The New Summer Season

[whippoorwill]

Rich Puig relative?

[Frayed Knot]

Ummm, no.

Yasiel Puig is the big, muscular -- and a bit crazy -- Cuban native the Dodgers signed for mega-bucks about seven years ago when he was barely known to most teams.

He bounced from the Reds to Indians last year after the Dodgers tired of his various acts.





[FIMG=150]https://www.baseball-reference.com/req/202001270/images/headshots/2/29123bcd_davis.jpg[/FIMG]

Rich, 5' 10" / 165 from Tampa, Florida (which does have its share of Cubans) and the same HS as Dwight Gooden (I just now found that out)



[FIMG=110]https://www.baseball-reference.com/req/202001270/images/headshots/e/e603a22f_milb.jpg[/FIMG]

Yasiel, 6' 2" / 240 from Cienfuegos, Cuba

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ummm, no.

Plus, their last names are heteronyms: words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently.



Anyone here know how to pronounce "Rich Puig" (first and last name)?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ummm, no. Plus, their last names are heteronyms: words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. Anyone here know how to pronounce "Rich Puig" (first and last name)?

Time's up! Youse are probably mispronouncing Rich Puig as if the name rhymes with Bitch (Captain) Queeg. It doesn't. Rich Puig is pronounced Rick Pwig -- (rhymes with Lick Twig).

[kcmets]

Exhibition game tonight at Citi. Yankees!

Should someone start a ExIGT? DVR locked and loaded.

[G-Fafif]

Matt Adams has opted out — as a free agent.

[Lefty Specialist]

=G-Fafif post_id=40853 time=1595109679 user_id=55]
Matt Adams has opted out — as a free agent.

[LWFS]

Between Smith, Ces, and a handful of others, he seemed, even in a DHy year, like, triply or quadruply redundant.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Beat it, Adams.

[Frayed Knot]

I had no recollection that Matt Adams was even a spring NYM ... but he's kind of old-ish and one-dimensional anyway.

Maybe someday his son, Matt Quincy Adams, will be a more rounded player.

[kcmets]

If you're near a TV NOW!!, Jay Horowitz is about to be on Dog's High Heat.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: I had no recollection that Matt Adams was even a spring NYM ... but he's kind of old-ish and one-dimensional anyway. Maybe someday his son, Matt Quincy Adams, will be a more rounded player.

You're on a roll.

Later

[kcmets]

I just got an email from Verizon alerting me that MLB Extra Innings is about to renew

at $89.99. Seems a bit much for a possible (and somewhat doubtful) 60 games.



These companies are blood-sniffing-scumbag typewriters.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I just got that too. For me it's a little less because I got a discount for having well-trimmed nose hair.



$89.99 is higher than it ought to be. I wonder how long it will take to get our refunds if the season ends in the first week of August?

[kcmets]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: For me it's a little less because I got a discount for having well-trimmed nose hair.

Staying well groomed has it's perks.

[MFS62]

From Yahoo Sports:

The Washington Nationals announced on Monday that Dr. Anthony Fauci will throw out the first pitch on Thursday when they open their season against the New York Yankees. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is the nation's leading voice in the COVID-19 pandemic and has weighed in regularly on the return of sports amid the pandemic. He's also a big Nationals fan.

Oh well. Nobody's perfect.

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Boy, never saw this coming.



Jed Lowrie Placed on IL

[batmagadanleadoff]

I watched about 10 minutes of baseball last night -- the DBacks @ Dodgers game. It was the first live baseball I'd watched this year. (And even then it, technically, wasn't live. I was watching a two in the morning replay.) The only player I saw wearing a mask was the DBack first baseman. All but one of the batters I happened to see were maskless during their at-bats -- and the one batter I did see wearing a mask during his at-bat had the mask around his neck instead of over his mouth, like a fucking ascot. I saw a runner steal second base. During the play at the base, the runner's face came within inches of the middle infielder's face --(the infielder covering the bag on the tag play). And the runner was, presuambly, breathing heavily, due to the exertion he produced from running full speed to second base. Neither of those two players had masks on, either. The catchers were also maskless. The catchers, ferchrissakes.



If this is how the players are going to go about, I give this whole experiment three weeks, tops, before it's shut down.



On the bright side, I saw a cardboard cutout of Tommy Lasorda behind home plate. The Dodgers, I think, don't charge fans $$ for cutout placement. Instead, they select not so random subjects for the cardboard cutout treatment. Unless it's a mixed bag kinda deal, with fans who paid for placement mixed in with celebrities.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Guest

[kcmets]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Jed Lowrie Placed on IL

Lazy-Q - what team is he on these days?

[bmfc1]

I really dislike when the broadcast superimposes a strikezone onto the screen. SNY now has this feature (at least through the 2 exhibition games). From watching various games on MLBN it appears that it's standard for every broadcast.

[Ceetar]

I mean, they're tested every two days right? They'd be safer if at least like, the catcher, batter and infielders wore masks while playing, (and ump) but I doubt that's enough for a mass infection, given the testing. I'd be more concerned about what players are doing before games, are they in their same maskless, clubhouse full of music and sweating? are they working out in the gym together?



I still don't understand why they didn't move some of this stuff to concourses and the field, open air. trainers room, for example.

[Frayed Knot]

Tomorrow will be the first ML game(s) in 266 days, which makes today the last day without ML baseball until ... well until the next one whenever that is: maybe next week, maybe three-plus months from now.

I make the gap from the strike on August 12 of '94 until the April 26th '95 restart at 257 days

[MFS62]

The Daily News reporting that Marcus Stroman has a strained calf and may miss his first start.

Later

[G-Fafif]

Porcello was scratched from his intrasquad start today.



DeGrom, Matz and Wacha

And see who's sitting by their locka

[MFS62]

=G-Fafif post_id=41195 time=1595452535 user_id=55]
DeGrom, Matz and Wacha

And see who's sitting by their locka

[bmfc1]

I hope it's only Porcello being moved up to Saturday or Sunday and nothing else.

[G-Fafif]

Stroman and Gsellman to the IL.



DeGrom, Matz and Porcello in the first series.



MLB and MLBPA trying to negotiate six more teams into playoffs at the last minute; might disrupt Predict The Mets.

[Benjamin Grimm]

So... Five wild cards in each league? How would that work?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I assume that the top-seeded wild card would join the division winners and get to skip the first round?

[Benjamin Grimm]

CBS Sports wrote: Major League Baseball and the Players Association are having last-minute discussions about expanding the playoffs to 16 teams for the 2020 season, Jon Heyman reports. Included in those discussions is the idea that division winners will be able to choose their opponents during a televised selection show, according to ESPN's Buster Olney. The 2020 regular season begins Thursday night, and as Heyman reports, both sides would need to strike a deal before first pitch, which means there's little time to come to an agreement. The current playoff structure, which has been in place since 2012, features 10 playoff teams -- six division champions and two wild card entrants per league. A 16-team field would presumably add three more wild card teams per league and swell the playoffs to four full rounds.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-mlbpa-discussing-16-team-expanded-playoffs-and-selection-show-to-pick-opponents-for-2020-per-reports/https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-mlbpa-discussing-16-team-expanded-playoffs-and-selection-show-to-pick-opponents-for-2020-per-reports/



I'm not so sure why the deal has to be struck before the first pitch. Are the teams or managers going to do anything differently on Opening Night if there are 16 teams in the postseason from what they would have done if there were 10?