I submit that we are never more keenly aware of our own physical state than when we are embarrassed. Other emotions make themselves felt in the body, of course; the soft, spreading warmth of love, the acute pops and pains of joints as fear inspires flight. To be chased by a tiger is to be gripped by terror and also remember that bad knee of yours. Embarrassment works a little differently; it makes our person its accomplice. Embarrassment is an ampersand, tacking on an emphatic “and like so” to your flubbed expense report. I’m embarrassed and rain-soaked. I’m embarrassed and without pants! Perhaps because I’m without pants, but most definitely embarrassed and without them. Many of our embarrassments these days are private, hidden behind so many masks and closed front doors. But some of us are not so lucky. Some of us are made fools at work, even now, and with everyone watching.

For instance, sometimes you’re a member of the Atlanta Braves. You’re a member of the Atlanta Braves and you’re on the mound, down a run. That’s ok! It’s just a run, and there are two outs. You’ve only thrown nine pitches. And you’re you, Kyle Wright, and your seven strikeouts and six innings of scoreless NLDS baseball are on the mound with you.

Only now it’s two runs…

… and then 17 pitches. And also, you’ve walked Cody Bellinger.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros had their backs against the wall, down 0-3 to a surging Tampa Bay team. For one night, though, they had an ace in the hole: their ace, Zack Greinke, made his first and likely only appearance of the series after two straight days of being pushed back in the rotation.

When Houston acquired Greinke last year, he was a severely overqualified third starter, the delicious dessert after a Cole/Verlander entree. With Gerrit Cole in New York and Justin Verlander felled by a pesky elbow, however, Greinke stands alone among the pitching staff, surrounded by Lance McCullers Jr. and a passel of rookies.

Greinke brought his usual bag of tricks: fastballs in the eighties, changeups with fastball velocity and hummingbird movement, and a slow curve that all other slow curves merely imitate. The Rays struggled to adjust to the funk; Manuel Margot watched four straight fastballs go by to lead off the first, the last three of which were strikes. Randy Arozarena got ahead 3-1 before taking a 72 mph curve for a strike and swinging over a diving changeup, giving Greinke two strikeouts in his first three batters faced.

In the bottom of the inning, Tampa Bay brought reverse Greinke: Tyler Glasnow throws 100 mph, snaps off lollipop curves whose velocity rivals Greinke’s fastball, and tries to do with power what Greinke does with guile. His height adds to the effect; a 100 mph fastball coming from a 6-foot-8 pitcher with an upright delivery gives the distinct impression of a payload dropped from orbit. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that got out of hand quickly, eh?

It took all of two pitches for the Dodgers to stake an early lead in Wednesday’s NLCS Game 3. Mookie Betts legged out an infield single (replay correctly overturned a bang-bang play at first) and then Corey Seager continued his torrid hitting with a double in the left center field gap to plate the leadoff man. After two quick outs, it looked like Braves starter Kyle Wright would be able to wriggle out of the inning with minimal damage.

Then the barrage began in earnest: A double and a walk preceded back-to-back jacks from Joc Pederson and Edwin Ríos. Another walk chased Wright, but all Grant Dayton could do was throw more fuel on the fire: Walk, double, HBP, grand slam. Just like that, the Dodgers — who were an overturned call at first from getting nothing in the frame — had an 11-0 lead, and a new record for runs in a single postseason inning.

From there, it was academic. Los Angeles added in the second and third and Atlanta managed a few runs of their own. The only real remaining highlight was Cristian Pache’s first major league home run, a no-doubter that stayed just fair on its way past the foul pole.

The obvious parallel here is Game 5 of the 2019 NLDS, when St. Louis’s 10-run first inning explosion all but ended Atlanta’s season eight and a half innings before it became official. But tonight’s lopsided contest actually reminds me of a game from all the way back in 2001. Read the rest of this entry »

Though undersized by baseball standards — just 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds — Joe Morgan stands tall in baseball history. As the second baseman for the Cincinnati Reds during his prime (1972-79), he helped elevate an already-strong team that starred the more famous Pete Rose and Johnny Bench into a powerhouse for the ages, earning back-to-back NL MVP honors on the Big Red Machine’s 1975 and ’76 championship teams. Over the course of a 22-year major league career (1963-84) with five franchises, Morgan made 10 All-Star teams, won five Gold Gloves, and built a case as the best second baseman in the game’s history, less by attaining traditional milestones and awards than by standing out in ways that became more apparent with advanced statistics. In 1990, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility; he would leave a stamp on that institution later in life as well.

Morgan died at home on Sunday in Danville, California at the age of 77. According to a family spokesman, the cause was nonspecified polyneuropathy, a condition that affects the peripheral nerves of the body. He had endured other health woes in recent years, having received a bone marrow transplant in 2016. He’s the sixth Hall of Famer to die this year, after Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, and Whitey Ford, the last two of whom passed away earlier this month. He’s also the third member of the late 1960s and early ’70s Astros to die in 2020, after Jimmy Wynn and Bob Watson. It’s enough to make any baseball fan cry, “Uncle.”

Justifiably hailed as “the game’s most complete player” in a 1976 Sports Illustrated cover story, Morgan had more tools in his belt than the standard five, including an off-the-charts baseball IQ that earned him the nickname of “The Little General,” and, by his own admission, a brand of arrogance. As he told Mark Mulvoy in that SI feature, “To be a star, to stay a star, I think you’ve got to have a certain air of arrogance about you, a cockiness, a swagger on the field that says, ‘I can do this, and you can’t stop me.'”

Morgan hit .271/.392/.427 (132 OPS+) for his career, racking up 2,517 hits, 268 home runs, and, thanks to his keen batting eye and compact strike zone, 1,815 walks (and just 1,015 strikeouts). His walk total ranks fifth all-time, while the 266 homers he hit as a second baseman rank fourth. While he only posted batting averages above .300 in his two MVP seasons, and never finished higher than fourth in that category, he drew at least 100 walks in a season eight times, and topped a .400 on-base percentage eight times as well, leading the league in four of those years, and finishing among the top 10 11 times. He also stole 689 bases, a total that ranks 11th; of his 11 times cracking the league’s top 10 in that category, seven times he ranked second, five of those behind Brock. His 81.0% success rate ranks 17th among players with at least 300 attempts since 1951 (caught stealing data was not consistently available earlier), but fifth among those with 600 ore more attempts. Read the rest of this entry »

In Game 1 of the ALCS, the Astros out-hit the Rays, struck out eight fewer times, watched Framber Valdez whiff eight batters in six innings, put 13 runners on, and threatened in nearly every inning. They lost. In Game 2 of the ALCS, the Astros out-hit the Rays, struck out five fewer times, watched Lance McCullers Jr. whiff 11 batters in seven innings, put 16 balls into play at 95 mph or harder and 13 runners on base, and threatened in nearly every inning. They lost.

Game 3 of the ALCS, though, would be different. Jose Urquidy hit a season-high 98 mph with his fastball, striking out four through five innings. A first-inning homer from Jose Altuve gave the Astros an early lead. They out-hit the Rays yet again and put 11 runners on and threatened in nearly every inning.

They lost.

The battle for the American League is, barring a miracle comeback, over. In beating Houston 5–2, Tampa Bay took a 3–0 series lead in the best-of-seven matchup and can both clinch its first pennant in 12 years and deny the Astros their third of the last four seasons with a victory on Wednesday. The best team in the Junior Circuit during the truncated 2020 campaign has gone 8–2 this postseason and looked virtually unbeatable in every facet of the game. The pitching has been crisp, the defense has been perfect, the offense has kept the line moving. Throughout October, the Rays have been a well-oiled machine. Read the rest of this entry »

In the top of the ninth of this second game of the NLCS, Mark Melancon caught his second home run in two days. It was a rare feat for a closer, made all the rarer by the fact that both homers were hit by the same player, Ozzie Albies, and that both had come in the top of the ninth. But the unlikely catches were not entirely symmetrical. The home run in Game 1, a two-run shot, had put the Braves ahead 5-1, capping off a late rally that broke a tense 1-1 tie; the ball carried, as if placed by an unseen hand, directly into Melancon’s glove. He seemed more shocked than anything — with the game still fairly close, he was more concerned with preparing to close out the bottom of the ninth.

The home run in Game 2, though, was the cherry on top of a long day of scoring. It took a comfortable lead and made it that much more comfortable. When Albies made contact on a sinker from Adam Kolarek, Melancon saw his chance; he jogged over, made the catch, and broke into a celebratory trot around the bullpen.

.@ozzie to @Mark_Melancon_ has become the greatest tag team in Major League Baseball.#MixItUp pic.twitter.com/kjIe1crmjO

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) October 14, 2020

Read the rest of this entry »

Ronald Acuña Jr. unlocked a new offensive gear this year. He already had speed and power — he was only three stolen bases short of a 40/40 season in 2019, his first full season in the majors. That wasn’t an option this year, what with a 60-game slate, but what he did do is even more impressive: he started walking.

Acuña’s 18.8% walk rate was the fourth-highest in the major leagues. He drew walks at a higher rate than Carlos Santana, Joey Votto, and Mike Trout. This wasn’t some intentional walk mirage, either; it’s not often a great idea to walk the man batting in front of Freddie Freeman, and Acuña drew only two freebies all year. Instead, he came by it the regular way: he’s such a fearsome hitter that pitchers avoided the strike zone, and he started laying off more pitches that missed their mark.

That’s easier said than done — otherwise every hitter would be doing it. Acuña managed it, though. He didn’t do it magically; rather, he cut back on his swing rate everywhere. He swung less at pitches over the heart of the plate, and thinking “swing less often” let him cut back in every other region:

This newfound equilibrium presented a conundrum for opposing pitchers. Stay out of the zone, and you’re liable to put a stolen base threat on with Freeman batting next. Get too familiar, and you might get acquainted with Acuña’s 99th percentile hard hit rate. It’s a puzzle with no good answers.

Last year, Acuña had another wrinkle to his plate discipline game: he swung more than anyone else on 3-0. It was just another thing to think about: think of 3-0 as an automatic strike with the batter taking, and you were throwing batting practice to one of the best hitters in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced on Tuesday that, as a result of back spasms, left-handed veteran Clayton Kershaw will not make his scheduled start against the Atlanta Braves in Game 2 of the NLCS; rookie Tony Gonsolin will take his place on the mound opposite Braves rookie Ian Anderson.

The 32-year-old three-time Cy Young Award winner has battled back problems since 2016, hitting the Injured List with a back-related ailment on four separate occasions, the most recent of which was just earlier this season, when Kershaw was similarly scratched from his Opening Day start just hours before first pitch. He didn’t make his first appearance of the season until August 2, but did not miss a start after that.

Clearly, the hope for the Dodgers is that Kershaw will make a faster recovery this time, ideally in time to make a start later this series. Last year, the Washington Nationals were dealt a similar blow when Max Scherzer needed to be scratched after waking up before his scheduled World Series Game 5 start with severe neck spasms; Scherzer was able to start Game 7 three days later.

Kershaw looked sharp in his first two postseason starts, allowing just three runs across 14 innings against the Brewers and Padres, striking out 19 and walking just one. Those came after a regular season in which the left-hander looked the best he had in years, turning in a 2.16 ERA and 3.31 FIP in 58.1 innings with his best strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.75) since 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday afternoon, the Tampa Bay Rays moved to within two wins of advancing to their second World Series in franchise history with a 4-2 victory over the Houston Astros. The scoring was relatively sparse, with five of the game’s six runs coming on three home runs.

Sadly, the game itself was at times overshadowed by the passing of legendary second baseman (and former Colt .45 and Astro) Joe Morgan at 77. Morgan was perhaps more famous for his part on the Big Red Machine, but he was also a key contributor during Houston’s early years. Astros manager Dusty Baker, the only manager in baseball to play against Morgan at his peak (Bud Black and Terry Francona, among others, faced him late in his career) and a friend, said a few words about the Hall of Famer before the game.

“He meant a lot to us, a lot to me, a lot to baseball, a lot to African Americans around the country. A lot to players that were considered undersized. He was one of the first examples of speed and power for a guy they said was too small to play.”

But baseball grinds on despite grief, and after Game 2 was done, Charlie Morton had earned his sixth career postseason win, improving his October line to 6-2 with a 3.16 ERA in 11 starts. While it will go down in the history books as a five-inning shutout, and the ninth consecutive playoff start in which he allowed two runs or fewer, Morton’s start wasn’t anywhere near as neat as you might expect if you only read the box score. The Astros frequently made solid contact but, thanks to the Rays’ defense and a bit of bad luck, failed to cash in on any of their opportunities. Houston left seven runners waiting futilely on the bags through five, only going down 1-2-3 once (in the fifth). Read the rest of this entry »

For much of Monday night’s Braves-Dodgers clash, the Dodgers seemed to be on the defensive. When the ninth inning began, the score was knotted at one (spoilers!). It was tied not because both teams were equal in the scorebook, but rather because the Braves had failed repeatedly to cash in on their chances.

Through eight innings, Atlanta left 10 runners on base to Los Angeles’ five. In the fourth, they put two aboard with consecutive one-out walks against Walker Buehler, who struggled with his control all night. Two on, one out: these are the situations that can make or break a start, and Buehler skated out of trouble by retiring Nick Markakis and Austin Riley.

In the sixth, the Braves knocked again. Travis d’Arnaud and Ozzie Albies led off the inning with singles, chasing Buehler from the game. Brusdar Graterol came in with no one out and precious little margin for error. When he escaped without damage — in six overpowering pitches, no less — he and Buehler exulted in it:

Read the rest of this entry »