Fan Interference

Prof: Just a silly question, but one I’m always interested in hearing the answers to. Obviously, we all have our favorite players, and usually they belong to the team whose laundry we also wear. There are people like me who have favorite players on all sorts of different teams, as well. But what of the teams you hate? Do you have a favorite player or – at the very least – someone you admire greatly on the team you hate? Mine is without a doubt Adam Wainwright.

I went pretty deep for music today. When I was a kid my mom had one particular song on a bootleg cassette of weird songs (mostly Jesus People music), and I never knew who sang it for years. I assumed it was the Oral Roberts Singers or something. Imagine my surprise when it was actually an ABBA tune from Eurovision.

 

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Phillies, Nationals – PPD. Again. This time it really was raining too much to fit any playing time in. Source – I’m at home, 35 minutes away from the ballpark. To add to the misery, Max Scherzer broke his nose in BP. I’m calling it now; Mad Max is going out there in a Rip Hamilton mask.

Rays 6, Yankees 3 – Scouts: 21 consecutive games with a homer for the Yankees, and they haven’t even had some of their best sluggers for most of the season.  With Judge due back any day now, the stacked roster is going to get really short on available space here really fast.

 

Tigers 5, Pirates 4 – Prof: Pittsburgh just didn’t have their A-game last night, and the Tigers squeaked by because of a double play that wasn’t. Josh Bell did solo homer in the first inning but it just wasn’t enough.

Angels 3, Blue Jays 1 – Prof: Los Angeles of Anaheim of Southern California of the USA fought mightily against the G Unit of Toronto, and won! Kole Calhoun and Brian Goodwin went yard, handing Marcus Stroman yet another loss. Stroman is 4-9 on the season.

 

Astros 3, Reds 4 – Prof: The Reds aren’t afraid of Justin Verlander. No sir. Jesse Winker and Derek Dietrich proved it by double dingers in the first inning. Not to be outdone, a fellow called Kyle Farmer came up as a pinch hitter in the seventh – his only time at home plate – and crushed one off Verlander, too. Cincinnati didn’t even need the services of Super Rookie Nick Senzel – could’ve just given the hard working youngster the night off.

Mets 10, Braves 2 – Prof: Jacob deGrom was working on a Maddux against the Braves. Oh, the humanity! Thankfully, Freddie Freeman and Josh Donaldson broke up the shutout with two dingers, but it all Mets anyway. deGrom ended up with ten punch-outs. Pete Alonso, Michael Conforto, and Jeff McNeil all hit home runs, too. Note to Braves pitchers – STOP PITCHING TO PETE ALONSO. He always connects. Just.. no.

White Sox 3, Cubs 1 – Prof: A rare misfire from Javy Baez put the Southside on the board, then Eloy Jimenez homered in the ninth to put the dagger in the Cubbies.

Spiders 10, Rangers 3 – Scouts: It looks like the Spiders are blessed with yet more young, talented starting pitching.  Zach Plesac allowed just a pair of hits over 7 innings, lowering his ERA to 2.56.  Meanwhile, the Rangers got both their starter, Adrain Sampson, and first relief pitcher, Drew Smyly roughed up, with nearly identical 3 inning, 5 run performances.

Red Sox 3, Twins 4 F/17 – Scouts: Eghads, this was a long one.  Max Kepler just wouldn’t stop.  After the Sox took the lead in the 13th, Kepler said “Not today” and tied things up with a homer.  Then 4 innings later, Kepler finally had enough and drove in the winning run, with the bases loaded, scoring Luis Arraez.  A total of 18 pitchers were used in the marathon game, and both teams are praying for a day off in the immediate future.

 

Marlins 6, Cardinals 0 – Prof: Jordan Yamamoto did it again! The Feesh rook is 2-0, and his latest victim was St. Louis. The Hawaiian went seven innings with seven strikeouts.

Rockies 8, Diamondbacks 1 – Scouts: The Rockies have had no issues scoring runs lately, the problem has been keeping their opponents off the board.  Despite scoring an insane 48 runs in a 4 game set with the Padres, the Rockies allowed 44 games and thus split the series.  So you can imagine it was a nice change of pace when Antonio Senzatela held Arizona to just a single run over 6.2 innings.

 

Orioles 2, Athletics 16 – Scouts: Woof, another day, another horrid Oriole’s pitching performance.  The A’s clubbed 6 homers off the O’s while pitcher Brett Anderson did his normal thing and went 7 strong innings on cruise control.  The A’s busted out for a 10 run 6th inning that must have just been absolutely brutal to watch.

Brewers 1, Padres 4 – Scouts: San Diego appears to be out of their funk and riding a bit of a hot streak, defeating the Brewers again, this time thanks in no small part to Logan Allen pitching 7 shutout innings in his MLB debut.

Giants 0, Dodgers 9 – Scouts: Clayton Kershaw looked like his old self, getting the Dodgers back on the winning track.  Kershaw lowered his ERA to 2.85 after allowing just 3 hits in 7 shutout innings.

 

Royals 9, Mariners 0 – Scouts: See Kansas City, you are doing it all wrong.  Look at what Baltimore is doing.  You keep winning games like this and you’re going to lose the number one draft pick next year aswell.  Silly Rabbit.