Prof: We were spoiled yesterday. Today every Tom, Dick, and Harry are playing. Both Scout and I are working overtime at our respective jobs, so today’s post will be a bit more lean than usual – our apologies. Management will make it up to you. We’re bumping Drake today.
White Sox 5, Nationals 9 – Prof: Night started rough for Stephen Strasburg. Nearly 100 pitches in five innings, four runs in the first inning and a Yoan Moncada solo dinger in the second for a stinger. The funny thing is that the notoriously strapped Nats bullpen dug in and kept them in the game, and Washington came back from behind thanks to the criminally underrated Anthony Rendon (two run double, three run homer) and Howie Kendrick (solo homer, an RBI double). And of course, because baseball be weird, Strasburg got the win.
Braves 12, Pirates 5 – Prof: It started out so ugly for Max Fried and Atlanta. The Pirates pounced like a cat on a mouse. A Pirates beat writer posted, “The Braves are going to lose this game – handily – tp the Pirates, then wake up tomorrow morning and wonder, “How the hell did that happen?”
And then what, bro? Here’s what – Austin Riley, NL rookie wunderkind, hit a three run home run to put the Braves up one and they never looked back. Next up was Josh Donaldson’s three run homer and then a Freddie Freeman two run bomb. Gee. How the hell did that happen?????
Yankees 3, Blue Jays 4 – Prof: I regret to inform you that Angel Hernandez is back on his bullshit. Take a look at this and tell me that this was called correctly:
https://twitter.com/MaxWildstein/status/1136066037059919874
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. I, of course, have no rooting interest in either team (sorry, NBJays!), but I am in the interest of things being called correctly, and this definitely was not. Anywho, Toronto’s G Unit (Grichuk, Galvis, Guerrero Jr.) were huge factors in this game.
Twins 2, Spiders 5 – Prof: Francisco Delicious Lindor Truffle hit two home runs, as did Roberto Perez and Jake Bauers. Shane Bieber went seven innings and struck out as many.
Giants 9, Mets 3 F/10 – Prof: The Mets trotted out their best Bad News Bears impression last night. From Thor losing his mind over Pete Alonso not being able to hold onto a ball, to Michael Conforto running into a wall and contorting like a Sims character, this game was peak Mets. The other thing that was peak Mets was going into extra innings at home and then letting San Francisco – a team with an even worse W-L record – run up five on them with three well placed doubles.
Rays 6, Tigers 9 – Prof: MIGGY! Coming through with the slaps when Detroit needs it! A first inning RBI double, then a fifth inning grand slam! Sometimes Cabrera reminds us of just a couple of years ago when he was going neck and neck with Mike Trout for MVP honors.
Marlins 16, Brewers 0 – Prof: As Drake (and Brewers fans) would say, “Oh man! Oh man! Not again!” I’m talking about the Feesh offense, which was nothing but fire emoji. The fifth inning was particularly filthy – one whole trip through the lineup and Miami ended up scoring eleven runs – not a single home run in the bunch. Got so bad that Milwaukee just threw in the towel and put a position player on the bump as to not waste anymore arms.
Orioles 12, Rangers 11 – Prof: First inning heroics for the away team! Guys you’ve never heard of (except for eventual Oriole All Star by default Trey Mancini) went back to back with home runs. Keon Broxton, new to Birdland, said “What about me, fellas?” and mashed one in the fourth, then a three run double from Dwight Smith Jr. put the Orioles up on a team that has nearly won twice as many games as they did.
Red Sox 8, Royals 3 – Prof: For a while it looked like Kansas City had this in their pockets, but never count Boston out. In the sixth inning, the Red Sox scored three runs, then in the eighth Eduardo Nunez hit a three run homer.
Rockies 3, Cubs 6 – Prof: Been a while since I can say that Baby Babe Ruth absolutely roughed up a baseball, but I can safely say it now. Kyle Schwarber hit one 467 feet to break the 2-all tie in the fifth inning. The next inning, Javy Baez hit one to bring him and Anthony Rizzo home, extending the lead to five.
Reds 4, Cardinals 1 – Scouts: Jose Peraza trying to take over while site mascot Scooter Gennett is out on injury! Get him! Peraza drove in two runs, reached base three times, stole a base, made a key defensive play and touched home, pretty much dominating the action in this one.
Dodgers 9, Diamondbacks 0 – Scouts: Thinks are looking pretty good for the Dodgers at the moment. They are on a 7 game roll, having won 16 of their last 20, and had Hyun-Jin Ryu on the bump. Ryu threw another gem, allowing just 3 hits over 7 innings, improving to 9-1 and making a pretty effective case for Cy Young.
Athletics 4, Angels 2 – Scouts: Ramon Laureano currently has one of the hottest bats in baseball, and the A’s leaned into him heavily, as Ramon went 2-2 with a homer, a pair of RBI’s, and a walk.
Phillies 9, Padres 6 – Scouts: Bryce Harper certainly isn’t getting it done, so the Phills went out and picked up Jay Bruce to give them a shot in the arm. Bruce delivered with a 3-4 performance, driving in 6 runs and homering twice, including a Grand Slam in the 5th that put this one out of reach for good.
Astros 11, Mariners 5 – Scouts: MLB apparently declined to write up a recap on this game. I guess the Mariners are that boring to even them. Anyways, the Astros did some pretty serious work against the Mariner bullpen, putting up 7 runs combined in the 7th and 8th inning, mostly on singles, doubles, and sac flies. Houston is now 22 games over .500.
Fan Interference 
Last night’s game started out as one where a fan of the Nats might say, “Welp, I’ll just leave the TV on for background noise while I putter around the house”, so that’s what I did.
It started to get interesting, but we maintain a “same seats” policy here, meaning that we don’t change where we’re sitting/what we’re doing if the Nats are succeeding, and some I kept about my business of not really watching the game. I was in my car and headed to the ATM, just listening to the game when Rendon hit the homer to put them ahead, and I arrived home just as the six run fifth inning explosion ended.
By this point, I was out of puttering to do, so I sat down to watch the rest of the game, and was treated to another pretty good performance from the ‘pen; 4 scoreless innings, with just a little drama in the 9th when Wander Suero ran out of gas and couldn’t get through his second inning. Nats have now won 8 of 10, but still sit 6.5GB in the NL East.
The schedule is a bit weird for the Nats right now. They’re in the midst of a stretch where they had two in Atlanta, a day off, three in Cincinnati, a day off, two at home against the ChiSox, four in San Diego, two in Chicago against these same Sox, and then a day off before an eleven game homestand, so it’s almost like these two are part of a much longer road trip. Whatever, they’re 5-1 so far during this stretch, and they’re fun to watch for the first time this season.
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I’m a bit astounded by the “same seat” rule. Forgive me for not remembering the proper names but somehow I gained the impression that children 1.0 and 2.0 were a bit older than the typical same seat fan. Was I incorrect?
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“Same seats” is a thing that F.P. Santangelo likes to say.
My younger daughter is finishing up her sophomore year in high school (the older one finished her freshman year in college, but she’s not a big sports fan) and she and I both know that it’s not really a thing, but we jokingly adhere to it just the same.
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How dare Cleveland go out there and try against the Twins! Nobody told them they are supposed to lay down and let the Twins win the division. It wasn’t a bad outing by Devin Smeltzer. He hung a changeup to Lindor and a breaking ball to Bauer. He only gave up 5 hits but every fucking one made it to the seats. I’m sure he’ll learn from this experience and come back better and stronger.
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I’ve been perfecting my cassoulet. I even use real white Tarbais beans and fresh pigskin and split trotters. This has, of course, nothing to do with Cleveland – but then, neither does anything else.
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Hey OG. I love cassoulet. Are you also using a wine from the French countryside in it?
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But of course. I use a Sauvignon Blanc. I bought some bottles of nicely balanced Sancerre at a Total Wines sale some years ago and finally found a way to use one. It doesn’t take much – a couple of tablespoons per batch – but then I refrigerate the rest of the bottle and guzzle it along with the meal.
My big trick is to pressure cook the tarbais beans without pre-soaking, in 1/2 organic veggie broth, 1/2 filtered water along with a whole onion studded with cloves, a large carrot thickly sliced, a bouquet garni, two bay leaves, a few large whole garlic cloves, one whole trotter sliced lengthwise and then in half, and a sizable piece of pigskin tied with a cooking string. I don’t season the soup with salt and pepper until the pressure cooking is finished to keep from toughening the beans.
Then, I stir in the wine, and slice the pigskin into rings, then add the Toulouse sausage and duck confit, layering the beans into the real cassoulet clay crock as I go, and sprinkle lots of chopped pancetta over it. I don’t use cheese.
I bake it at 275 degrees for about four to four and a half hours, occasionally cracking the fatty crust with a wooden spoon to let more liquid well up and harden over the top.
As they say down here, ees good sheet, man.
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I know you’re not much a a gadget guy in the kitchen, but Instant Pot has changed the way we cook dramatically. I can cook something in an hour after working all day that may have taken 4 hours previously. It’s a new and improved pressure cooker that makes perfect rice, hard cooked eggs and much more.
You should be on a cooking show OG!
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I have been considering getting one for beans and rice (and other things but I cook a lot of beans lol).
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If not for all the bureaucracy, paperwork, inspections and other assorted statist bullshit, I’d love to run a restaurant – but I couldn’t deal with all that crap. I just enjoy cooking at home for me n’ mine. A food show? Yeah, well, that’s another story.
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Hey in addition to Rosario just hitting one of the center field wall and Cron driving him in with another one of the wall a few moments ago, there’s a report over at mlb.com that the Twins are going after Craig Kimbrek.
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With last night’s Milwaukee Massacre for wind in my sails, da wife and I set orf on a queenly British Airways 747 for London in a couple of days. We’ll be gone for about two weeks, our annual friends and family visit. The stench of Hair Hitler’s visit should largely have abated by the time we touch down at Heathrow on Sunday afternoon. I’ll be trading in my spacious inadvertent suite at Macondo Banana Massacre Field for some noisy grandstand seats at the Kennington Oval and my annual doses of Cricket, and nightly forays to the 606 Club for some intense jazz immersion. Might even hop over to Dublin for Bloomsday.
I’ll try to keep up with stuff from the catbird seat of my five hour temporal disjunction.
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As a son of a Kennedy (not those Kennedys) and a McMahon I’m ashamed to say I had to look up what the hell Bloomsday is. Thanks, as always, for the education.
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So, the news came that Miggy has degeneration in his knee joints — and his power leg in particular. He isn’t able to play a position regularly and will be a full time DH now. It’s hard to take, and, frankly, he historically has hit better when playing a base. It’s hard to keep loose and focused during a game when you just DH. That said, Miggy was good last night and the grand slam was a joy. The bullpen tried to flipping blow it, but it came out alright.
It just breaks my heart all over again for 2012 & 2013.
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As seven of nine might say “he will adapt”.
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I would take that – seeing the decline years after the orbit-high great years – over what Angels fans get with Pujols, which has all been downhill.
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I replied to several comments today because I’ve been absent or merely observant several times lately. It’s a credit to you all that I could not get to the reason for my visit without tossing in my two cents in response to your comments. Prof, Scout, you do a great job and so do the rest of this crew.
That said, my reason for visiting was a story posted in Sports Illustrated about the decline of the closer as advanced statistical analyses proves that matchups beat traditional positioning. My target of course is Mariano Rivera, who will be forever remembered as the first HoF member unanimously inducted. The overrated importance of the closer takes away from players like Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera has appeared on 14 MVP ballots. Stunning, that is, and while I personally believe one of his wins belonged to Trout, that is a statement of both greatness and consistency. The greatness of Rivera compared to Cabrera is like a great engine compared to a car. Pujols or Cabrera should have had the honor over Rivera of first unanimous inductee.
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But, character!
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