2018 regular-season game chatter

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/4/11/17219496/mlb-pace-of-play-changes-pitch-clocks-rob-manfred

Brisbee otm as always.

Discipline has been issued to pitcher Joe Kelly of the Boston Red Sox and first baseman Tyler Austin of the New York Yankees as a result of the bench-clearing incident that occurred in the top of the seventh inning of Wednesday night’s game at Fenway Park. Joe Torre, Chief Baseball Officer for Major League Baseball, made the announcement.

Kelly has received a six-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for intentionally hitting Austin with a pitch and fighting. Austin has received a five-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for charging the mound and fighting. Also fined as a part of last night’s incident were Red Sox manager Alex Cora and Yankees third base coach Phil Nevin. Players on the disabled list who were fined for entering the field were pitcher CC Sabathia of the Yankees and shortstop Xander Bogaerts, infielder Marco Hernandez and second baseman Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox.

Both suspensions had been scheduled to be effective tonight, when the two Clubs are to continue their series at Fenway. However, both players have elected to appeal. Thus, the discipline issued to both Kelly and Austin will be held in abeyance until the process is complete.

i'm less concerned than brisbee about many of those things. i don't really care about the overall length of the game, but i would appreciate fewer conferences on the mound, less of nomar garciaparra refastening his batting gloves, and less of rodrigo lopez just staring at the catcher whenever runners are on base. if that leads to more offense, i'm okay with that. if it gets out of hand, they can always raise the mound or something.

limitations on pickoffs/extra-inning runners/mercy rule/limiting shifts are all dumb and ridiculous. limiting the number of relievers on the roster sounds like a recipe for injuries. cutting time between pitches might theoretically lead to injuries? but it's only a very recent thing where every big league pitcher needs a 95mph fastball -- there are ways to pitch effectively without throwing everything as hard as possible.

anyway, less time talking/fidgeting would be nice; if it leads to more game action, that's fine

zack weiss's first MLB appearance: 2 HR (the second an upper-deck bomb), 2 BB, 0 outs, infinite WHIP, ERA, etc

wait is it infinite or undefined

that's a good point. is it inside infinity or outside it. and what IS outside infinity? whatever it is, zack weiss is there right now

it's not like it's his fault, but i don't see bryan price surviving too much more of this

whenever they show him in the dugout he looks like he clogged your toilet

Cleveland Indians catcher Francisco Mejia, one of baseball's top prospects, is suing a company that he claims used "unconscionable" tactics to get him to surrender a substantial stake of his future big-league earnings in exchange for an up-front loan in 2016.

Mejia's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware on Feb. 21, alleges Big League Advance, a company run by former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Michael Schwimer, loaned him $360,000 in exchange for a 10 percent stake in his future earnings.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23155146/cleveland-indians-prospect-francisco-mejia-files-lawsuit-disputed-loan

i'm sorry...but he agreed to that??

i understand financial literacy is probably not the strong suit of professional baseball players, but holy shit

one of my favorite things is when some AAA scrub has to play mop-up and gets absolutely obliterated, then has to sit in the dugout with a shiny 81.00 ERA for a week before getting demoted

The Nationals are 2-6 at home.

Atlanta Braves offense juggernaut.

I pushed them all the way off my radar last year -- how unexpected is this?

pretty unexpected! we knew freddie can rake. we knew dansby was probably better than he'd shown so far and we knew albies was good, but neither of them quite this good already

no idea what markakis and suzuki are drinking, tho

oh shiiiiit, I turned my back and missed the Cubs' 9-run 8th

Nine runs on just three hits! And all nine runs were scored with two outs.

What is the record for most games rained-out in a single day?

there were 6 rainouts on 9/12/08, and 8 rainouts on 4/12/97. not sure if the 8 rainout day was a record, though.

the reds/cardinals game seems like it will start at some point, though it might not be for a few more hours.

You're my fact checkin cuz. 6 PPDs today.

Pitching in short sleeves with a game-time temperature of 34 degrees and a wild chill in the mid-20s, the lanky Sale said, "This was the most miserable I've ever been on a baseball field, by far, not even close."

tomorrow's patriots day game in boston has already been postponed; first time since '84

All these rain-outs on Jackie Robinson Day kinda bummed me out today.

Hey they played the New York game and it was 42 degrees so that was cool

Sale and Kershaw were both great today. I'm fascinated by the dominance of the big four--if not for Verlander's resurgence, the gap between them and everyone else just seems to get wider and wider.

Sale/Kershaw/Scherzer/Kluber collectively this year, including the two starts today:

98 IP
61 H
127 K
16 BB
16 ER
1.47 ERA

Bartolololo approaching the shape of perfection

I can’t wait for baseball to start again!

Broken bat home run for Bryce Harpuh.

jeter's plan working to perfection in the bronx

Cashman has pee tape

kinda arbitrary endpoint but aaron judge is the first to 60 career homers (197 games, beating mark mcgwires 202).

also i just tuned in to the LAD/SDP game and they were saying that christian villanueva was one of the fastest ever players to 9 career HRs. just after that he hit his 10th.

All but one at PetCo too...

so who will be the last player* to get their first walk of the season?

jake marisnick, 41 PA, 0 walks
avisail garcia, 59 PA, 0 walks

* with over 40 PAs

lets go shohei

KJansen seems like he's lost his way. He owes his Taylor dinner for stealing that HR away from Villanueva, would've been another BS.

KJansen 9th (2-for-4 in save situations this year):
HR
K
near HR (over the CF wall snag)
BB
Balk
Single (blown save)
K

what happens when you have one pitch and your one pitch goes...

SD TV guy just mentioned this was the first day this season where there were no PPDs.

guys Eric Thames

He hit 11 of his 31 HRs in April last year.

That could not be worded more horribly, let's try again:

he hit 31 HRs in 2017, 11 in April.

yea that 11 was an April record for Milwaukee

kind of assumed MLB pitching had figured him out but the fact that he's wildin' out this year so far is encouraging

mostly I just love that they play his Korean HR song whenever he bombs one

he has more HRs (7) than singles, doubles, and triples combined (5)

Is Colome the ghost of Brad Lidge?

Brewers just won consecutive games against the Reds in which the only scoring play was a 2-run homer from Thames. That's kinda cool I guess.

fred freeman got hit on the wrist and immediately left the game :(

the angels really have one of the coolest rosters: trout and simmons' prime, ohtani obviously, cozart post-contract year (the new daniel murphy?), upton resurgence.....and pujols

they really do. even pujols comes with the novelty value of watching him crawl toward 3000 (10 more)

Charlie Morton's 4 starts this season: 25 IP, 0.76 era, 11.88 K/9, 2.16 BB/9, move aside Kluber.