The Padres’ nine-game winning streak came to an end on Monday night at the hands of the Brewers, who beat them 5-3 in Milwaukee, but the loss did have at least one bright spot, in that Tommy Pham homered for just the second time this season. The 33-year-old outfielder has struggled mightily since being acquired from the Rays in December 2019, particularly after being the victim of a stabbing last October, but lately he’s showed signs of heating up, a welcome development for the surging NL West leaders, who have since returned to their winning ways with back-to-back wins and at 32-18 lead the NL West by a game and a half.

Pham crushed a two-run homer in the ninth inning of Monday’s game off reliever Angel Perdomo, at a time when the Padres trailed 5-0:

The blast had an estimated distance of 430 feet, making it his longest since his 440-foot homer at Coors Field last July 31. In his previous 75 games with the Padres, he’d hit just one other drive of more than 390 feet, a 410-foot homer against the Dodgers in Los Angeles last August 13, three days before fracturing a hamate bone in his right hand while fouling off a pitch.

That hamate fracture, which required surgery and sidelined Pham for just over a month, was a far less severe injury than the stabbing. On October 11, three days after the Padres were ousted from the playoffs by the Dodgers, Pham was involved in an altercation in a parking lot outside a San Diego strip club, during which he was slashed across his lower back. He needed 200 stitches to close the deep gash, and was fortunate to escape even worse damage. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite losing Corey Seager to a broken right hand, getting less-than-vintage work from Mookie Betts, and continuing to await the return of Cody Bellinger from a hairline fracture of his left fibula, the Dodgers have won seven straight games and 11 of 12 to move within half a game of first place in the NL West. Leading the way on the offensive side — indeed, leading the entire majors from an offensive standpoint over the past two weeks — has been Max Muncy. After a down 2020 season and a dismal slump that more or less coincided with the team’s 5-15 tailspin, the 30-year-old infielder has seen some adjustments to his approach at the plate pay off.

This past weekend, Muncy helped the Dodgers to a three-game sweep of the division-leading Giants by homering twice and getting on base a total of six times in Saturday and Sunday’s wins. After taking Friday night off save for a late-inning defensive cameo to replace Albert Pujols, he opened the scoring on Saturday by putting one into McCovey Cove at the expense of Scott Kazmir, who was making his first major league appearance since September 23, 2016.

As best we can tell, Muncy did not suggest that Kazmir go get the ball out of the ocean, as he did for Madison Bumgarner on his previous splash hit in 2019. Sunday’s homer was window dressing in a rout; he hit one off reliever Sam Selman, who replaced Anthony DeSclafani after the Giants’ starter was rocked for 10 runs in 2.2 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve still got a week to go in May, a month that has included four no-hitters, including two last week on back-to-back days — the Tigers’ Spencer Turnbull against the Mariners on Tuesday, and then the Yankees’ Corey Kluber against the Rangers on Wednesday, plus two that were just two days apart earlier this month. That brings this year’s total to six no-hitters of the nine-inning variety, plus a seven-inning one by Madison Bumgarner that The Man doesn’t want you to count. Particularly because the major league batting average of .237 is in a virtual tie for the all-time low mark set in 1968, these remarkable achievements are threatening to lose some luster.

That’s a shame, because the experience of actually watching a no-hitter from start to finish, rather than just flipping over to rubberneck for the final three or six outs, is still one of the most gripping in all of sports. The dawning of the possibility at some point in the middle innings — individually, we all have our thresholds for when our antennae go up — and then the batter-by-batter, pitch-by-pitch suspense, knowing that this gem could disintegrate either though one bad pitch or one bad break, makes a no-hitter a thrill to watch. Every single one of them is meaningful to its participants; for the pitcher and probably the catcher as well, it’s the pinnacle of performance. It takes a heart of coal not to be moved by the likes of Turnbull or Carlos Rodón having that one day of untouchability after years of ups and downs.

That said, some no-hitters are more impressive than others, with strikeouts galore and maybe just a walk or two separating them from perfection. Particularly given the current conditions, under which three teams have been no-hit twice — Cleveland, Texas, and Seattle — it’s obvious that there are varying degrees of difficulty when it comes to opponents as well. No-hitting the Mariners, who entered Sunday with a team batting average of .198, isn’t the same as doing it to the Rangers (.236), and neither of those are the equal of, say, Sean Manaea no-hitting the 2018 Red Sox, who hit .271. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite all the injuries the Mets are dealing with — including losing two key regulars to hamstring injuries in the same inning on Sunday and then two more players the next day — they still lead the NL East with a 20-17 record while the Braves lag behind and languish below .500 at 20-23. The latter’s hopes for a fourth straight division title have taken a significant hit over the past several days with their own losses of two starting pitchers. Mike Soroka, who had yet to appear for the team this year, underwent exploratory surgery on his inflamed right Achilles tendon on Monday, while Huascar Ynoa was diagnosed with a fracture in his right hand sustained when he punched a dugout bench in frustration on Sunday, thus interrupting a breakout season. Both will be out until at least the All-Star break, and quite possibly longer than that.

For Soroka, this is just the latest disappointment in a frustrating series of events that began last August 3. Three starts into the follow-up of a stellar rookie season in which he made the NL All-Star team and placed second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting, he tore his right Achilles, sidelining him for the remainder of the 2020 campaign. The Braves hoped that he would be available to join their rotation by mid-April, but after making just one Grapefruit League appearance and several in simulated games at the team’s alternate site, he was shut down due to shoulder discomfort and wasn’t cleared to resume throwing until late April.

After experiencing renewed discomfort in his surgically repaired Achilles during his recent workouts, Soroka had an MRI, and when that proved inconclusive, he underwent an exploratory procedure and clean-up by Dr. Robert Anderson, the surgeon who performed his initial repair. Via The Athletic’s David O’Brien, Anderson will reevaluate the pitcher in two-to-four weeks, “to determine if anything else needs to be done and when he might be able to resume his rehab schedule.” Read the rest of this entry »

The injury bug is biting all too often these days, and this week, it has taken a chunk out of Mike Trout’s season. Off to one of the best starts of his career, the 29-year-old center fielder strained his right calf in Monday night’s game, an injury that will sideline him for six to eight weeks — potentially the longest outage of his career — greatly reducing both the chances that the Angels will make the playoffs and that Trout will claim his fourth MVP award.

As if we needed more proof that the universe is a random and uncaring place, Trout suffered the injury doing something that turned out to be entirely routine and inconsequential: running the bases on a two-out popup by Jared Walsh. The play took place at the end of the first inning of the Angels’ game against Cleveland, after Trout had walked and taken second base on a wild pitch. You can see from the overhead video that by the time he reached third base, he was visibly limping:

Trout left the game, underwent an MRI on Tuesday, and was diagnosed with a Grade 2 calf strain. “I thought I got hit by a line drive,” he told reporters in describing his injury. “And then I got to the bag and then I said, ‘Man, something’s not right.’ And then I felt a pop and then I went down to the tunnel, made sure it wasn’t my Achilles, so I mean, I guess if there’s any positive coming out of it, it’s that it wasn’t my Achilles because that’s what scared me when it first happened. It was just a freak thing.” Read the rest of this entry »

At a time when they’re already without ace Jacob deGrom and two of their top hitters, and still trying to dig out of a team-wide early-season slump that led to the dismissal of their hitting coaches, the Mets lost two more regulars to the Injured List on Sunday. Facing the Rays in St. Petersburg, both Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil left after suffering hamstring injuries in the first inning, the kind of calamity that seems as though it could befall only the Mets. The team received no respite, because in Monday’s game, starting pitcher Taijuan Walker departed after three innings due to tightness in his left side, and then Kevin Pillar was hit in the face by a fastball, suffering a bloodied and broken nose and perhaps more. An Injured List that’s already at an even dozen threatens to continue to grow.

McNeil, who had previously departed last Tuesday’s game against the Orioles due to what was termed “body cramps” after trying to stretch a single into a double, legged out an infield single to lead off Sunday’s game, and was erased on an inning-ending double play. As he was the designated hitter, his spot didn’t come up again until the third inning, at which time he was pinch-hit for by Patrick Mazeika. He departed with what the team initially described as “left hamstring tightness.”

That double play ball came off the bat of Conforto, who was visibly limping and grabbing his right hamstring by the time he crossed first base. You can see that in the video, as well as McNeil getting no further than halfway to second by the time Brandon Lowe’s throw reached Ji-Man Choi:

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It’s always a strange thing to see an all-time great donning an unfamiliar uniform at the tail end of his career. Even if the sights of Willie Mays in Mets pinstripes or Hank Aaron wearing a Brewers pullover — to say nothing of Babe Ruth as a Brave — predate your time as a viewer, they probably produce a double-take. Examples such as Ken Griffey Jr. in White Sox garb, Mike Piazza in A’s green and gold (or Padres blue and sand), or Randy Johnson in Giants black and orange might be more recent, but those sights are no less alien. Which brings us to Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The 41-year-old Pujols, a future Hall of Famer who is one of four players to attain the dual milestones of 3,000 hits and 600 home runs, was designated for assignment by the Angels last week. Not surprisingly, given that he was hitting just .198/.250/.372 while still due the bulk of this year’s $30 million salary, he cleared waivers, thus sticking the Angels for the lion’s share of that amount. After clearing waivers, he reportedly drew interest from three or four teams, but while it was easy to spitball a few possible destinations — the Cardinals given his status as franchise icon, the Reds because they’d just lost Joey Votto to a broken thumb, the White Sox because they’re managed by Tony La Russa, the Marlins because they could use an attendance bump — nobody saw the Dodgers as contenders for his services. Yet on Saturday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times‘ Jorge Castillo reported that the defending champions had signed Pujols to a major league deal for the remainder of the season. They’ll pay him the minimum salary while the Angels pick up the rest of the tab.

In a vacuum, the move was something of a head scratcher, but the Dodgers are amid an incessant wave of injuries that on the offensive side had already claimed center fielder Cody Bellinger, superutilityman Zach McKinstry, and infielder Edwin Ríos, and kept growing over the weekend. On Friday, left fielder AJ Pollock reaggravated a left hamstring injury that had limited him to three plate appearances in a week, and on Saturday, just hours after the Pujols news broke, so too did the fifth metacarpal in Corey Seager’s right hand, via a pitch from the Marlins’ Ross Detwiler. Given all the moving parts among the Dodgers’ multiposition players, the injury opens up a lane for Pujols to get some playing time, but whether he can improve upon his meager production to date is another story. Read the rest of this entry »

2:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Friday chat. It’s a gorgeous day here in Brooklyn, and I’ve already treated myself to tacos al fresco so my mood is more chipper than Larry Jones. Today I’ve got a piece on the very different COVID-19 outbreaks of the Padres and Yankees, https://blogs.fangraphs.com/even-amid-vaccinations-outbreaks-on-padres…

2:03

Jay Jaffe: Earlier this week, I wrote about Max Scherzer’s pursuit of 3,000 strikeouts, and who might be next https://blogs.fangraphs.com/max-scherzer-and-the-coming-wave-of-3000-s… The scourge of the runner-on-second extra innings rule https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-runner-on-second-in-extras-rule-has-wo… And yet another Byron Buxton injury https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-twins-lose-byron-buxton-again-but-thei…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Anywho, let’s get the show on the road…

2:05

Jay Jaffe: The difference, as I noted in today’s piece, is that the vast majority of the Padres (and also the Yankees) are vaccinated and thus there’s far less fear of a team-wide outbreak, whereas that wasn’t the case even for the Nationals in April. It’s actually a bit messed up when you think about the possibility of *dis*incentivizing vaccinations, but that’s not to say that the league wouldn’t have nudged the Padres to play if they were really lagging behind

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The Padres already had to endure life without Fernando Tatis Jr. for one stretch this season due to his left shoulder subluxation, and now they’re without him again. On Tuesday, the 22-year-old shortstop tested positive for COVID-19 and landed on the Injured List. He quickly gained company when right fielder Wil Myers also tested positive, while three other Padres — first baseman Eric Hosmer, outfielder Jorge Mateo, and superutilityman Jurickson Profar — were sidelined via MLB’s contact tracing protocols. The absences have left San Diego significantly shorthanded and highlighted the potential competitive disadvantage that a team can face while dealing with an outbreak.

The Padres aren’t the only team in the midst of a COVID-19 cluster, either. On Tuesday, about an hour before Tatis’ positive test became public, news of an outbreak among the Yankees’ coaching staff broke as well. While Padres manager Jayce Tingler declined to say whether any of his sidelined players have been vaccinated, their status will become apparent depending upon how quickly they’re allowed to return (more on which below). Meanwhile, the Yankees’ group — now up to eight, including third base coach Phil Nevin, first base coach Reggie Willits, pitching coach Matt Blake, and shortstop Gleyber Torres, plus four unnamed members of the team’s traveling staff — are known to have been fully vaccinated. In fact, the Yankees were among the majors’ first teams to reach the 85% vaccination threshold that allowed them to relax certain health and safety protocols. But less than a week after MLB announced that more than 83% of all Tier 1 individuals (players, managers, coaches, athletic trainers and support personnel) had been partially or fully vaccinated, and that it had gone a week without a single positive test from its major league camps (and just one positive from a staffer at an alternate site), the Padres and Yankees offered rude reminders of COVID-19’s lingering presence.

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Last Saturday in the Bronx, Max Scherzer showed off the dominant form that has earned him three Cy Young awards and seven All-Star selections. Admittedly, he wasn’t exactly facing Murderer’s Row, but against a Yankees team that had recently righted itself with a 7-1 tear, he struck out 10 out of the first 14 batters he faced, finishing with 14 strikeout in 7.1 innings, that while allowing just two hits, one walk, and one run.

The Nationals wound up losing that game in 11 innings, but nonetheless, the outing was the latest example of the 36-year-old righty in vintage form. The 14 strikeouts was the most by a visitor in the new Yankee Stadium, which opened in 2009, and the most by any opponent in any iteration of Yankee Stadium since Pedro Martinez’s ultra-dominant one-hit performance against the defending champions in 1999:

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