Cup of Coffee: April 22, 2024

Good morning!

There were five shutouts yesterday, so that was fun. At least if you weren’t the ones being shut out. Otherwise the big news from yesterday was a bunch of injury stuff which all kind of a drag. We do have some fun items from Friday and Saturday though, including Aaron Judge getting booed, someone yeeting a keepsake, the Diamondbacks owner and president pretending to care, the Mets City Connect uniforms which seem more like the MEH City Connect uniforms, and Bam Bam Meulens causing United Airlines some trouble.

In Other Stuff, NASA is pushing it, but so far they have not broken a very important rule of space exploration, bestselling writer Jeff Pearlman does something really fucking weird and, in my view, unethical, nd you should totally go to an MLS game.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Dodgers 10, Mets 0: Tyler Glasnow has been a hell of an acquisition, eh? Eight shutout innings with ten strikeouts here to pick up his fourth win of the season. Shohei Ohtani’s homer put him in first place all-time for homers by a Japanese born player in major league baseball, passing Hideki Matsui with his 176th bomb. Andy Pages of the Dodgers homered as well. He now has two major league home runs, which breaks the record for most home runs hit by someone named Pages or Pagés. Pedro Pagés had one while playing for the New York Cubans of the Negro National League in 1947. Current St. Louis Cardinal Pedro Páges — no relation — has zero, but I suppose that could change if anyone on the Cardinals decided to ever hit home runs again. No one on that team has hit one since April 12. True story!

Brewers 2, Cardinals 0: Colin Rea shut out those Cardinals for five and three relievers finished the six-hit shutout. I feel like this same game was played a bunch of times yesterday. Owen Miller’s two-run single in the fourth represented the game’s only scoring. By the way: if I said Owen Miller’s two-run single in the fourth was, like, the game’s only scoring then it’d be a simile rather than the metaphor implied in the former example. Just thought you should know that. The Cardinals have lost four in a row and are, like, not very good this year man. In case you didn’t know that based on the stray they caught up in the Dodgers recap.

Marlins 6, Cubs 3: Starter Edward Cabrera pitched five innings, striking out seven and allowing three. After the game manager Skip Schumaker, trying to explain that Cabrera is more mature now than he used to be, said “Old Cabby would have given up six or seven runs.” Thanks I think? Anyway, Jesús Sánchez had New Cabby’s back by hitting a 460-foot homer and he, Luis Arraez, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Nick Fortes each had two hits to help the Fish split the four-game set.

By the way, Allison was in Chicago over the weekend and she and her friend took in the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday. She says “I had a lovely time freezing my ass off.” Which was saying something given that she had a winter coat and they were giving away fleece blankets:

Not that it’s a particularly thick fleece blanket. Whaddaya want for free? Quality?

Diamondbacks 5, Giants 3: Slade Cecconi — who is only the second big leaguer with the first name “Slade” and the first big leaguer with the last name “Cecconi” — filled in for the ailing Merrill Kelly, whose ailment I discuss in The Daily Briefing. He filled in fine, allowing just two runs in six innings to get the win. Gabriel Moreno hit a two-run single in the sixth to put the Snakes ahead for good. By the way, I knew off the top of my head that the other Slade was Slade Heathcott. I had it in my head that he lasted for a few years. Turns out he played exactly 17 career games, all of which happened in 2015. Brains are weird, man. Or, perhaps, prospect status is distorting.

Red Sox 6, Pirates 1: A good day and a good series for a team whose entire infield is now on the injured list (see more below in the Daily Briefing). Five Boston pitchers combined to scatter seven hits and allow just the run. Wilyer Abreu had three hits and drove in two runs. Reese McGuire added a pinch-hit two-run single. The Buccos, who started the season strong, have now dropped six straight and they’ve only scored nine runs in those six game.

Phillies 8, White Sox 2: Another three-game sweep, though it’s easier to do that to the White Sox than anyone. Aaron Nola struck out seven in eight innings. Kyle Schwarber homered, Bryce Harper added a sacrifice fly and an RBI single, and Trea Turner was credited with a steal of home. It was really a matter of the White Sox screwing up a rundown of Harper at first, Turner breaking home, and the Sox defender throwing the ball away, but who cares what official scorers think? The Chisox have lost nine of ten and are a woeful 3-18 on the year.

Nationals 6, Astros 0: In his first big league start last week Mitchell Parker beat the mighty Dodgers by allowing two runs over five innings. Here he was making just his second big league start and all he did was shut the Astros out for seven innings while allowing just three hits. Two relievers finished the blanking. Astros starter Hunter Brown was a fill-in for Cristian Javier, who was scratched due to neck discomfort. Brown gave up three in the first and then settled down but when your boys don’t score you can do all the settling down you want to and it doesn’t matter.

Yankees 5, Rays 4: New York benefitted from a four-run fifth fueled by three straight walks, an Alex Verdugo two-run single, and RBI singles by Jose Trevino and Oswaldo Cabrera. That backed starter Luis Gil as he got his first big league win in three years, and just his second win ever. The key for him — other than not missing two years due to Tommy John surgery — is for something to be wrong with Gerrit Cole. I say that because Gil made his big league debut on Aug. 3, 2021, filling in for Cole, who tested positive for COVID. He made it into this season’s rotation because of Cole’s elbow inflammation.

Reds 3, Angels 0: Reds starter Frankie Montas was knocked out of the game just three batters into the proceedings by a comebacker to the forearm. X-rays were negative. That brought Brent Suter into the game and he and his fellow relievers came up big, with Suter tossing three and a third scoreless innings to get them through the fourth after which four more pitchers combined for the shutout. Christian Encarnacion-Strand hit a two-run double in the sixth and Jeimer Candelario tripled him in to complete the game’s scoring. Cincinnati sweeps the three-game series.

Guardians 6, Athletics 2: Cleveland continues it’s best start in 25 years by sweeping the A’s. Josh Naylor hit a three-run double. Will Brennan homered. Starter Tanner Bibee allowed two runs while working into the sixth and Tim Herrin, Nick Sandlin, Cade Smith and closer Emmanuel Clase held the A's scoreless over the final three and a third. The Guardians have won four straight, seven of eight and have the AL’s best record at 16-6.

Orioles 5, Royals 0: Cole Irivin shut out the Royals into the seventh and three relievers finished off the five-hitter. It was Irvin’s first win since last June, which also came against the Royals. Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg hit back-to-back homers. You could say that Cowser yeeted the ball into the stands but you probably shouldn’t because, as I note down in the Daily Briefing, he doesn’t wanna really be doing that. Homers are fine, just not the yeeting.

Tigers 6, Twins 1: Casey Mize tossed six shutout innings to get his first win since 2021. Buddy Kennedy homered and drove in three, Spencer Torkelson had two hits, scored twice and knocked in two runs, and Riley Greene scored three times. The Tigers take two of three.

Padres 6, Blue Jays 3: Joe Musgrove pitched seven innings, allowing three runs, and Xander Bogaerts homered and drew a bases-loaded walk. Luis Campusano drew one too and the Padres scored a run on a catcher’s interference call, so this game was all over the place. Padres avoid the sweep.

Rockies 2, Mariners 1; Mariners 10, Rockies 2: The first game was scoreless until the tenth inning when the first Seattle batter in extras knocked in the Manfred Man. If you don’t count bullshit Manfred Man runs, which I wish we didn’t, it was still scoreless. Colorado at least advanced their Manfred Man a base via an infield single before he was singled in in the bottom half, so it was only like half of a bullshit run. The winning run came in on an Ezequiel Tovar base hit which knocked in Charlie Blackmon, the guy who advanced the Manfred Man. So let’s just say that the Rockies won the first one 1.5 to 0. The nightcap was nowhere near as close as the M’s put up a six-run second inning and a three-run sixth to win it with easy.

Rangers 6, Atlanta 4: Marcell Ozuna opened up the scoring early with a three-run blast in the first inning off of Michael Lorenzen, but Moose — and I’m gonna call him “Moose” because I used to like the character Moose Lorenzen from “Hardball,” the 1980s Accolade baseball game for the Commodore64 — settled down. Texas took the lead in the fourth when two guys I am not pretending are video game characters — Evan Carter and Andrew Knizner — each homered, with the former hitting a solo shot and the latter hitting a three-run blast. Adolis García added what turned out to be two necessary insurance runs with a homer in the eighth, rending the game’s final run — on an Austin Riley RBI single — of no moment.

The Daily Briefing

Aaron Judge was booed on his bobblehead day 

It was Aaron Judge’s bobblehead day at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Unfortunately the Yankees captain did not rise to the occasion: he went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts for the golden sombrero. After striking out in the ninth inning there were boos in the crowd. Not a ton. Not a chorus. But it was audible enough that Judge was asked about it after the game.

He was diplomatic about it, saying "I've heard worse . . . I'd probably be doing the same thing in their situation” but still seems sorta nuts to me. New York is gonna New York I suppose.

Still, it’s been a rough start to the season for Judge. Between that 0-fer on Saturday and yesterday’s 1-for-4, his batting line sits at .183/.320/.354 through 22 games and 100 plate appearances. Just an atrocious start to the 2024 campaign for the 2022 MVP.

“I just yeeted it”

On Saturday Orioles closer Craig Kimbrel closed out the team’s win against the Royals. It was his fifth save of the season and the 422nd save of his career, moving him into a tie with Billy Wagner for seventh place on the all-time saves list. And of course, when you match a a great player like that you probably wanna keep the ball as a souvenir.

Except O’s left fielder Colton Cowser, who caught the last out of the game, threw the ball backwards over his head into the stands. "I just yeeted it behind me," he said.

Fortunately for him and for Kimbrel it landed in one of the Kauffman Stadium fountains rather in the hands of a fan and they were able to retrieve it for Kimbrel. Phew.

There were a number of notable injuries over the weekend

To wit:

• New York Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez has a torn ligament in his left thumb and will need surgery. Manager Carlos Mendoza said "We don't know the timetable for his recovery, but we're pretty confident we'll get him back this year."
• The Red Sox placed first baseman Triston Casas on the 10-day injured list Sunday with a left rib strain. It’s unclear when it happened to him, but he noticed it while in his first at bat on Saturday and left the game. Casas joins a number of other Red Sox in the infirmary, including the entire starting infield, with Vaughn Grissom, Trevor Story, and Rafael Devers all on the shelf;
• Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon hit the 10-day injured list yesterday due to a left hamstring strain he suffered on Saturday while legging out an infield hit. Rendon played in 52 of the Angels 60 games in the COVID-shortened campaign but he has not played in more than 58 games in his three 162-game seasons with the Halos. He’s currently in year five of the seven-year $245 million contract he signed following the 2019 season and has only played in 219 games for them.
• Astros starter Cristian Javier is going on the injured list due to neck discomfort. Manager Joe Espada said "Neck discomfort, started a few days ago. He tried to work through it but just couldn't happen. This kind of just came out of nowhere. So, we are going to see what happens here."
• Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly was scratched from yesterday’s start against the Giants due to shoulder discomfort. Kelly had an MRI Saturday night but no results have been released as of yet.

In related news, I woke up yesterday morning with my lower back completely out of commission. I was not trying to beat out an infield single or over-swinging or anything and I felt fine when I went to bed on Saturday night. It just happened while I was sleeping because shit like that just happens to you when you’re 50, I guess. I’m listed as day-to-day.

Be careful out there everyone.

The Diamondbacks only hate it when some teams relocate

As you likely heard, the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes are moving to Salt Lake City. That really upset Ken Kendrick and Derrick Hall, the owner and president of the Arizona Diamondbacks. So much so that they released a statement:

"The entire Diamondbacks organization is disappointed in the now official news of our NHL team being relocated out of state. We firmly believe that we deserve and can support teams from each of the major sports and are troubled that a solution could not be found for all parties involved. We are sad for all sports fans and all who care so deeply about our community."

Not mentioned in the statement is that Kendrick himself recently voted, along with 28 other owners, to approve the Oakland Athletics’ move to Las Vegas, so let’s not pretend that he cares a whole hell of a lot about franchises stating put.

No, what’s really going on here is not principle and I don’t suspect that it’s about any sadness over a hockey team leaving town. Rather, it’s much more about Kendrick and Hall reminding everyone that they are in the process of trying to get half a billion dollars in publicly-funded stadium renovations. It’s a process in which Kendrick recently injected the notion of the Diamondbacks “running out of time in Phoenix” if they can’t get what they want.

So do not read his and Hall’s statement about the Coyotes as one of sorrow. Read it as a threat. It’s them saying “you got a nice bunch of sports teams in this city, Phoenix. It’d be a shame of you lost another one . . . “

The Mets City Connect uniforms are, eh, fine

The Mets unveiled their City Connect uniforms on Friday:

The release was accompanied by an SNY story/marketing release in which the details of the uniform — and there are way, way, way more details in which Nike and the Mets are taking pride than will ever be spotted by anyone on TV or in the crowd — are explained:

•The dark gray of the jerseys — which feature “NYC” in big lettering on the front — represent the concrete that makes up the city’s sidewalks.

• The pinstripes on the jersey are, of course, a nod to the Mets’ pinstripes — but, on closer inspection, are composed of circles and diamonds. These represent the express and local trains of the New York City subway system.

• The circular sleeve patch is a take on the classic New York City subway token.

• The purple on the hat’s button, the jersey and the piping of the white pants is a reference to the 7 Line.

• An image of the Queensboro Bridge is stitched into the hat, under the interlocking NY. The bridge appears more subtly on the pants and sleeves as a cross section image.

• The sweatband inside the hat includes a multicolored take on the NYC subway map.

• The back of the jersey uses the team’s classic road font in the player’s name and number.

There are so many references, symbols, and representations that I’m pretty sure they just ran out of time to make the uniforms actually look good. Because my take on it is that while they are not terrible, from anything but a super closeup look at them in these sorts of photos, they’re just gonna look like run of the mill 21st century era solid alternate/softball jerseys, the sort of which most teams have sported a great deal. I guess we can give Nike kuods for the white pants, whereas so many of the other teams’ City Connect uniforms have solid pants, but that’s a pretty low bar to hurdle.

Maybe I just need more of an explanation. Oh, look, a Mets official is quoted in that article! Maybe he can make me see the light on these:

“The true essence of what City Connect means is connecting to the city,” says Mets chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg.

That sounds like a kid trying to hit a mandatory word count on a term paper. All he has to do now is to end with “in closing, the Mets City Connect uniforms are a land of contrasts.”

FAA investigating United Airlines pilots for letting Rockies coach Hensley Meulens sit in the cockpit of the team’s charter

When I first saw Hensley “Bam Bam Meulens” he was a Yankees minor leaguer playing for the Columbus Clippers. I was convinced, back in the early 90s, that he and J.T. Snow were gonna lead the Yankees back to glory! This is why I am not a scout.

Meulens has had a fine career as a coach, however, and currently serves as the hitting coach for the Colorado Rockies. In his spare time he pretends to pilot Boeing 757s:

The Federal Aviation Administration and United Airlines are investigating an incident involving the Colorado Rockies during a chartered flight from Denver to Toronto.

In a since-deleted video posted to social media, Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens is seen sitting in a pilot's seat in the cockpit while the plane is in flight.

You can see the video of Meulens, which had originally been posted to his Instagram account, in the cockpit here:

The caption read, "Had some fun in the cockpit on our flight from Denver to Toronto. Thanks to the captain and the first officer of our United charter that allowed me this great experience.”

The incident, which occurred on April 10, led to this statement from United Airlines:

"We’re deeply disturbed by what we see in that video, which appears to show an unauthorized person in the flight deck at cruising altitude while the autopilot was engaged. As a clear violation of our safety and operational policies, we’ve reported the incident to the FAA and have withheld the pilots from service while we conduct an investigation."

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. He’s with the Colorado Rockies, so it’s not like he was gonna hit anything or do any damage.

Other Stuff

That’s OK, but go no further

From the BBC:

NASA is sending a drone-like probe named Dragonfly to Saturn’s largest moon Titan, to search for scientifically interesting locations and find out whether life ever could have existed there . . . Known as Dragonfly, the NASA rotorcraft probe will fly over the dunes of Titan, exploring and landing at interesting sites for study.

I am glad to see that NASA is abiding by the instructions it was given 14 years ago. If it hadn’t been, there would’ve been trouble.

What the hell is Jeff Pearlman’s problem?

Back in late 2010 and early 2011, when I wasn’t as sunny and agreeable as I am now, two separate sports writers looked me up and called me at home to complain to me/berate me because they believed I was being mean to them online.

The baseball writer Jon Heyman did so in a more berating fashion. He spent a few minutes giving me a piece of his mind and then he hung up on me after I made it clear to him that I wasn’t gonna be bigfooted by him and would be happy to carry on the conversation indefinitely. He then blocked me on social media for about eight or nine years.

Jeff Pearlman, then transitioning from writing for Sports Illustrated and ESPN 2 into his extremely successful career as a bestselling author, called me in more of a complaining vein. Pearlman and I actually ended up having something of a civil conversation and, while we’re certainly not friends or anything, he has shot me a quick message or two over the years asking me about this or that thing.

Heyman’s problem with me was a pretty cliche “who is this guy with no real credentials to criticize me?" thing which was a pretty common mainstream media/blogger beef back then. Pearlman’s problem was a broader one. He simply did not like it when anyone criticized him and, on some level, didn’t understand why anyone would. It’s been a long time, but I vaguely remember trying to make the point to him that while complaining to a print journalist like he was trained to be required someone to actually sit down and write a letter, mail it, and hope that the letter got to the writer — acts which cause most would-be critics to simply drop the matter — the Internet was different and the online world engendered a back and forth and, well, you just sorta have to get used to it.

As I said, Pearlman was civil and told me he heard me, but I don’t think he really did. Mostly because not long after he called to complain to me he infamously name-searched himself, saw someone tweeting something about him, tracked them down, called the guy’s mother, and then wrote a big self-aggrandizing column about it for CNN.com. The guy in question, by the way, was in his 20s at the time and was not a public figure or anything. He was just a guy tweeting stuff. To this day I have no idea what Pearlman thought he was doing. Nor does Pearlman seem to know what he was doing, as he has offered some mea culpas about that episode over the years and has admitted that he came off looking horribly.

Which is why I am sitting here shocked right now because, just last week, Pearlman did it again. Or something very much like it. And he wrote about it at length over at his Substack.

The short version: a totally anonymous nobody of a guy DM’d Pearlman and said something rude to him (i.e. “how bout you go fuck yourself, you uneducated fucking zero”). Then the guy blocked him. While that’s certainly not polite, it’s not a super uncommon thing for a writer with even a moderate public profile to hear online. If anything, the rude comment/block two-step is fairly low-level online hating because, thanks to the block, you know the person isn’t interested in engaging in sustained harassment. Every writer online gets stuff like that from time to time and many, particularly women writers, get far, far worse.

Pearlman, however, was inspired to pretend it was 2011 again, to put on his detective hat, and to figure out who this guy was primarily via catfishing him. Really! He created a fake account, pretended to be someone who was into the same things the guy was — in this case Pearlman pretended to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins — and then tried to befriend him. Once they began talking Pearlman lied to the guy about being in the sports apparel business and said he could get him a free Penguins t-shirt if only he had his name and address. At that point the guy asked Pearlman if he was trying to doxx him and Pearlman said no. Then, to add credence to his lie, Pearlman claimed that he was a real person at a real apparel company, who he cited by name.

The guy decided to trust him and gave Pearlman his name. Then Pearlman messaged him this:

The guy responded back, obviously concerned that Pearlman was going to doxx him, but before Pearlman could write back that, no, he wasn’t going to, the guy deleted his account. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that Pearlman is necessarily entitled to the benefit of the doubt as to whether his assertion that he was not going to doxx the guy was made before he knew the dude had deleted his account. It’s possible that Pearlman truly wanted to make this guy fear that he was going to do and to have that fear hanging over his head and only wrote that he wasn’t going to after the fact.

Whatever the case, Pearlman seems to consider all of this some kind of win. He wrote a whole newsletter entry bragging about it. And he’s quite obviously pleased with his detective skills in all of this, to the point of being giddy about it. All of which is insane to me.

What Pearlman did here was beyond creepy. Indeed, it was unethical and just plain cruel. Yeah, this guy was rude to Pearlman online once, but Pearlman’s response — obtaining the guy’s identity under false pretenses, then leaving him in fear that he would be doxxed by a very famous writer with a substantial audience — is beyond the pale as far as I’m concerned.

Like I said, I have spoken with Jeff Pearlman before. I have read a couple of his books. He’s a talented guy who comes off as highly intelligent and more or less reasonable in casual conversation. But this is disturbing. And it’s made all the more disturbing by Pearlman’s having done something very much like it before, which he discusses at length in the very same post, admitting that he was wrong and acknowledging that he came off poorly by having done so. Yet he still does it again.

It really, really makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with him. Not in the “what’s up with this asshole” way but in the, “actually, is there something wrong with him” way.

Glory to Columbus 

I went to go see the local MLS concern, the Columbus Crew, play the Portland Timbers on Saturday night. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them in person which, now that I’m actually something of a soccer fan, is not really acceptable. It’s cool to latch on to an English, German, French, or Spanish team because that’s top-of-the-world quality stuff, but you gotta support your local. Just seems like the right thing to do. So, while snagging that ticket was sort of impulsive, it is part of an overall desire to go see more Crew matches.

This was my first time seeing them play in person since they moved into their new stadium in 2021. I had, as a part of social outings more than anything, seen a few of their games at their old place, which they are now referring to as Historic Crew Stadium. That opened in 1999. When it did it was the first MLS-specific stadium built. Which is sort of wild when you remember that the vibe of the place was something between small college football stadium and, on some weird level, a mid-to-lower-level auto racing facility. Maybe that was just me. Either way, now it’s a practice facility, a lower-level Crew squad plays its game there, and they hold a bunch of concerts there as well.

Before Historic Crew Stadium was built they played in Ohio Stadium, where the Ohio State Buckeyes play. In addition to the stands being about five times too big for MLS games, the field at the time was far, far too small, as it still had the old track-and-field track running around the perimeter. When I saw my first-ever Crew match, back in 1997, I was gobsmacked to learn that the track was in the field of play. Between janky shit like that and the fact that, in its first few seasons, the MLS clock counted down from 45 each half rather than up from zero like it does everywhere else in the world, I cannot imagine how anyone who knew anything about soccer took the enterprise seriously.

That’s certainly different now. While the quality of play in the MLS is not what you see in Europe, it’s pretty damn good and way, way better than it once was. And the matchday experience is pretty fantastic. Philosophically speaking the Crew’s stadium annoys me given that it was paid for by the city and the county and they only charge the team $10 a year in rent — and they’ve even missed paying that before — but it is gorgeous. The fanbase is extremely engaged and knowledgable, even outside of the hardcore supporter’s section, the Nordecke. After so many baseball and football games in my life it’s so nice to watch a sporting event during which pop and rock music isn’t blasted through speakers all the damn time and during which the PA announcer only speaks sparingly. All of the focus is on the pitch, with only the chants and drum beats from the Nordecke and the cheers of the crowd as a whole setting the soundtrack. It’s just a fun and organic-feeling sporting experience.

It helped that Saturday night’s match was a good one. Almost constant activity and end-to-end play. Columbus’ passing was more crisp and accurate than I’ve seen in a lot of Premier League matches lately, though I figure watching games like Saturday morning’s Luton-Brentford affair has something to do with that. The Crew’s biggest issue against Portland was being unable to really finish — well, except when they did — and the ref blatantly missing a penalty that likely would’ve given Columbus the lead. It ended in a 2-2 draw, with the final action of the match being a shot from the Crew that just hit the post. But a point is better than nothing and I totally got my money’s worth.

Anyway: if you have an MLS club near ya, go check it out. It’s amazingly fun stuff.

Have a great day everyone.

Make a Comment