Just Regular

As if Kyle Bradish's perhaps final tune-up wasn't enough. IRL I'd guess the org had Hyde tell him on the way back from California so he had all yesterday to do whatever he needed to do.

True. The comment in the Minors forum the other day I think from Baseball America about his swinging strike rate being good hit me odd as I'd noticed the strikeouts too. Fangraphs today has him in 2024 IL at 10.9% SwStr%. That's ~50th percentile, whereas his K% is only about ~20th percentile. I might give him a little grace on the raw K% number as he's doing well crushing a lot of pitches. I think Mayo may have a little extra excitement to show himself the best Bat in a lineup with Austin Hays and Jackson Holliday next week.

Some of the precise timing here too I think is to give Urias and Mateo the repetitions before Yankees.

Mayo v. Holliday might be an interesting debate now for next one back. 3B Urias, 2B Westburg will probably be it - aside from tonight the first 24 games Urias' defensive starts have been exclusively 3B. Some of the precise timing also is I think to get Urias or Mateo some extra PA before Yankees, with one of them being set as a starter for that key series.

Maybe the same Tides social media person who did the pictures for the May 2023 Grayson Rodriguez promotions will get to do them for the May 2024 Jackson Holliday promotions. Baseball has at times been critiqued for not marketing its players well... I get doing this early as insurance if based on the early results they just think Urias is the better practical choice for the short term. While OAK has a couple very talented Arms, overall their pitching isn't that strong. I think the 12th and 13th bats on the roster are especially light use on rosters where the first string is very strong, so Banuelos, McKenna day to day matters very little. If Hays or anyone else on the first string was out a month, I believe we'd more likely see Stowers or Norby.

It wasn't until this winter when looking at some history it all really connected to me how the early 20's Orioles ace Lefty Grove was basic to Connie Mack's A's ending the '27 Yankees dominance of the American League pretty quickly for such a historically iconic squad. Grove's A's beat Ruth's Yankees in '29, '30 and '31. That bit of history colors a good deal for me who Roki Sasaki is now.

It'll be interesting to see if Adley and/or Holliday can find paths to outdo Gunnar like Sigbot thought they should. In both cases it probably takes beating him by a bunch of points of batting average. Gunnar's from a similar draft tier to Ripken and Murray so you really can't do better than that when it really hits. Holliday's slow start has reminded me some of guys like Rich Dauer, Drungo Hazewood or Robert Boyce who were Orioles 1st rounders near the time of Cal and Eddie, and only got as far as supporting roles and/or inspiration for OH handles. Next week in Rodon and Cortes I'm sure he'll still be up there leading off against some of the stronger likely LHSP candidates he may also see in Very Important Games later this season. Ragans, Framber, Fried...nope, still not shrinking his lion's share of the team plate appearances. I figure Colin Poche will pitch against him in all 13 Rays games this season.

Kyle Bradish adjacent, and discovering more about baseball gift Mason Miller, it turns out he so far is a successful non-surgical recovery from a mild UCL sprain diagnosed last year in May. He had made four starts early on before the injury. Game log shows final start was May 7th, and he got back as a reliever September 6th.

Tyler Nevin 2-run HR scores Darell Hernaiz in front of him. Nestor Cortes mad.

Gelof's bad fortune is Darell Hernaiz's good fortune - MLB Network crawl has him as the call up.

It is fun that if Tyler Wells' "injury" is one of the steps in the growing process from being Raysian to being Dodgers-ian that in a week if Elias feels it is his A team he could have Means, Cionel, Wells and Bradish back on his roster. I'm sure he'll go slower than that but personnel management for the Yankees series could be illuminating.

Before the game on Friday! We might need him to handle Brent Rooker.

Free look at the next two opponents as OAK-NYY at 700 tonight looks like the only night game on getaway day. As if this series wasn't already uneven enough on paper, Oakland had a bad break yesterday as Zach Gelof strained an oblique and is heading for the IL. Maybe not as bad a break as Cody Bellinger and Triston Casas apparently breaking ribs. The A's have competed well with the Yankees so far this week - it would be nice if their A relievers have some work to do tonight.

I've wondered if Bradish has a good Friday is he back for game 4 of the Yankees series, and I guess Cionel rates the same kind of wonder if he bounces back and has another good enough appearance. He's kind of a short term quiz who does Elias think can compete best with Anthony Rizzo and Juan Soto.

Even if EBJ busts, maybe Colton Cowser or Dylan Beavers can defend CF as well as Aaron Judge? I wonder if Mullins can beat the Nimmo contract where that would peg him among best contracts earned by late round draft picks, but that's still two years away.