Scouts: Been a crazy week at work for me this week. 9+ hour meetings, just no time to do anything other than this one project I’m working on. Tomorrow I have to travel for work, so it’ll be all Prof, so be super sweet to her and spread the Friday joy around.
Dodgers 2, Athletics 3 – Scouts: Mike Fiers was able to hold back the pretty good LA offense, and the A’s were able to do just enough against Clayton Kershaw to edge out a win.
Reds 0, Mets 8 – Prof: A miracle at Willets Point. The Mets give Jacob deGrom a win! He got actual run support! deGrom, a man whose ERA is a jaw dropping 1.77 on the year, who struck out ten batters, but has a “losing” record because of his incompetent teammates, pitched masterful baseball last night. Austin Jackson and Brandon Nimmo both went 3-5.
Mariners 7, Rangers 11 – Scouts: A lot of run scoring in this one. Joey Gallo smacked a pair of jacks, just two of the Ranger’s 11 extra base hits. Catcher Mike Zunino also hit a pair of homers for the Mariners.
Pirates 4, Rockies 3 – Scouts: Chris Archer picked up his first Pittsburgh win scrapping out 5 innings, only allowing a two run homer to David Dahl.
Phillies 0, Diamondbacks 6 – Prof: Patrick Corbin is still having a very good season. I’d like to remind everyone that I picked him as one of the pitchers to watch for at the beginning of the year. Anyway, enough about me tooting my horn. Corbin struck out nine, while David Peralta went 4-5 with 2 RBI and Eduardo Escobar had three RBI.
Tigers 0, Angels 6 – Scouts: LA finished off the sweep against Detroit thanks to a triplet of homers from Kole Calhoun, Justin Upton, and Albert Pujols.
Braves 8, Nationals 3 – Prof: Before I wear my Braves homer hat, I’m going to throw a bone to Juan Soto and the Nats. Soto was thrown out by an umpire for…well…basically nothing. If he wasn’t a rookie, he wouldn’t have gotten thrown out at all. And the worst part? Soto was right – it WAS a ball. He didn’t have an attitude and he shouldn’t have been the victim of an ump show. Ugh, I feel itchy talking nicely about Washington. Let’s talk about Atlanta now! Home runs were smashed by Charlie Culberson (Dansby Swanson’s identical twin, you can’t tell me nothing), Tyler Flowers, and the savior himself RAJ.
Orioles 5, Rays 4 – Prof: Baltimore committed five errors on the night. Of the four pitchers who took the mound, the best ERA is 4.63 and that’s a relief guy. Their best hitters in the game (Mark Trumbo and Trey Mancini) both went 2-4 and both have batting averages well below .300. And yet…and yet…
Red Sox 10, Blue Jays 5 – Scouts: There really isn’t anyone around that can stop Boston right now, as they are making everyone look just plain silly. J.D Martinez had three hits, Xander Bogaerts had three RBI, and eight of 9 starters collected at least one hit as Boston picked up their 81st win.
Twins 2, Spiders 5 – Scouts: The Cleveland bullpen almost blew this one, blowing the save in the 9th, allowing Minnesota to tie it up, but that was just so Francisco Lindor could blast a three-run walk-off homer in the bottom of the frame.
Cardinals 7, Marlins 1 – Scouts: Matt Carpenter hit his 5th homer in 6 games as the Cards just demolished the Marlins.
Yankees 7, White Sox 3 – Prof: Here’s a surprise fact – Luis Severino hasn’t gotten a win in a month! But he did last night, and now improved to 15-5. Giancarlo Stanton hit a grand slam, his first in over four years.
Padres 4, Brewers 8 – Prof: Milwaukee hit nothing but homers. OK, that’s an exaggeration, because Travis Shaw hit a sac fly in the second inning to drive home Lorenzo Cain. Otherwise it’s nothing but homers. In fact, Christian Yelich’s home run to deep center field looked like an actual moon shot.
Cubs 0, Royals 9 – Scouts: Eek. Chicago blanked and routed by the terrible Royals. Heath Fillmyer, pitching just his 5th career start, shut-out one of the best offenses in the NL allowing just 3 hits over 7 innings.
Fan Interference 
As filler yesterday, the Tigers broadcast included an interview between Gibby and Sciosca. They talked about Gibby’s intensity and focus. Sciosca said that Gibby always seemed like he had “a stick up his ass.” He added that the other players weren’t afraid of Gibby and they’d go talk to him, but he was like a starting pitcher focusing every day.
In the conversation between Mario and Gibby after that, Gibby mentioned that he went to a therapist because his focus/intensity was “like a disorder.” He said the therapist made him learn interacting with others — starting with talking to a lady who worked at the grocery store. He said he just couldn’t even say hello to her at first but he learned to charm her in time.
He never identified any diagnosis, but my antenna went up that he talked about mental health stuff at all and he didn’t seem ashamed of it. He said it so matteroffactly — he had an issue that was impairing his social interactions so he got help. It’s kind of a running joke on the broadcast that Gibby is an oddball, but I was impressed that he would talk about therapy casually. Maybe that helps make it ok for others to do that and cuts against an antisocial stereotype.
Of course, then Gibby went on to say later that Jack Morris was driven to go deep into games because he didn’t trust the bullpen and he was tired of losing wins because of that (not in those words). So much for teamwork and positive mentality.
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In hindsight, the Nats playing a four game series with the Braves and not being able to use Roark, Hellickson, or Strasburg as starting pitchers was probably not an ideal configuration for them to try and gain ground, although they’re thisclose* to being up 2-1 in this series, instead of down 2-1. Gio’s starting today as they go for the split, and the best thing that can be said about that is that the game will be on Facebook, where it’s likely to be seen by fewer people than a daytime MASN telecast, and that’s a good thing.
I agree that Soto shouldn’t have gotten tossed. His biggest infraction was still talking about a pitch from the previous at-bat, but he did it the right way initially, by speaking with his face pointed at the ground while he went through his ritual pawing of the dirt. When the ump took off his mask and approached him to ask him what he said, I guess maybe his only recourse there was to not say anything, instead of repeating himself, but he’s 19 (really, Joe Simpson, he is) so he’ll learn.
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I’m delighted to have the Feelies-Gnats-Barves catfight to add innerest to the dog days, because watching the Feesh these days is like watching a swan dive into an empty pool. 22 under, 18 out, and the magic 100 is staring down at them like one of Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes. I see the Gnats as spoilers-in-chief rather than serious contenders for comeback of the year team, but on the field it’s all fan fodder.
oh, and the beeg news out of Macondo Banana Massacre Field is that The Bust is resuming baseball activities following the hip injury that (mercifully) has sidelined him since early July. That’s right! I quiver with anticipation at the idea of Lewis Brinson being back with the team by late August or early September, barring any anticlimactic setback, to resume his assault on the Mendoza Line (he was batting .186 when he hit the DL). But the way Mendoza keeps avoiding his approaches from below, you almost gotta think it’s equipped with sonar.
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The interview with Jeter during the game was dull — except it was funny how they couldn’t pin him down on explaining what the Marlins Way is. He talked about playing every game as if it was do or die but when they asked about how that worked in putting the team together he turned vague….
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Beep beep trafficked in empty cliches his entire career, empty cliches with a big smile. He was tefloner than John Gotti and Ronald Reagan combined. Listening to him was always like listening to Crash Davis teaching Nuke LaLoosh how to make spawrtsriters and tork show hosts happy with as little effort as possible.
But it doesn’t work for owners. What was once merely vapid is now utter bullshit.
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