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Volume 2 - 07.10.24
Come along for our weekly journey into the endless domain that is Baseball. I'll be covering the Good, the Bad, and the Weird of America's oldest professional sport. I'll also dive into any other subject that rears its head along the way.
Week two of our coverage and I'm working out the kinks. Thanks for the direct if hateful commentary in my inbox. It still hurt less than getting beaned.
We love Baseball but there are too many teams playing too many games during the week and too many divisions to constantly track. During the regular season we'll be taking a page from 'Soccer' and sorting through the junk to take a weekly look at a few games at the top, middle, and bottom of The Table. All 30 teams ranked with the best at the top, mediocre in the middle, and dog shit at the bottom make up the full table.
Let's take a look at last weeks notable matchups.
TOP OF THE TABLE
The Philadelphia Phillies (10) vs. The L.A. Dodgers (1) (7/9)
Well, well, well. Would you look at that! The Phillies not only still sit firmly and comfortably on the top of the table but they do so by smacking the hell out of media darlings the Shohei squad.
Trea (real spelling) Turner smacked a grand slam in a 6 run 4th inning and the away team rolled over.
After a promising 2023 debut (11-4, 3.76 ERA) starting Pitcher for the Dodgers Bobby Miller is having a dreadful start to his season with a posted ERA of 8.07.
I'm not a mathmatist but 9 earned runs from the Phillies tonight may not have helped.
The Phillies lead the series 1-0.
The Arizona Diamondbacks (4) vs. The Atlanta Braves (5) (7/8)
The Braves pulled another game out their butt with a late rally to take this one in extras.
They also spoiled the MLB debut of Yilber Diaz who pitched a 6 inning gem where he only gave up 1 run, 4 hits and a walk.
They're currently playing as I write this late with the Braves up 1-0 in the series and posturing for 2-0.
The New York Yankees (0) vs. The Boston Red Sox (3) (7/7)
The Yankees have gone 1-5 in their last 6 matchups and are a complete disaster. Sell the team! Fire everyone! The most storied franchise in baseball, nay, the world, looks like a minor league team at times. Sure, they only moved down one spot on The Table this week but who can say if it's a fluke or a sign of the Joe Girardi curse I may have spoken into existence last week? Who can say?
The Yankees dropped 2 of 3 to the Red Sox. The Sox move into the top of The Table. Fuck.
MIDDLE OF THE TABLE
The Pittsburg Pirates (14) vs. The New York Mets (2) (7/5)
I really did not pour what I have left of myself after family and work into this website, and now this series, just to shit on two of my friends teams.
It's a bonus!
At least the Mets went 3-4 over the stretch and not 1-5 which is truly abysmal.
The Mets actually equalized this series against the feisty Pirates 2-2 but this game was a beatdown. I'm honestly not sure what I am seeing in general as I look around the MLB landscape. Teams are absolutely pouring on the runs left and right and the era of the dominant pitching rotating seems to be truly, and utterly, DEAD.
Brian Reynolds, the solid yet not outstanding DH on the Pirates, destroyed the Mets with 2 HR's and 6 RBI. This is the same guy who I just highlighted last week watching the opposing pitcher puke his guts out after 1 pitch. Maybe the puke was a talisman? Who can say? We will watch your career with interest my friend.
The Minnesota Twins (12) vs. The Houston Astros (13) (7/5)
See above about the ridiculous amount of run scoring that is occurring at the moment. I'll actually have to get off my ass and do some analysis but my hot take is that the era of load management and switching pitchers all the time creates less confident starters.
No one is really that dude anymore outside of a handful. Or maybe hitters are juicing again which would be sweet.
Thankfully the Twins took 2 of 3 from these cheating dirt bags in this series and they remain in the middle of The Table for now.
The Texas Rangers (1) vs. The San Diego Padres (3) (7/4)
The Padres took 2 of 3 from the Rangers from a solid performance from former New York Yankee snake oil salesman Michael King. Now after two great seasons in New York he's not doing as hot this year and it may not be a totally fair comparison. He was used in relief and is now a starting pitcher so the pressures, expectations, and situations are vastly different.
I really only called him a snake oil salesman because his dead eye stare reminds me of the literal snake oil salesman in the Fallout TV show.
BOTTOM OF THE TABLE
The Detroit Tigers (8) vs. The Cleveland Guardians (9) (7/9)
Even though the Tigers lost this heartbreaker in extras they have been surging and have moved up 3 spots on The Table. Sitting in the 22nd spot they are sniffing relevancy heading into the All Start break.
Also what do you think of this different MLB highlights offering? If you click off the tab and continue to say, write a story about baseball, the clip stops entirely forcing you back to it.
I nothing it.
Keep trying MLB!
The Guardians are a top team sitting second on The Table so this showing from Detroit is still admirable. The series is currently tied at 1-1.
The Chicago White Sox (6) vs. The Minnesota Twins (8) (7/8)
White Sox play, White Sox lose. See below for a deeper dive into their managerial ineptitude.
They're down 0-1 in the series and remain in the dank cellar.
The Anaheim Angels (4) vs. The Texas Rangers (9) (7/8)
Do you guys remember Mike Trout? One of the best baseball players of all time? But he's stuck on the shitty and bone headed Angels who wasted years of Shohei Ohtani before having him walk off to L.A.?
Anyway yea I remember that guy. Good news for Mike is he's coming back from injury shortly. Sadly his team is 16 under 500 so that's a wrap.
The Rangers murdered the Angels with a thousand cuts (or 12 hits) and sent Angels starting pitcher Davis Daniel into a blender with 3.2 innings pitched and 7 earned runs.
RIP.
I'm wrapping this up around midnight so a few teams records will have changed +1 or (-1).
Fights, good plays, weird shit. Drama.
Last week I wrote about AI becoming more and more prevalent. And how maybe, just maybe, some people should be replaced by AI (I'll never forgive you Mohegan Sun Pocono).
Well take a look at this. This guy sucks!
It gets worse and worse. Replace these umps with robots already! Gawd DAMNT!
Sick play. But. We need to find a new saying besides "Big League Play!". Let's try not to think of this as a game mostly children play. You never saw me shouting "Big League Play!" when I was smacking home runs in whiffle ball drinking in front of our senior housing with all of our furniture making up the bases and our living room couch acting as the bleachers for random passersby's. GROW UP.
Holy Shit.
Other sports are currently in the mix. Rip the lid off and compare the meat.
RIP Beard of the Week and Mustache Mention. 7/2/2024 - 7/3/2024
No one bats 1.000 - that's a fact Jack.
Audible.
Chris Paul signed with the San Antonio Spurs where he gets to play with future #1 NBA player Victor Wembanyama. Via Andrew Lopez of ESPN:
"In the twilight of his career, Chris Paul could have opted to chase an elusive NBA championship. Instead, he chose to go to a team that went just 22-60 a season ago.
Why? He still wants to compete.
"I love nothing more than the opportunity to play and contribute and hoop," Paul said at his introductory news conference Tuesday.
Paul agreed to a one-year contract with the Spurs. He could have played closer to his home in the Los Angeles area but instead, he'll leave his family and play for San Antonio."
In keeping with his core values he's just here to hoop and join a team with no real shot in the playoffs and at the very best, miracle situation are a play in team next years playoffs.
Chris keeps its real.
Stay a while and listen.
I love movies. But I don't think you can say I'm a movie buff as I don't have any time to watch anything. Who really does? It's not even the old trope of people blaming their kids, I'm not, in fact I watch the most movies with them (Disney but it's true).
For me it's mostly from work. After I come home exhausted I get a second wind to play with my kids before bed. Once that's done, my body wants to collapse and have a couple of beers. My brain no longer wants to have to function and take in new media.
Now for some movies they can still pierce through my malaise. Dune 2 being the most recent example of a film I loved so much it finally took the #1 spot in my pantheon over my beloved The Fifth Element.
Rarer still than those new films that bring me great joy and excitement are those that look like total, insufferable dog shit. The latest that has offended my nostrils is the unremarkable sprinkled with a heap of nostalgia to make you think you are standing in a summer field surrounded by fireflies. In reality, all the fireflies are fucking dead, and you're left with a sad manufactured gasp at creativity that resolves itself as a giant fart.
De-ageing? Check.
Iconic actors playing opposite each other in an attempt to steal some of that prior shine? Check.
Low cost gimmick of using a single camera, and a terrible, awful angle throughout the timeline of this family? Check.
I mentioned it last week but I was shocked at how the Chicago White Sox seemed to be the worst franchise in memory. My memory at least.
As of writing this they sit dead last in the league at 26-67, a 28% win rate.
Deer Lord that is awful.
I needed to find out who was the helm of this disaster. Upon first glance that truly cursed man is Pedro Grifol. He is the 42nd manager of the baseball Jets of Chicago and has been their manager since 2023 and is the worst manager in its history.
That is not rhetoric. His current record with the team during his 248 game tenure as of 7/2 was 85-164 or 34.1%.
Out of the other 41 managers for the White Sox only two come close to this terrible %. Les Moss with 35.3% who led the team in 1968 and only for 34 games.
And the second manager on this short list technically has a worse winning %. Ed Walsh in 1924 had a worse percentage at 33.3%. Only one problem here with the comparison. He only managed 3 games!!
He was a storied pitcher and this was his only stint as a manger! Four different managers led the Chicago White Sox that season!
Taking the amount of games into question here it's an astonishing run of losses for Pedro when you also consider how many other sports are experiencing unheard levels of parity amongst its teams. Well there's always an exception to the rule and this shitty team sure seems like it's comfortable sitting its fat ass there.
Now we can all bury poor Pedro Grifol and move on, mystery solved. Unless that would be too obvious. Which guess what, of course it would.
Of course I'm only a renewed baseball convert attempting to grasp my hands around all of it so I may be one of the few in the dark. But a quick glance taught me the owner of this disaster of a team is Jerry Reinsdorf. He's owned this team for over 35 years and they've sucked for all of it. Apparently he got his start as a tax attorney and climbed his way into owning this team and the Chicago Bulls. Both of these teams have been run into the ground of mediocrity with their poor fans, die-hards, forced to watch the inevitable, year after year, decade after decade.
He has a lot of similarities to the late Orioles owner Peter Angelos. He was also a lawyer. I'm not here to shit on lawyers. My best friend Tom's sister-in-law is a lawyer and she's delightful.
Maybe they are not suited to run MLB franchises. Maybe some of them just use franchises as cash cows from shared TV rights while they sit on their hands and keep their team salary low and truly don't give a shit about the team, sport, and most importantly fans.
Maybe.
Next week we're headed into the All Star Break. Out of the major sports it may have the most competitive all star game remaining.
Football cancelled it's game as no one wanted to get hurt with non-guaranteed contracts and get cut the next day with nothing.
Basketball players don't want a freak injury or to land on someone's foot for a game that meant less than zero.
Excitement seems low all the same for this last man standing of 'relevancy'. The home run derby fades from cultural significance more each year as TikTok and every other thing provides way doper shit than watching smacking a ball only thrown at 60 mph.
As I'm writing about this I'm not sure why I'm still typing. I may be watching baseball again, and enjoying it, but I'm not sure I'm in for a dead totem parading as spectacle.
But have fun with it y'all!
Thanks for reading this week and if you have any comments, questions, or recommendations in regards to this series, feel free to email me at kirk@illandodd.com and I'll be sure to get back to you and may include them as part of a mailbag section.
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