From Bryan Hoch:
The echoing sound was unmistakable, the crack of Giancarlo Stanton’s bat demanding immediate attention from all within a two-block radius of 161st Street and River Avenue. Whether wandering the concourse, scrolling on a smartphone or chowing on a hot dog, you needed to see this one.
Though Stanton has spent the better part of a decade crushing baseballs like few others, the power is still jaw-dropping when his swing clicks right. That was the case in Sunday’s third inning, as the slugger launched a long grand slam in the Yankees’ 8-3 victory over the Blue Jays.
Sometimes,” Stanton said, “you know it off the bat.”
Yes, this was one of those. The 417-foot drive off Toronto’s Bowden Francis rocketed off Stanton’s bat at 110.6 mph, per Statcast. It was Stanton’s 11th career grand slam — sixth as a Yankee — and his second home run in as many games.
Obviously, no one is suggesting that it isn’t awe-inspiring when Stanton connects on a home run, as that dude’s blasts are MAJESTIC. But, I mean, I think we can slow our roll on his “revival.” Two good games in a row does not a “revival” make.
But hey, if he has a good season, well, that’d be pretty fucking awesome.
It’d also be nice if he could hit 500 home runs, and hitting a bunch of home runs this year would go a long way towards that.
8-2 with three tough series in a row is a very good start for the Yankees. Hopefully they keep it up.
When Stanton guesses right, he’s still got all of the power in the world to make the ball go bye-bye. Just a hammer.
I am here for a Volpe/Witt showdown for MVP.
re: Schmidt innings/start, I’m comfortable w him throwing between 4-5 innings as long as they’re quality. seems to be the trend these days
marlins series, fuck yea. time to pad on the pythagoros
Luzardo’s ERA is better than Nestor’s. Therefore the Marlins will win today.
When’s the last time the Yankees won three series in a row?
As typical of these things, not as long ago as you would think considering how awful the Yankees are. Last Aug/Sept, they went 3-1 at Detroit, 3-0 at Houston, and 2-1 at home against Detroit.
Of course that was right after they went 7-17 to pretty much remove any chance of postseason baseball.
is there evidence indicating pitcher injuries have gone up the last two seasons?
No, but apparently there is evidence that injuries have increased in the last ten years, which surprised me.
hmm. that interval is more compelling than an arbitrary 2 year span.
Ten years feels roughly contemporaneous with the Yankees and I assume other teams telling pitchers to just air it out
id be curious how they quantified the injuries having gone up premise. incidence of il stints, il duration, majors + minors (what parameters bc of milb contraction)
From The Athletic:
really interesting, thanks brian
10 years makes sense to me. Pitching science has exploded over the last 10 years. Not just in terms of arm strength, but also in terms of spin rate and now pitch shapes and tunneling. All of which generally creates more stress in an already stressful movement.
Unfortunately, I don’t see an obvious way out of this. Players aren’t going to pitch worse, because they’ll lose out to players willing to take on the risk. Teams don’t want players to pitch worse, and they can cycle through young, increasingly optimized arms, until they blow out and then shift to the next time bomb in the line.
I saw something recently saying that the UCL isn’t fully grown until around 26. Most pitchers are throwing in the 90s and spinning curveballs/sliders in by HS.
Watching Glasnow’s press conference when he had TJS is really interesting in retrospect, talking about how much it hurt for him to have to grip the ball in a death grip because they banned sticky stuff, and how he blew his arm out on the first game he pitched without sticky stuff.
It’s like Cole said today, the league is just extremely dismissive about pitcher health. “We might need a more nuanc…” “Nope, done!”
I do think the ball thing was swept under the rug and is probably playing a part. But there’s so much changing, it’s hard to isolate anything specific. But, it does seem obvious to me that the dogged pursuit of “scientifically” perfect pitches, pitch mixes and secondary things like tunneling is pretty rough on arms.
But, I still don’t see how that gets “fixed.”
berti in for Cabrera, I’m cool w it even though Cabrera is swinging really well rn. berti needs reps, too. Am also rooting for Stanton the hardest so he can be traded with as little $ included as possible.
Not cool with it. Typical expression of Boone’s general strategy of sitting anyone as soon as they start to hit well. It’s the opposite of what any other manager would do. Cabrera’s not going to hit like this forever; when he flags, you’ll get Berti or whoever their reps. And if Cabrera somehow did hit like this forever, then how much of an afterthought is Berti compared to that, and who cares then about getting Berti reps? Priorities.
Boone is an idiot.
I’m coming around to the idea of a marquee rp acquisition thereby moving everyone else down a slot. Holmes as a fireman type would best leverage his sinker. it’d also permit randy Levine to handle negotiations w holmes’s agent spouting “how can Holmes deserve closer money without saves???”
Yeah, exactly. Holmes and Hamilton as late game pieces would be so valuable, and more than make up for the loss of Lo (who was only pitching every third game anyways before his injury).
Jason Foley on the tigers is interesting. profiles as a Blake guy, 2+ years of control, arbitrary eligibility starts after this season.
also, what about simply switching Hamilton’s and holmes’s roles and wait for mid season relievers to buffer the pen.
Cole 25 pitches off flat ground. All good.
Is there a flat ground WS?
It is all the tinkering being done to get maximum velocity. The dreadful physical abuse to the elbow in particular results in pitchers breaking down.
https://twitter.com/thepainguy/status/1777434871771656686
Verlander has had 2 TJs
Maybe you should read the explanation that thepainguy offers. And Verlander has pitched how many innings? Over 3500 IP including post season.
BTW. I find only one TJ for Verlander.
Prior to tonight’s game, the Yankees made the following roster moves:
• Signed LHP Josh Maciejewski (#61) to a Major League contract and selected him to the active roster.
• Optioned RHP Jake Cousins to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
• Designated LHP Clayton Andrews for assignment.
regarding NILs, id imagine marquee football and basketball players’ earnings will trounce whatever baseball earnings there might be based on viewership and estimated program earnings. I wonder how this will factor into good-but-not-great athletes’ decision making regarding which sport to pursue. also, god bless underage latino talent…
The $ barrier to get involved in high end baseball is already making that decision for most youth players. It’s expensive to play baseball at a high level, especially if you’re not from the Southern part of the country.
yea, youth baseball is certainly a country club sport at this point. maybe I’m being too specific, but I’d imagine NIL $ points non-star US talent to football, basketball, and soccer. soccer intrigues me the most bc mls earnings pale in comparison, but if you’re a marketable personality (ie dying one’s hair some sort of radical color) you could earn a non insignificant amount of $.
I’d like to see mlb pump up marketing of allstar teams with high composition of college players like the cape cod league, etc, to curry possible NIL sponsorships
Is college baseball on TV anywhere? It’s hard to believe there’s any NIL money for baseball players
exactly. mlb needs to pump up the marketing.
fuck. nick swisher, announcer.
framber valdez w elbow pain
I hate rooting for injuries but anything that hurts the cheaters in Houston makes me…not sad.
As I like to say, since injuries are inevitable, I prefer them to happen to other teams
luzardo is wild tonight.