the pitch clock is counting down to the MLB 2023 REGULAR SEASON THREAD

love to see the pirates (seven straight wins) and the dbacks doing well in the early going

Yep extremely happy for the Pirates especially with that Cruz injury

I meant to say something earlier, but Loandepot Park back on opening day in Miami was lots of fun. Great stadium, and as luck would have it, I got to see one game with the roof on and one with the roof off. Cool graffiti/neon light exhibits outside the stadium, and the bobblehead museum was fun if small. You could get a beer, pretzel, and hot dog for $3 each. Opening day had a soccer game atmosphere, with drumming and the mariachi band playing non-stop through the entire game. I know it was the opening series, but there was no shortage of hardcore/enthusiastic Marlins fans around me.

The rally towel for opening day (Scherzer vs Alcántara) said "The Greatest Opening Day Matchup In History" on it. Haven't checked the facts on that.

Rays are 19-3 after today. A few points of comparison: '84 Tigers (19-3), '01 Mariners (18-4), '86 Mets (18-4), '18 Red Sox (17-5), '98 Yankees (16-6), '22 Dodgers (15-7).

Time to put a sawbuck down for them to win it all

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/does-sending-players-to-the-wbc-screw-teams-up/

warning: numbers
tldr: no

Rays trounce Houston. I would think that might open some eyes.

Amazing A's v. Angels game tonight:

Oakland up 7-1 in the 3rd, only to blow the lead and Angels tie in the 6th, then regain lead 8-7 in the 7th.

Top of the 9th the Angels' choose to not use their 2 elite closers and this guy Wanz starts off by allowing 2 BBs, then after an out allows a single to load the bases.

Brent Rooker comes up with the bases loaded (he's already hit 2x HRs earlier in the game) and coaxes a walk to tie the game.

In the 10th, the A's continue to beat up on the Angels bullpen and drop 3 in the top, and then the bottom of the 10th the Angels:
Drury 2 run HR (scoring ghost runner)
single
walk
HBP (bases loaded)
strike out
then with Mike Trout bases loaded with the game on the line... soft infield grounder to end the game.

Total rollercoaster. The A's sure do suck, but man the Angels are equally terrible. Great baseball at any rate.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have blown two ninth inning leads in the last three days against the Royals and A’s, the teams with the two worst records in baseball.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have seven blown saves already, the most in MLB.

Their series against the Red Sox was a total clown show

That has to be absolutely the worst way to break up a perfect game

Jim Joyce has entered the chat

I stand corrected. Jesus Christ.

Jarred Kelenic is off to such a hot start that he’s already had seven home runs and the month isn’t over yet. Love to see it.

An obsession of mine:

Goldschmidt - .287/.398/.437, 2 HR, 11 RBI
Freeman - .280/.370/.430, 3 HR, 8 RBI

There is no such thing as a small sample size with these two guys.

This A's v Angels series has been fascinating to watch, every game is like little league with massive scoring swings. When you think both teams could get no worse find away to just stumble ever lower, everyone just looks utterly defeated out there.

the Angels are gonna lose this I can feel it

I just looked at the box score - how did Ohtani cough up five runs to the A’s?!

Degrom got shelled by the A’s last year. You can’t predict baseball etc.

agree with ss that has been quite a strange series though

The A’s have run differential of -113!!

This ball did not go out pic.twitter.com/eZ4ZZ2748U

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 29, 2023

kinda looks like it did go out actually

The Rays' run differential (+106) is almost twice the #2 team (Rangers are +59) and exactly twice the #3 team (Pirates are +53). Today was their 12th win by five or more runs.

the A's pitchers' stats are (apart from presenting apostrophe challenges) kinda incredible

Loved this guy’s story

The @Pirates reaction to Drew Maggi's first career hit.🥹 pic.twitter.com/mKIvakZ37t

— Cut4 (@Cut4) April 30, 2023

Watching Bochy’s Rangers for the first time, they hit a grand slam off Nestor Cortes in the first inning. No Judge today ofc

Looking forward Braves-Mets tomorrow. They've played five innings in three days -- who's going to come out refreshed and playing well, and who's going to be over-amped and forget which end of a bat is which?

The Rangers commenters are not great. Referred to someone getting thrown out as being “gunned down”; showed a little infographic about Jonah Heim’s celebrity dinner date being Elon Musk (lol) and then started asking about peas being vegetables.

Rangers walloping Yankees 14-1, bottom of the 6th

Never thought of the decline in "gunned down" from play by play guys, was common back in the day but can't remember the last time I noticed someone saying it.

i heard it just the other day, forget which team. it's hard when so many players have a cannon for an arm and are capable of throwing a bullseye

I could be way off here, but I wouldn't be surprised if--because of the world we live in--it's an expression that is discouraged by station management.

James once wrote that outfield assists should be changed to "baserunner kills." That didn't really go anywhere.

when i worked at mlb 'gunned down' was absolutely not allowed. not sure about 'cannon arm' but it was presumably best left avoided

because this is the world we live in

the aging colo(u)r commentators of the world are gonna do what they're gonna do tho, i guess

xp yeah that’s exactly what I thought of

pretty much any violent metaphor isn’t allowed at mlb iirc - you can’t write “yankees explode for 8 runs” etc. wise imo

This is a cool and supposedly new stat being recorded for catchers: caught stealing above average.

jeez

i think i like it, except.. i'm assuming this number will rise as the season goes on? as an estimate of how many more CS this catcher has than the avg? if the upper limit is 3 then i guess i don't understand it. but if by the end of the season it's like, i dunno, 15 or 20 then it makes sense and is pretty intuitive

I guess there’s a baseline which will obviously increase as the season progresses and this just records catchers throwing out more than average?

Also, I thought Connor Wong had been doing well throwing people out but it was good to see it confirmed.

After my deep-dive analysis (30 second glance at opening paragraph and a few samples) one issue I have is that this stat treats the process of stealing a base as an algabraeic static moment (ie, coordinates of runner and velocity at moment the ball crosses the plate) when the reality is is more of a differential equation (namely Δv/Δt). Raw speed is a function of acceleration but there's many ways to get there in physiology terms.

(Sorry for maths)

Looking forward Braves-Mets tomorrow. They've played five innings in three days -- who's going to come out refreshed and playing well, and who's going to be over-amped and forget which end of a bat is which?

wtf is up with daniel vogelbach's hair

Daniel Vogelbach is debuting a new hairdo today pic.twitter.com/kWvv8BuNEV

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) May 1, 2023

It’s A LOT

I had to miss game 1! Sitting down to game 2 now.

What in previous years might have regarded as an incredibly dull matchup of the Pirates vs. Rays midweek series in May...

Yet in 2023, it's best of the AL vs. best of NL.

A combined 43-15 but even better, the combined payroll of both teams is $150M which clocks in -$11M to the average team salary.

Some say #moneyball, some say years (and years and years) of top of the order picks for upper tier prospects, but should be fun to watch.

i haven't watched any pirates games this season and so i was about to ask if this seems like something that they'll be able to maintain through a season or if this is just a random hot streak. but first i opened fangraphs and they had just published this: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/should-we-believe-in-the-pittsburgh-pirates/

the nl central does seem fairly winnable if the cardinals can't get their shit together

Just finished watching the pirates demolish my Dodgers. Call it a hot streak (which it probably is), but I don’t see them regressing to the Pirates we have known recently. Regression seems to be to a .500 team, which with their start, is taking them to the post-season.

I recently had a friend wanting to get into baseball for the first time ask me what team to get into in. I recommended the Orioles thinking he would get some nice pay-off in the next few years. How they, and the Pirates, and the Rangers have started has blown me away. Friend is very much enjoying this hot start.

Bryce’s first game back. He’s going to crush isn’t he?

Just remembered Rich Hill is on the Pirates. He deserves a ring, surely the Pirates win it all for Rich