Cup of Coffee: April 26, 2024
A nut shot, a lame Players’ Weekend, umpire relegation, the shit show at the Supreme Court, The Onion and Billie Eilish
Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya...
Why the different intro? Read on!
Today: a nut shot, a lame Players’ Weekend, umpire relegation, the shit show at the Supreme Court, The Onion and Billie Eilish.
And That Happened
Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:
Dodgers 2, Nationals 1: Yoshinobu Yamamoto was fantastic, painting corners en route to six shutout innings while striking out seven. Take away that disaster start he had in Korea and he’s been fantastic. Of course if you take away one night at the theater Lincoln survives and history changes so you can only play that kind of hypothetical game so much before you do something that causes your grandpa to die and you to fade away into nothingness so let’s not get carried away. Teoscar Hernández hit a solo homer in the second and Freddie Freeman doubled in a run in the eighth. The Dodgers complete the sweep and fly on to Toronto.
Phillies 5, Reds 0: Zack Wheeler allowed one hit over six scoreless innings while striking out eight. Bryce Harper homered in his first game back from paternity leave. He should have a kid more often. The Phillies split the four-game series but they’ve still won eight of ten.
Twins 6, White Sox 3: Edouard Julien and Ryan Jeffers homered in the Twins’ three-run sixth inning during which they took the lead. Julien homered a second time in the seventh and Carlos Santana and José Miranda went back-to-back in the eighth as Minnesota won it going away. Chicago finishes a seven-game road trip in which they lost all seven games and scored 18 runs in total. They are now 3-22. That’s one game better than the 25-game start of the infamous 1988 Baltimore Orioles. It matches the 2003 Tigers and the 2022 Reds for futility through 25 ballgames. Those three teams’ loss totals: 107, 119, and 100.
Brewers 7, Pirates 5: Gary Sánchez hit a pinch-hit, two-run home run in the eighth to turn a 5-4 game into a 6-5 game. Earlier William Contreras hit a homer, so viva catchers. Earlier than that Jake Bauers and Rhys Hoskins hit back-to-back RBI singles. If we keep going back farther we can assume all of the Brewers players had breakfast yesterday and if we continue farther than that we eventually reach the Cambrian Explosion and, before that, Snowball Earth.
Guardians 6, Red Sox 4: Will Brennan hit a solo shot and José Ramírez hit a grand slam in the second inning to give Cleveland a 5-0 lead. Boston clawed back to within one by the sixth but they couldn’t do better and the Guardians got an insurance run on an error an inning later. Cleveland takes two of three from the Sox and have won six of seven overall.
Cubs 3, Astros 1: Pete Crow-Armstrong went 0-for-14 in his cup of coffee last season and had struggled at Triple-A so far this year before his callup the other day. But he got his first major league hit yesterday and it just so happened to be a two-run homer which broke a 1-1 tie in the sixth and pushed the Cubs to victory. Nico Hoerner had three hits and Mike Tauchman reached base four times. Chicago wins for the fourth time in five games. The Astros, meanwhile, are off to their worst start since 1969. Which, given some of those teams they trotted out during the middle Obama years, is saying something.
Mariners 4, Rangers 3: Ty France and Luis Urías each hit two-run homers and Luis Castillo allowed two over six innings. The M’s take two of three from the Rangers and, hey, whaddaya know, they’re in first place in the AL West.
Rockies 10, Padres 9: San Diego’s bullpen has been pretty good of late but it blew a five-run lead in the eighth as the Rockies put up a six-spot. The rally featured a three-run blast from Hunter Goodman. Elias Diaz drove in three as well with a sac fly a groundout and a double, though not all in the eighth inning. That’d be silly.
Royals 2, Blue Jays 1: Hey, when was the last time you watched a game where both starters pitched a complete game? Yeah, I know it doesn’t really count given that the game was suspended due to rain after five innings, but a clean box score is a clean box score and I’m gonna enjoy this, dammit. Sal Perez’s two-run homer was the big bop.
Athletics 3, Yankees 1: Nick Allen and Tyler Nevin homered in the third inning — Nevin’s was a two-run job — while Alex Wood scattered eight and allowed one while pitching into the sixth and four relievers sealed the deal.
The Daily Briefing
How’s Alex Manoah’s rehab stint going?
You know I actually don’t care about that. I just made that into an item so I can share this clip of him gettin’ smacked in the beans:
Given that he’s looking right back toward the catcher the whole time I can only assume that this is some sort of kink or initiation ritual or something. Not that I’m judging. We all have our stuff.
There’s a new Players Weekend. It’s not really for the players
Major League Baseball announced yesterday that it will conduct “a reimagined Players’ Weekend” during the weekend of August 16-18.
What does “reimagined” mean? Well, it means that unlike the past Players Weekends there will be no fun nicknames on the players’ jerseys. Rather, players will wear “special New Era caps featuring each players’ uniform number on the side panel in a youthful design.” Also, “a different aspect of players' lives will be highlighted through in-stadium events, game broadcasts and social media.” There will be no other changes to the uniforms or players’ names on their jerseys.
Not sure what the point is, then. It’s not like we don’t hear a lot about players’ lives during broadcasts already. My guess is that there is no way Fanatics and Nike could deliver the fun custom uniforms in time so they just decided to punt it.
MLB considers Hunter Wendelstedt’s ejection of Aaron Boone to be “a bad ejection”
Andy Martino of SNY reports that Major League Baseball has “internally deemed” umpire Hunter Wendelstedt’s Monday ejection of Yankees manager Aaron Boone a “bad ejection.” Which, duh.
Martino goes on to explain, however, that Wendelstedt won’t be fined or suspended or anything because MLB doesn’t do that to umpires. Rather it’s just a bad mark on Wendelstedt’s “game management” ratings, which along with ball and strike accuracy and such, go into the umpire’s overall performance review. Bad performance reviews can keep an umpire from being promoted to crew chief or getting postseason assignments.
In related news: Wendelstedt is not a crew chief and, given his tenure, would’ve been one already by now if it was ever gonna happen. And, as Martino notes, he got no postseason assignments last year, presumably because he rates poorly.
Which is to say: nothing really will happen to Wendelstedt over this.
Max Scherzer: we need an umpire relegation system
Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer pitched in a rehab start on Wednesday night. Down in the minors they have the automatic ball and strike system and he was asked about that. From the Dallas Morning News:
The 39-year-old said he’s not a huge fan and that baseball needs to maintain its human element. That doesn’t mean that the current working order is flawless.
“We need to rank the umpires,” Scherzer said inside a small ballroom at Dell Diamond. “Let the electronic strike zone rank the umpires. We need to have a conversation about the bottom — let’s call it 10%, whatever you want to declare the bottom is — and talk about relegating those umpires to the minor leagues.”
Hey, we have it for players. Why not for umps?
Great Moments in Lifetime Achievement Awards
Baseball Digest is honored to present its fourth annual Lifetime Achievement Award to Dusty Baker, who retired following the 2023 season after 56 years in Major League Baseball as a player, coach and manager.
“Receiving this award is a tremendous honor,” the 74-year-old Baker said. “I never thought that I’d be in the class of the people that received this award. I know that my late mom and dad would be proud of me. This is really special.”
First off: I had no idea that Baseball Digest was still a thing, but good for Baseball Digest, whatever form it has assumed. I still have like three dozen of them from the early 80s in a storage unit — a LaMarr Hoyt cover is on top of the box if I remember correctly — not because I’m a hoarder but because it’s in a box marked “Curt’s Junk” that my parents told me not to throw away because “your brother may want that stuff someday.” Why I’m paying to store it I have no idea but you could say that about a lot of things I do with my life.
Second off: Dusty Baker is a fine honoree for a lifetime achievement award. But get a load of the nominees against whom he faced off: Bob Costas, Jaime Jarrín, Sandy Koufax, Tony La Russa, Jim Leyland, Lou Piniella, Jerry Reinsdorf, Rachel Robinson, Bud Selig, Janet Marie Smith and Bob Uecker.
Jerry Reinsdorf? In that otherwise pretty august damn crowd? Really? Jesus Christ, what has he achieved in his lifetime that is worthy of any honor? Seriously asking! His greatest mark on the game of baseball involved spearheading an illegal collusion scheme which cost him and his fellow owners $300 million back when $300 million was a lot of money. Otherwise he’s been the steward of a Chicago White Sox team that, despite winning a single World Series in his 43 year-tenure, has largely underachieved and now stands as one of the most pathetic franchises in the game.
So yeah, hand that man a plaque. If he were to get one it wouldn’t be worth throwing in my storage unit.
Other Stuff
What the actual fuck
I’ve joked about the absurdity of Donald Trump’s claim, argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, that presidents should be immune from criminal prosecution for anything they do in office, forever. But I’ll be damned if Trump’s lawyer didn’t specifically argue that a president could literally assassinate their rivals:
Trump’s supporters routinely accuse Joe Biden of being a lawless tyrant but Trump is, at every turn, claiming entitlement to absolute unchecked power. It’s unprecedented in American history. It’d be comical if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Of course Trump is Trump so he’ll always advocate for the absolute worst things imaginable. I was rather appalled, however, that an attorney would actually make this argument for him. So I looked up this John Sauer character to see what kind of guy he is:
He looks like he could’ve played a Hydra agent in “Captain America: Winter Soldier.” He’s the guy foreclosing on the children’s home which Mickey and Judy have to put together a song-and-dance show in order to save.
Anyway, yes, I know that this argument will not prevail. And I know that neither Trump or his super fascist-ass looking attorney here even believe it will. They want a delay in his criminal trials is all, and the Court taking this case in the first place is a function of its Republican appointees actively helping him do so. But, as I often say, we are what we do. And if you’re an attorney making such a manifestly wrong, manifestly bad faith, manifestly morally repugnant argument in the highest court in the land you shouldn’t get to keep your law license. Honestly, I have no idea how people like this can sleep at night.
For that matter . . .
. . . I have no idea how Justice Sam Alito can leave his house each morning without wearing a helmet. I say that because here he is, in open court, explaining why it would be bad for a former president to stand trial for crimes for which he has been indicted:
"That may involve great expense, and it may take up a lot of time. And during the trial, the former president may be unable to engage in other activities that the former president would want to engage in and then the outcome is dependent on the jury, the instructions to the jury, and how the jury returns a verdict and then it has to be taken up on appeal."
Given that Alito has been a judge for 34 years now it was rather surprising to me to hear that he’s just now beginning to understand how criminal trials work. But then I thought about it some and I realized his issue here is the notion that trials work like that for powerful Republicans too, not just the poors and the brown people and stuff.
The Onion goes independent
The greatest comedy site in the history of the Internet, The Onion, has been sold by the soulless goons at G/O Media to a group led by former NBC News reporter Ben Collins and a tech guy named Jeff Lawson. The actual name they gave the acquiring company — Global Tetrahedron — is a callback to an Onion joke in from the classic book “Our Dumb Century.” Which strongly suggests that the new owners get it. And if that didn’t, what they had to say in response to the news breaking yesterday seemed to demonstrate it:
“The world needs laughter; it needs satirical criticism more than ever,” Mr. Lawson said. “And that’s why we think this is the right time and the right way to help The Onion continue to grow, continue to flourish, and frankly I’m concerned if we hadn’t done this, I don’t know what would have happened.” Our goal is to be stewards for this thing,” he said. “We’re keeping all the writers, we’re going to work with the union, we’re going to make it so they can hopefully get paid a little bit more money, and we’re going to give them the room to grow.”
This truly does seem like a labor of love. Which is about the rarest of things in digital media these days.
Now bring back T. Herman Zweibel, Smoove B, Jean Teasdale, and Jim Anchower.
Quote of the Day: Billie Eilish
From her Rolling Stone interview which dropped the other day:
"Oh, my God, how can anybody just accept that a whale exists, y'all? Those things are enormous. The noises they make. That shit is terrifying to me. Ew! Terrifying."
That quote got a lot of laughs on social media. Someone even typed it up and slapped it over the Clickhole logo to equate it with those nonsense “[Celebrity] said what?!” features. But this is a real quote.
But, at the risk of being a party-pooper, I’m not gonna pile on and make fun of Eilish for it. Why? Because this isn’t an instance of some celebrity being ditzy. It’s a Gen-Z thing.
If you spend a decent amount of time around Zoomers — like if you’re a father to a couple of them — you’ll hear "X isn't real" or "X can't exist"-style sentiments. It's the equivalent to saying "wow, that thing is crazy/terrible” or “that thing is so impressive/cute/amazing." A sometimes half-feigned but often legitimate expression of wonder. “How are you real?” Anna may say to the cat as she scritches her under her chin.
Anyway, it’s not often that I can explain anything a young person says or does, so when the opportunity arises, I have to take it.
Have a great weekend everyone.
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