2022 MLB General Season Chatter: Ghost Runners On The Half-Billion Dollar Infield

i find myself routinely deciding not to watch a ballgame mainly because i don’t often have 4 hours to kill but also it must be said a large proportion of that time is spent on the tedium of watching endless foul balls, swings and misses, ground balls into the shift, pitchers taking off their hats, wiping their foreheads, taking off their gloves, rubbing the ball, stepping off for the rosin bag, cleaning their cleats, doing self-acupuncture, it’s maddening. my kids certainly can’t hold their concentration on it for more than 10 minutes. unless they remember how fun it is to clown bobby dalbec, then they strap in

i take all those points, especially "thousands of individual decisions have been made by people who get paid to win that have led to baseball being sent into an efficiency death spiral"

i understand the wish, hoping that kershaw would stay in or that miggy could get an opportunity at hitting his 3000th with 2 runners in scoring position and a tie game.

miggy situation i could be bent, i guess. when i was watching, i thought that was his last chance in front of a home crowd for a while. realizing that his next game was a home game took away that factor.

i was also having a weird fake conversation between the pitcher and miggy, during the game. in this fake conversation the pitcher sees miggy before the game and he's like, "listen man, i respect you, but i don't want to go down in the history books as the guy who threw 3000 to you. i'm a rookie. i need to make a name for myself. so i respect you but i'm not gonna groove you anything". then miggy spits on the ground, and swipes the dust across the ground with his cleats, and he goes, "i earned every single one of those 2,999 hits. and you better believe i'm going to earn 3000 off of your ass today, rookie", and the rookie is startled but has even more respect for him. miggy get the 3000th hit, and as the crowd goes wild the rookie thinks about what he learned out there today.

this is dumb as fuck, what i'm saying, but maybe in a small way miggy would want his 3000th hit to not come in a situation where they're doing him a favor. or who knows, maybe baseball is all about favors or intuition or forecast, knowing where to look, guess hitters, dumb luck, and you take every fucking chance you can get.

anyway, i'll be watching the next tigers game

don't feel bad for those thursday fans in attendance because he hit 3 hits the game before that and no way anyone holding tickets for friday thought that was coming the night before

tbh i think analytics *has* destroyed baseball -- its findings are interesting af, but in practice things were better when every nanosecond of the game wasn't strictly micromanaged

cat's out of the bag now, tho -- you can't make teams/managers act stupidly. so it's a matter of changing the incentives, and unfortunately we're nowhere near there being any incentives for reds/pirates/a's/o's to spend money

much respect to certain little things tho -- like the royals breaking camp with bobby witt rather than gaming him, or the nats signing nelson cruz

(none of this has anything to do with the kershaw/miggy situations -- both are entirely defensible, especially the latter. it's not like boone walked miggy four times yesterday, or that miggy now won't reach 3000! it'll just be in front of a slightly different group of fans)

i kind of feel lonely in really enjoying baseball right now! i seriously watch every game, i love it

anyway, don't get me wrong - i was watching both the kershaw moment and the miggy moment, and i wanted both of them to happen, badly. i'm not trying to downplay that. i'm just not outraged or anything. i mean, there was a triple play the other day. come on. every time a big moment almost happens and it doesn't, there's another moment that probably should not have happened but did anyway

for example, that jazz chisholm HR was hilarious because seconds before he hit it, he was taking forever to get back in the batters box, and i think the umpire said something, and yadi said something (i need to watch the jomboy on this -- don't jump to the conclusion that yadi was being a dick - i think in this case he actually did chisholm a favor?) but anyways then chisholm crushes a HR and is very happy about it and does a little dance before touching home plate. and then the two cardinals announcers (especially jim edmonds, who is by far the most vacant man i have ever listened to for more than 10 hours) were like "whoa. whoa now.", and edmonds was like "in the 90s...let me tell you. in my opinion, in the 90s, when i was playing...whoa. that would not have happened. there would be consequences", shit like that.

in other words, all of that was amazing, fuck jim edmonds, and that could not have happened before

Jazz is a lot of fun to watch, and also has got great style.

For the most part I love the slower, more deliberate / cerebral nature of the game.

which assumes that Cabrera and Matthews have roughly the same chance of getting a hit

ridiculous argument given that the entire point of the walk was that they didn't have roughly the same chance of getting a hit. meadows (assuming he means meadows and not "matthews" here) has been hitting under .200 against LHP since 2019 with a 54 wRC+. he's been a straight up bad hitter since then and he's still that bad, his 2022 numbers are just inflated by BABIP. absolute no-brainer walking virtually anyone to get to a guy who is that bad against lefties. boone was right to treat miggy as a bigger threat because he is an objectively a bigger threat. sloppy rant from joe who knows better, i can only assume he just willfully ignored that part to make his argument.

and i don't think mattingly batting jazz 9th had anything to do with strategy in the face of waning fan interest, he was just doing that because he's a hopeless moron who shouldn't be in charge of a team

Agh, the entire point of the walk was because first base was open! There were runners on second and third. If a ground ball was hit in that situation, the only force out is at first base. That’s why you IBB and load the bases - it creates a force out at every base. This is particularly true when it’s a close game and you’re trying to prevent one run from scoring - you don’t care about the extra (third) run on first base, you’re trying to get one out.

There is also a trade off between facing miggy and the next batter, but the loading the bases / force out thing is much more important imo

you also instantly raise the batting average of the next guy to the plate and increase pressure on the pitcher. not a fan

Just read about Nestor Cortes' immaculate inning the other day...After 2 starts and 9.1 innings, he's given up 6 hits and one walk, and he's struck out 17.

All he needs now is a nickname. Cortes, Cortes...can't think of anything.

Nestor the … oh no…

...what a Killer

Cortes the Killer, for sure.

officially it's Nasty Nestor

a real close one in wrigley tonight

A three touchdown lead for the bears

and only one homer!

Rays lost their combined no-hitter in the tenth inning, which makes me think that with the ghost runner, you could potentially throw a perfect game for ten innings yet still lose the game.

Watching Marlins-Braves tonight, and wow is Jazz Chisholm fun to watch, and best name in the game too. 4 hits and 2 steals tonight and he doesn't look like he's even trying hard.

https://i.giphy.com/media/UwlX8g3HF8Uec/giphy.gif

https://www.mlb.com/news/guardians-yankees-ugly-fan-behavior-in-ninth-inning

respect to judge and stanton for doing what they did

love this breakdown. jomboy speaks for me on this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFffJpUEmNY

whoa

BYRON BUXTON 469 FOOT BLAST FOR THE WALK OFF!

(via @BallySportsNOR) pic.twitter.com/wvV1zAIsce

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) April 24, 2022

Reds finally won a game! After losing 11 in a row.

Wow that was a big home run. Also that stadium looks surprisingly empty.

Can't imagine KM is happy, but that was some incredible Mets 9th inning magic/luck tonight against the Cards. Down to their last strike, an Arenado error leads to five unearned runs, including a 2-RBI infield single where Dom Smith won the race to first base. The fans were all standing up waiting for that last strike/out for like 10-15 minutes, and it never came.

yeah, that was a wild one. have to say, i had written the game off as a loss as soon as i saw scherzer was starting, anyway. the arenado error was one thing, but worse was the backbreaking 2-run hit where Goldschmidt caught it but Gallegos got beat to first.

it was a good game, though!

Yeah, it was quite a pitchers duel that until the last two innings. What a great game. Mets broadcasters were very into it.

I happened to catch the end of that Mets game, great comeback and Arenado unlikely error.

Some great games today. Burnes was two hitting the Giants and I already had it in the loss column. He's taken out and a fan was hackling Joc Pederson and he steps out of the box, then hits a mammoth home run. The Brewers came back to tie the score but the Giants end up winning, unbelievable. The Giants are already looking really good.

bee ok is tsunami el gallo (carlos martinez's true name) gonna pitch soon? he was a huge favorite of mine, always rooting for him

"At Your Job Today... Don't Bunt When the U.S. Needs Home Runs." Created by the War Production Board during World War II, c. 1942-1943. From U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Unknown artist. pic.twitter.com/nquWhfon3d

— SABRIconography (@SABRIconography) April 26, 2022

cue stock footage of the bunting derby

panic! at target field

WHAT IN THE HELL JUST HAPPENED CHAOS IN MINNESOTA TWINS WIN pic.twitter.com/MbviwC6lAI

— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) April 27, 2022

Don't know where to put this, but thought it was neat: an interview with Lauren Hutton, talking about a big modelling contract she signed when she was 30.

Inspired by baseball player Catfish Hunter, Hutton demanded one of the biggest modeling contracts at the time to protect herself in a youth-oriented business that "ages out" many women at 30.

https://ca.style.yahoo.com/lauren-hutton-aging-cosmetic-procedures-212402508.html

Thankfully dozed off just before the chaos ensued.

I'm dealing with Apple TV tonight, ugh

bee ok is tsunami el gallo (carlos martinez's true name) gonna pitch soon? he was a huge favorite of mine, always rooting for him

― Karl Malone, Monday, April 25, 2022 8:51 PM (four days ago)

Missed this and I have yet to hear either name. Looking forward to it as the nickname is awesome.

el gallo is one shortlived name that i was a fan of as a poster on the viva el birdos vox messageboard ecosystem. but carlos prefers Tsunami. he tried to make it a thing, but unfortunately his performance started falling off around the same time, along with injuries, so it wasn't to be. but his instagram username is tsunamy0327

I had to sign up for an Apple TV account and enter my credit card number. I don't think I signed up for anything tho.

Might be a little suspect. I don’t remember entering my card number when I watched an Apple TV game.

Looking around while waiting on the game and got excited as I saw no hitter in the Mets game. Sad that it's not the starter.

Thanks for that Michael, I will look into to make sure I'm not charged.

(That)

Met pitchers have thrown over *130* pitches in 7 no-hit innings, so no way they could have done it with just one guy.

<3 took 159 pitches

Wow

sports trivia question of the future. no one will ever get it correct, not even the players involved in the game