
Vaughn was hit by a pitch on his hand in a game last week and, despite negative X-rays, hasn’t played since. “It’s kind of progressed, but it’s still aching when I swing, real bad,” Vaughn said. “Like it’s kind of blocking me from swinging because of the pain. I feel it all the time.” Injuries to outfielders Eloy Jimenez, AJ Pollock and Luis Robert had opened up some regular playing time for Vaughn and he answered the call by hitting .283/.367/.566 this year, good enough for a 177 wRC+. Unfortunately, that will all have to be put on hold until he can recuperate.
There is at least some good news for the Pale Hose, however, as Van Schouwen also reports that Yoan Moncada is likely joining the team next week. The third baseman has yet to make his season debut due to an oblique strain. With Moncada out, most of the playing time at the hot corner has been going to Jake Burger, who’s hitting .250/.270/.383. That line amounts to a wRC+ of 91, or 9% below league average. Moncada’s wRC+ for his career is 114 and it was 122 last year, meaning he should provide the lineup a boost as long as he can return and produce at his usual level.
The bullpen also should get a reinforcement soon, with Joe Kelly likely making his debut with the White Sox next week. While with the Dodgers last year, the righty was sidelined with a bicep injury. The Sox signed him in the offseason knowing that he was still working his way back from that issue and likely wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season. Since switching from the rotation to the bullpen, Kelly has emerged as a useful fireballer. From 2017 to 2021, he threw 229 innings with a 3.62 ERA, 24.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate.
As for the rotation, Johnny Cueto seems ready suit up for the White Sox as well. Signed to a minor league deal in early April, he’s been gradually building up his arm strength with the Triple-A Charlotte Knights. After a nice bounceback season with the Giants last year where he threw 114 2/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball, he signed with the White Sox on a deal that will pay him $4.2MM once he’s selected to the big league club. With Lance Lynn on the shelf for a while, a spot in the rotation opened up for Vince Velasquez, who has a 4.58 ERA through four starts, with strikeout and walk rates roughly in line with his career numbers. The weakest link in the rotation so far, however, has been Dallas Keuchel, who has an 8.40 ERA at the moment, along with a measly 9.8% strikeout rate and 13.4% walk rate. That’s a small sample of just four starts, but it continues a trend that began last year, when the lefty put up a 5.28 ERA and 13.2% strikeout rate. He’s in the last guaranteed year of his three-year, though there is a $20MM club/vesting option for 2023. If Keuchel were to reach 160 innings pitched this year, that would become guaranteed.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Padres bullpen blew a 5-2 lead in the 8th in the second game of the DH.

The bullpen as a whole has not been very good.

[Otters27]

LA and NY teams are all crushing it. Could this be the Angels Year?

[JMobile]

Padres bullpen blew a 5-2 lead in the 8th in the second game of the DH.

The bullpen as a whole has not been very good.

The Padres bullpen was the best during the Kevin Towers days

[PaperTrail07]

Dude is spooooked at the plate.....just wanting to walk.....and literally cant play the field...

Franmil Reyes makes Adam Dunn look like penetrating Tony Gwynn. 38 strikeouts in 19 games??

Dude probably needs to take a week off and get Lasik

[stevenash]

Further proof the pitching dynamics in MLB has drastically changes.

25 games into the season there are 134 pitchers that have started four of more games (all starts, no relief work)
Which is about right, 30 teams four starters each.

Here's the thing, of those 134 starting pitchers only 59 (less than half) qualify for any type of major year-end awards. In this case 25 games have been played, to qualify you must have pitched at least 25 innings. Rules state to be eligible for ERA crown for instance you must have pitched at least one inning per game that the individual team played in, nine times out of ten it's 162.

Of those 134 pitchers, 24 of them have pitched less than 20 innings (less than 4 IP a start)
Which screams more teams are going with 'openers' rather than starters.
Some of those are just flat-out shit bum hamburger regular rotation starters, some of those have 24 actually have decent numbers.

The 59 'qualified starters this season to date have made a total of 296 combined starts, have thrown a combined 1648 innings for an average of 5.57 innings patched per start.

Putting those numbers into perspective no starting pitcher (on the average) doesn't even qualify for a 'quality start'.
To earn a QS you must have pitched at least six innings yielding three earned runs or less.

Baby Boomers (such as myself) when we were in grade school each team had a four man set rotation, almost all the starting pitchers threw 200 innings per season and then some, and your bullpen had two quality short inning pitchers, and the other six pitchers were gas cans.

The four man rotation is officially dead, along with the hit and run and the stolen base.

As the CIO of Macy's who I worked for in IT when I first started out in this career once told me a quarter century ago, "Bill, I like you, you have a ton of potential, let me give you a piece of advice which is if you can't or won't adapt to change you will perish, don't be afraid of change, change is good."

Bob Dylan had an epic hit with "Times They Are a Changing"

[boscokid]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1521938039429345281

Had this discussion with a friend the other day. MLB should poll every player every year with the question " who is the worst home plate umpire" and shitcan the leading vote getter

[boscokid]

No appeal, no revote, no umpire side of the story. Just a 'thank you for your service'

[EmpireMaker]

Twins infielder Luis Arraez and right-hander Dylan Bundy have both tested positive for COVID-19, bench coach Jayce Tingler told Betsy Helfand of The St. Paul Pioneer Press (Twitter links) and other reporters. Manager Rocco Baldelli has also tested positive for the virus, so Tingler is serving as the team’s acting manager.
Tingler and GM Thad Levine addressed the media today about the situation, with Levine saying that the club is waiting on the results of several other tests of team personnel. If this wasn’t enough, outfielder Max Kepler is also under the weather due to another non-COVID illness that is floating around the clubhouse.
It is quite possible that more names could join Arraez and Bundy on the COVID list, but even in the best-case scenario that those are the only positive tests within what may be a minor outbreak, losing even two more players isn’t good for a Twins team that already has several key figures on the regular injured list. Bundy will join Bailey Ober and Sonny Gray as rotation members on the 10-day IL, though Gray is on the verge of a return. Utilityman Arraez was already plugging another hole, playing first base while Miguel Sano is out due to knee surgery.
As per the 2022 version of the league’s COVID protocols, Arraez and Bundy will miss at least the next 10 days, though they may make an earlier return if they meet three criteria — two negative PCR tests, at least 24 hours without a fever, and approval from a team doctor and a MLB/MLBPA joint committee of two other physicians.

[jrgum3]

Further proof the pitching dynamics in MLB has drastically changes.

25 games into the season there are 134 pitchers that have started four of more games (all starts, no relief work)
Which is about right, 30 teams four starters each.

Here's the thing, of those 134 starting pitchers only 59 (less than half) qualify for any type of major year-end awards. In this case 25 games have been played, to qualify you must have pitched at least 25 innings. Rules state to be eligible for ERA crown for instance you must have pitched at least one inning per game that the individual team played in, nine times out of ten it's 162.

Of those 134 pitchers, 24 of them have pitched less than 20 innings (less than 4 IP a start)
Which screams more teams are going with 'openers' rather than starters.
Some of those are just flat-out shit bum hamburger regular rotation starters, some of those have 24 actually have decent numbers.

The 59 'qualified starters this season to date have made a total of 296 combined starts, have thrown a combined 1648 innings for an average of 5.57 innings patched per start.

Putting those numbers into perspective no starting pitcher (on the average) doesn't even qualify for a 'quality start'.
To earn a QS you must have pitched at least six innings yielding three earned runs or less.

Baby Boomers (such as myself) when we were in grade school each team had a four man set rotation, almost all the starting pitchers threw 200 innings per season and then some, and your bullpen had two quality short inning pitchers, and the other six pitchers were gas cans.

The four man rotation is officially dead, along with the hit and run and the stolen base.

As the CIO of Macy's who I worked for in IT when I first started out in this career once told me a quarter century ago, "Bill, I like you, you have a ton of potential, let me give you a piece of advice which is if you can't or won't adapt to change you will perish, don't be afraid of change, change is good."

Bob Dylan had an epic hit with "Times They Are a Changing"

You're telling me. In my main fantasy league with all my pals from the internet we use Quality Starts as a category for our h2h league. It's very telling that through roughly 4 weeks I have 1 quality start and it's not like I ignored pitching in our auction draft. Pitchers aren't stretched out thanks to a shortened Spring Training but also managers these days rely a little too heavily on their bullpen which doesn't always work out. Very frustrating to say the least that I'm basically punting a Category every week.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Machado continues his torrid start with 2 more homers last night.

[Otters27]

I still can't believe that mets Comeback.

I kept kicking myself for not taking the Phillies lol

[stevenash]

I still can't believe that mets Comeback.

I kept kicking myself for not taking the Phillies lol

99.8 percent chance they lose that game, conversely Mets had a 0.2 percent chance of pulling that off proving Yogi was correct all along when he said "it ain't over 'til it's over"

Yogi was a smart man.

People like me who work with numbers for a living, all us of professional data geeks say that's a once in a life time anomaly, let's put that in perspective, KC Royals *only* had a 3.2 percent chance of winning game four against Houston in 2015, and at that time was considered the most improbable comeback in MLB history.



The Royals had a 96.8 percent chance of their season ending and the Astros players and fans had a 96.8 percent probability of their team advancing to the ALCS.3 Despite the improbability of a comeback suggested by the math, baseball is a game where anything can happen, even miracles.
Astros right-hander Will Harris, who came on relief of McCullers and recorded the final two outs of the seventh inning, started the bottom of the eighth. The Royals wasted no time mounting a comeback. Alex Rios singled to left, Escobar singled to center, and Ben Zobrist singled to center to load the bases. Lorenzo Cain hit a groundball single to left to plate Rios, prompting Astros manager A.J. Hinch to summon left-hander Tony Sipp from the bullpen. Eric Hosmer greeted Sipp with a line single to right, scoring Escobar and cutting the Astros’ lead to 6-4. With the bases still loaded, Kendrys Morales sent a groundball up the middle that deflected off Sipp’s glove and bounded over the glove of Correa at short. Zobrist and Cain scored and Hosmer went to third.4 Jarrod Dyson ran for Morales and stole second before Sipp struck out Moustakas. Hinch again went to his bullpen and called on right-hander Luke Gregerson to face right-handed-hitting Drew Butera. Gregerson walked the Royals catcher to reload the bases. With the infield drawn in, left fielder Alex Gordon hit a groundball to second. Altuve made a diving stop to rob Gordon of a hit. As the Astros’ second baseman completed the play, Hosmer crossed the plate with the go-ahead run. After walking Rios to load the bases again, Gregerson struck out Escobar to end the inning with the Royals leading 7-6. The season-defining workingman’s rally featured five singles, an error, and a go-ahead groundout.5

[Cross]

The ‘86 Mets also had an all time comeback aided by Mr Buckner of course.

[JMobile]

Machado continues his torrid start with 2 more homers last night.

Machado is hot. I bet he can't wait for Tatis to return

[EmpireMaker]

The Cardinals announced this afternoon that starter Adam Wainwright has been placed on the COVID-19 injured list. Steven Matz, who had been on bereavement leave, has been reinstated to take his spot on the active roster.
Wainwright has tested positive for the virus, reports John Denton of MLB.com (Twitter link). The veteran righty took to Twitter to announce that he feels “100% with zero symptoms.” Nevertheless, because he tested positive, he’ll have to go through the standard isolation procedure before he’s cleared to return to the team. Wainwright becomes the second Cardinal in recent days to land on the virus-related IL, joining infielder Edmundo Sosa.
Under the league’s 2022 health-and-safety protocols, players who test positive are subject to a 10-day absence from the club. It’s possible to be reinstated in less time if the player has gone 24 or more hours without a fever, received a pair of negative PCR tests, and been given approval from a team physician and the MLB/MLBPA joint committee (a panel of one league-appointed and one union-appointed physician).
Even in his age-40 season, Wainwright is still a highly valuable contributor for the Cards. He owns a 3.18 ERA over 34 innings, compensating for an early dip in swinging strikes by inducing plenty of ground-balls. St. Louis has an off day on Monday, the day before what would’ve been Wainwright’s next scheduled start. It’s possible they keep their other starters on regular rest and only need to fill in once for Wainwright late next week.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Machado and Hosmer get it done again...this is the early theme of the season along with the starting pitching and defense.

[jrgum3]

Giants lose again they are in a tailspin that is tied for the worst in Kapler's time as manager. I expected regression but man their offense is terrible right now even though last night they did get some key bats back.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

Giants lose again they are in a tailspin not seen in Kapler's time as manager. I expected regression but man their offense is terrible right now even though last night they did get some key bats back.

That Giants thread by Headsterx is awfully quiet lately...

The Giants have been getting insane production from damn near anyone they plug into the lineup the past couple of seasons. I'm still trying to figure out if they've been playing over their heads, lucky or they have the best coaching and player development in MLB?

[jrgum3]

That Giants thread by Headsterx is awfully quiet lately...

The Giants have been getting insane production from damn near anyone they plug into the lineup the past couple of seasons. I'm still trying to figure out if they've been playing over their heads, lucky or they have the best coaching and player development in MLB?

It's little bit of guys having career seasons last year but most of it I think is because the Giants have one of the best front offices in baseball and Gabe Kapler gets the most out of his players. Funny that I never really thought Gabe Kapler was a great manager when he was with the Phillies but he's been great since he has taken over the Giants. Unfortunately right now it seems as though most of his everyday players are in slumps and just can't come up with the big hit to drive in runs.