TWiB Notes - Week of May 7 - 13

[Frayed Knot]

The big series this week is the Sox coming to the Bronx for a three-gamer.
Boston sits at 25-9 but are just 1 game ahead of the Yanx who have won 16 of their last 16
They kick off tonight with Severino vs Pomeranz. 1-0 Yanx thru 2 on a Stanton HR
David Price has been scratched from tomorrow's game, a development which can only help the Sawx considering that Price has a career record of 3-187 vs the Yanx with an ERA of 198.74 (or something like that)


And pity the struggling (kind word for it) Orioles who are off to a 8-26 start and the odds of that got worse tonight when they coughed up [u:1t7ecwpn]a ten spot to the Royals in the 1st inning[/u:1t7ecwpn]. 4 HRs in that frame.

[Frayed Knot]

James Paxton, Mariners, no-hitter

[bmfc1]

Must be nice to root for a team which sees young talent flourish when called up, which spends money wisely, which makes good trades--even if it's the MFYs. And they don't embarrass themselves by batting out of order.

[Edgy MD]

Marlins beat the Braves tonight as J.T. Realmuto opened up with the bat attack. If Arizona can take out the Nats, all's right with the world.

[Frayed Knot]

And while the Yanx have almost caught up to the A's several times in a game where Oakland took a 3-0 lead in the 2nd, the A's finally tacked on one in the 8th plus three more in the 9th to take a seemingly safe 10-5 lead
... and now it's a final.

[Frayed Knot]

SHIFT AHOY!

The Astros go to an extreme shift against the Rangers' Joey Gallo (one could say it was Crazy) with six fielders stationed on the 1st base side of 2nd while leaving, aside from the pitcher and catcher in their required
spots, no infielders and just one very lonely looking LF'er on the entire other half of the diamond.

Gallo wound up grounding out to somewhere in the vicinity of short right field. Not sure who actually fielded it; could have been the 3rd baseman, or maybe the bullpen coach.

[Edgy MD]

Jesus wants you to bunt. In fact, he, Mohamed, Nostradamus, Isaac Newton, Confuscius and Marie Curie all got together to talk about it and agree that it's stupid not to bunt there.

[Frayed Knot]

Eh, a bunt only nets him a measly double. Why settle for that?
12 of Gallo's 30 hits this season are HRs (also 5 doubles/13 singles) and he's hitting a robust .208 with a K-rate of merely 36% so he probably doesn't think he needs to make more contact or that his 16-25
team needs to change what it's obviously doing oh so well.

Not sure if Houston put on that shift each time in that (Friday's) game. Gallo got up four times, three of the ABs came with the bases empty (even leading off an inning twice) so if you're going to do it once
there's no reason not to do keep doing so, at least in those ABs when there were no runners.
He wound up grounding out twice -- listed as 'to deep 2nd' and 'to 3B' (although who knows where the 3B man was at the time) -- plus a line-out (to RCF) and a walk. The walk came with runners on 1st & 2nd






btw, nice set of lessons on how to suck from Oakland on Saturday
1) get a 6-2 lead lead in the Bronx then give it all back in one inning
2) load the bases in the 9th w/no one out and fail to score [K plus FO/DP - originally safe but overturned on review]
3) get runners on 1st & 2nd in the 10th w/no one out and fail to score again [K, K, Foul Out]
4) issue 9 walks including 2 in the 11th inning and hope that doesn't come around to burn you
5) it did.

[Edgy MD]

If a guy is hitting (now) .204 and reaching .287 and leading the league in strikeouts but is put in the position where he can bunt .750, but doesn't take it, baseball has just decided to be stupid.