He Said, She Said – Scores and Highlights for 3/31/19

Author by professormaddog31Posted in Baseball

Scouts: I spent most of the off-season working on my personal music collection.  I have added somewhere in the nature of 100-150 albums, bringing the grand total up to 391 albums by 215 artists, totaling of 5,962 songs. All in all it’s 40 Gigs of music.  And I’m not done yet!

It’s been a lot of work gathering it all, organizing it all, getting album artwork and release dates settled and getting it all in Music Bee, my music collection app of choice.  It’s been great exploring new music and reliving old albums from my high-school and college days.  As a result, I should have little difficulty finding music for the site.  Of course with so many choices, it’s hard to decide just what to listen to.

 

Cardinals 4, Brewers 5 – Scouts: Christian Yelich, reminded everyone just why exactly he was voted NL MVP last season, by lining a walk-off, two run double in the ninth.  Yelich had earlier smoked a solo-homer in the first and accounted for three of the BrewCrew’s 5 RBI’s.  Yelich has now homered in each of the Brewer’s first 4 games.

 

Spiders 3, Twins 9 – Prof: I knew I would write about this game because the fellow I’ve been seeing sent me a text that simply said “Carlos Carrasco got lit up.” See, this is a man who gets me. Anyway, it is true; Cookie crumbled. Happy’s Boys, on the other hand, was strong all game long, including a five run fifth inning. Nelson Cruz hit his first homer of the year.

Cubs 10, Rangers 11 – Scouts: This was not a game for traditionalists.  The game lasted 3 hours, 46 minutes, and ended as a result of a wild pitch.  Texas came back from 4 and 3 run deficits, and neither starting pitcher made it out of the 6th inning.

 

Braves 1, Phillies 5 – Prof: Welp, this started out badly for Atlanta. The Phillies swept the Braves, and this game was just as ugly as the rest of them. Bryce Harper hit another home run as did Andrew McCutchen. Rhys Hoskins was hit by a Shane Carle pitch and many people in the Phandom believed it was a brushback pitch, but anyone who has watched the Braves at all during spring training knows that the relievers can’t hit the broad side of a barn, much less aim directly at Hoskins’ chin. The vast majority of the Braves’ bullpen is looking at a one way trip not even to Gwinnett (home of the AAA team), but straight to Rome. Folks, they are bad. And the Phillies are good. Very, very good.

 

Orioles 7, Yankees 5 – Scouts: Is it too early to panic in New York?  The Yankees dropped the home opening series against the sad sack, Orioles who got homers from Joey Rickard, Renato Nunez, and Trey Mancini.  Chris Davis went 0-3 with a walk and 0 strikeouts.  His best performance on the season!  Way to go Chris!

Tigers 5, Blue Jays 3 F/11 – Scouts: Jeimer Candelario racked up 5 hits as the Tigers took one in extra innings against the Jays.

Astros 1, Rays 3 – Prof: It was Jake Marisnick (and Alex Bregman)’s birthday this weekend. Jake from State Farm hit a solo homer, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Tampa Bay Rays, who won the series. Yonny Chirinos went seven full innings, taking a little heat off of TB’s overworked relievers.

 

Rockies 0, Marlins 3 – Prof: How is it that a scrap metal junkyard team was able to beat Colorado? I literally only know maybe three players on the team, plus poor Lewis Brinson (and that’s only because he used to be a Brewer farm hand). But it doesn’t matter; the Feesh won a game in that sterilized fishtank of theirs.

Pirates 5, Reds 0 – Scouts: The Pirates pre-planned piggy backing starting pitchers Trevor Williams and Joe Musgrove against the Reds on Sunday.  At this point, I don’t even know what a starting pitcher is anymore.  Relievers start, starters are pre-planned to enter the game in the 7th.  Down is up, Cats and Dogs are friends, what is going on around here?  It’s MADNESS I tell you!  Madness!

Mets 5, Nationals 6 – Prof: Behold, the Treat Urner. The young Washington shortstop homered twice – one was the dagger in the heart of the Mets in the ninth inning. This was the Curly Dubs’ first win of the young season.

 

White Sox 6, Royals 3 – Scouts: After walking the lead-off batter, Lucas Giolito turned the tide and held onto a ho-hitter into the 7th inning to help Chicago pick up it’s first win on the young season.

Angels 1, Athletics 2 – Scouts: Khris Davis picked up his 4th homer on the season, and Frankie Montas and bullpen combined to 3 hit the Angels.  Kole Calhoun homered for LAA’s sole spark of offense.

 

Diamondbacks 7, Dodgers 8 – Prof: Wow, the Gritty Snakes looked like they had this one well in hand after a seven run fourth inning, but errors in the fourth and eighth innings along with a Max Muncy sac fly put Los Angels over the top.

Giants 1, Padres 3 – Scouts: Chris Paddack lived up to the hype, allowing just one run on 2 hits across 5 innings for his MLB debut.  Paddack retired the first 10 batters he faced, 6 of them coming via strikeout.

Red Sox 8, Mariners 10 – Prof: Seattle is coming out of the gate bucking and raring to go. You all know my stance, that Rick Porcello is the luckiest Cy Young winner in the world, and his outing during this game adds to my theory – 2.2 innings, four earned runs. While Chris Sale had a nastier game, he’s usually a better pitcher, and that’s why Sale bombing was so surprising. Porcello? Nah. Oh, and Jay Bruce hit a solo homer.

17 thoughts on “He Said, She Said – Scores and Highlights for 3/31/19”

  1. The Nats may rival the Braves for worst bullpen in the division. Saturday’s game was tied at 4 heading to the 8th, and when the Nats came to bat in the bottom of the 9th they were down 11-4. Yesterday they blew a 5-2 lead in the 8th, and the tie they found themselves in afterwards felt to this fan like they were down a run or three; only the exploits of young Mr. Turner were enough to save them from an ignominious sweep to start the campaign.

    It’s not like they didn’t try to address their weaknesses, but for all the sound and fury of Mike Rizzo talking about how starting pitching is everything, his approach to bullpen building seems to be “get seven or eight guys who aren’t dead and see if any of them can get anyone out”. The marquee signing of this winter was Trevor Rosenthal; he’s now faced five batters and retired zero of them, because throwing 100 mph fastballs only works if you can locate them.

    (Meanwhile, somewhere Craig Kimbrel sits and waits by the phone, while the Nats stubbornly refuse to exceed the Competitive Balance Tax.)

    In other news, I watched some of the Braves/Phils game last night, and here are my thoughts:

    • The new 7PM start time is only good if it means the game ends no later than 10-ish, which this one most certainly did not.
    • Hearing A-Rod slobber all over Bryce Harper (“Mike Trout for the East Coast”? Really?) was weird, especially since all we heard from him in years past was “Never had 100 RBIs”
    • The Hoskins HBP wasn’t intentional, in my opinion, but the fact that Hoskins got dusted three times during the series makes it harder to believe.

    Nats are off today, then welcome the Phillies for two, with Scherzer pitching the first game on normal rest. Might tune in to see how he and Harper battle each other…

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    1. Sadly, Shane Carle and Luke Jackson really ARE that bad. If they were aiming for Rhys, I don’t think they would have hit him. I hate bashing my own guys but dammit. Those two are dreadful.

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  2. The Tiggers are undefeated in extra innings. And yes, we’re only 1 week in but if the season ended today the Red Sox, Spiders and Astros would all finish in last place in their respective divisions with the Borg hot on the heels of the Sawks.

    Speaking of Borgs, shout out to my boys in the short pants for taking down the Borg of College Basketball! FOOK DOOK!!!!
    http://www.espn.com/videohub/video/clip?id=26411125&categoryid=4823314

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    2. If the season ended today, the Mariners, and Rays would be in with the Royals, Twins, Orioles, and Rangers all in some weird 4 way playoff for the final spots. Wanna take any bets that any of those teams are anywhere near the playoffs in a few months?

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  3. The Jays’ starters have obliterated the team record for shutout innings to start a season — 24 scoreless innings thus far — which beats the previous team mark of 9, set in 1992. Unfortunately, the bullpen has coughed up a couple of extra-inning losses, putting the team at 2-2 and solidly in the middle of the seemingly upside-down division standings.

    The bats, however… dear Dog! They are in 27th of 30 teams for team hitting, in a virtual tie with the Giants and only ahead of the Angels, Tiggers and Spiders.

    Backing up your overachieving starters with a paltry team slash line of .177/.246/.269 is NOT the way to win any games, especially if you only come out of a 4 game set with Detroit with a tie. This doesn’t bode well when they start playing MLB-calibre teams (with condolences to Historio)..

    Next up is the Orioles, which I would normally be enthusiastic about, had they not just taken 2 of 3 from the Borg.

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      1. O’s went 3-1 against the Borg in their first meeting of 2018, but lost the season series 7-12. The only team that the O’s had a winning record against in ’18 were the Barves, whom they beat 2 games to 1. The only time the O’s had a winning record last year was after game 1, when they were 1-0.

        If I were Scout, I’d be optimistic that the Orioles will have a better season than last year, because it would be hard to have a worse one.

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        1. Lol Os were pretty good against the Yankees though was my point. And yeah, them beating Atlanta was so weird. Talk about exposing flaws. 😦

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        3. I’ll tell you about better seasons. The Angels went
          80-82 last year and I recently read a projection that said they would “improve” to 82-80. It’s sour beer either way.

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  4. Ryne Harper, the 37th round draft pick of the Atlanta Braves in 2011, made his MLB debut pitching a scoreless ninth yesterday. He was with the Mariners for a few days a few years ago but was sent back down without having gotten into a game. He was told by the Twins last Wednesday, his 30th birthday, that he had made the team. He did it with a fastball that tops out at 88 and a bunch of 70 something mph loopy curveballs. Nice.

    https://zonecoverage.com/2019/featured/against-all-odds-minnesota-twins-reliever-ryne-harper-has-arrived/

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