Chavez Ravine

I am to the point that if Chris doesn’t watch a very hittable pitch float by for strike 3 I am pleased by the at bat.

Cashner is glowing like an old red giant.

We are quickly accumulating a highlight reel's worth of unfathomable, difficult to describe, unprecedented examples of horrendous defense.

I think when they cleaned up (in a relative way) the Delaware River they screwed up the mud. Pitchers can’t get a grip.

I don’t know if the mental stuff is fixed. He still inscrutably looks at lots of fat pitches in counts that suggest he should jump on fat pitches. I do think he has broken through the wall of intense internal and external pressure he must have been under. He does seem loose and free in that regard. I am not convinced he has recovered the mental quirks that make a MLB hitter over a year.

The official scoring does no justice to the surreal awfulness of Wynn's play in the 2nd inning of the second game. It was not a wild pitch. Wynns dropped strike three, the ball dribbled in front of him a few inches, he picked it up and fired a strike to second base. Unfortunately, no one else could think of a reason why they should be covering second base so the ball went into center field. Wynns must have lost track of the count or the outs. Either way, not what you really want to see from your catcher. Later in the inning, Cashner called Wynns out to the mound for a Bull Durham-esque mound visit talking to (Cashner assuming the Costner role). Brocail joined them on the mound with a box of popcorn to enjoy the show.

Hyde said Davis missed the game because of “personal matters”.

The insurance company can argue he isn’t a hitter anymore either.

They were even jumping on the stuff he didn't throw in the middle of the plate. Not a good sign.

And Longoria ends it with a solid single just past the glove of Arenado. Marquez is still pitching.

German Marquez is about to pitch the 8th with a no-hitter going against the Giants in SF. He has thrown 76 pitches.

MLB/RSDC doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get this thing resolved. It makes me wonder if there is some more widespread disagreement among the owners about these matters. Perhaps, like a bad contract, they could trade this intractable problem for someone else’s. The RSDC could take on the question of how to handle the post Brexit Irish border while the UK parliament could resolve territory disputes among MLB owners.

This section of the market has really cratered. At least some of the teams playing in it are going to stumble into some nice value.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Is it coincidence that two of the current members of the RSDC are from teams (Toronto and Seattle) whose regional territories would be impacted by team movements/expansions that have been contemplated of late?

The sports media landscape is shifting faster than the courts and in perpetuity contracts are. MASN might become more a burden than a boon independent of any help from bad faith RSDC rulings. That said, the Murdoch clan seems to be smelling a buy low situation for RSN's: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-times-dealbook-fox/foxs-murdoch-mulls-buying-back-regional-sports-networks-from-disney-idUSKCN1N65T4

AHH to be 35 again.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-world-series-sider-20181028-story.html

Just to stir the pot, here is Dylan Hernandez's (LA Times) take on Manny: http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-brewers-hernandez-20181020-story.htm There are lots of good Manny quotes, but perhaps the most interesting nugget from the article is this: On a personal note, perhaps because the last time I watched a pro wrestling match was when Mr. T and Hulk Hogan were a tag team, I had no clue about what crotch chopping was. The internet provided a history, which of course involved getting pissed off by Canadian fans. This Wikipedia article is one of the more amusing things I have read in a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Generation_X

The Orioles were idiots for not playing him both ways.

Is Brach the only ex-Oriole left that we haven’t seen yet?

Ohtani's medical folder keeps growing. This might be going from a minor annoyance (like when I couldn't see him play in Japan because he was injured) to a significant career trajectory altering issue.

2014 Houston Astros American League 70 92 .432 28.0 4 1,751,829 2013 Houston Astros American League 51 111 .315 45.0 5 1,651,911 2012 Houston Astros National League 55 107 .340 42.0 6 1,607,733 2011 Houston Astros National League 56 106 .346 40.0 6 2,067,016

While reading the other thread, I was thinking that if I ever woke up and found myself a MLB pitching coach one day, the only thing I could muster in way of advice would be: try only pitching from the stretch, and try standing on the other side of the rubber.....maybe also: try ditching a random pitch (not the obviously good one) ?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-cubs-yu-darvish-jake-arrieta-rosenbloom-20180801-story.html What do you have to do... carry a team to the World Series before someone believes in you? ?