MLB 2018 - Hope for a 7-game WS so they'll play on Halloween

Since Jose Martinez is my favorite baseball player in a very, very, very long time (maybe since Rick Ankiel was pitching), and since we already talked about Jose’s dad being the guy who hit the HR off Canseco’s head, I’ll share this:

Cleveland is making a habit of feasting on Detroit. Last year they were 13-6 against them, by far their best record against any division opponent, and they’ve started off this season with a four-game sweep of the Tigers at home.

Bartolo Colon is perfect through 7 innings thus far tonight against Houston. No matter how the last 6 outs go, that’s damned impressive for the 45-years-young Big Sexy.

Oh, and Verlander is throwing a one-hitter, too. And losing at the moment, since that one was a home run.

You know, I think the Royals might not be very good this year.

Can’t possibly be more depressing than the Giants.

EDIT: Oops, actually they can be, I guess.

Jordan Hicks – after hitting 101.7 twice tonight – now has the ten fastest pitches in the major leagues in 2018.

Also: Jordan Hicks does not throw a 4-seam fastball. Those are all 2-seamers with sink.

Also, he has one of these.

He’s still getting the ball up too much and catching too much plate at times, which makes his pitches less swing and miss-y than you’d expect. But he also pitched no higher than A-ball last year. So there’s that.

MLB came to Puerto Rico last night and, of course, returning native Francisco Lindor homered:

It’s kind of insane there isn’t a PR franchise.

I’m just happy that the Phillies are watchable for the first time in 6 years. And I’m in love with Rhys Hoskins.

An island-wide power outage is no problem. Play ball.

Agree. Hoping Coconut Oil Gabe can just stay out of the way.

I have no problem with Gabe, he made some rookie errors in those first few games but he strikes me as someone who learns from them. He’s managed pretty well since.

White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar collapsed in the dugout of last night’s game. Team revealed today that he suffered a ruptured aneurysm and cerebral hemorrhage followed. He’s in stable but critical condition now.

Holy crap that sucks.

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Pirates pitcher Steven Brault has some pretty neat Deus Ex-y sleeve tattoos.

In less than three years, KC’s bullpen has gone from the holy triumvirate of Herrera-Davis-Holland to this:

If you remove Herrera’s numbers, that ERA soars to 9.36

Regression to the mean. It’s going to be a Grimm year.

After what seems like a dozen games of someone flirting with a no-no, we finally got our first one. Oakland’s Sean Manaea zipped the Red Sox of all teams, 3-0. I’m happy for the guy. He was a Royals 1st rounder that got shipped to the A’s for Ben Zobrist at the trade deadline during the WS run in '15.