Major League Baseball: 2016 Season

[Blitz24]

In weird MLB news, Orioles pitcher Brian Duensing has gone on the 15 day DL after injuring himself sitting on a chair. This proves that chairs are out to kill us.

 

[IforceV8]

Loose cartilage chips in his pitching elbow, previous Tommy John surgery. Arthroscopic surgery planned on Duensing, out 4-8 weeks, and will likely be given a beanbag to sit on in the future.

 

[JohnBM01]

So the Houston Astros and Kansas City Royals had themselves a little game tonight in Kansas City, MO to start this weekend series. When I was watching FOX Sports 1, I noted we were up 9-0 IN THE FIRST INNING! I wear glasses, so even I couldn't imagine what I was seeing. It was then 12-0 after the Top of the 2nd. I heard on MLB Tonight that the Astros' George Springer became the first player in the modern era to hit a Triple and a Grand Slam in the first inning. This game ended up being a 13-4 beat down in favor of the Houston Astros. The Astros' winning pitcher was Dallas Keuchel. Kansas City's losing pitcher was Edinson Vólquez.


Congratulations to Friday's other winners, including San Diego smashing the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati coincidentally by the same 13-4 score the Astros beat Kansas City by tonight.

 

[Dolph Drago]

Congratulations to Friday's other winners, including San Diego smashing the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati coincidentally by the same 13-4 score the Astros beat Kansas City by tonight.

When listening to the radio on the way home from work, I got to hear the Reds come back from a 3-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead in the 3rd inning. I got home, but didn't turn on the TV to see the score until the 8th. Imagine my surprise when I saw the 13-4 score. San Diego had gone on a 10-0 run.

Cody Reed had a rough go in only his 2nd career start. 5 innings, 5 runs. But the bullpen was predictably worse. 4 innings, 8 runs. And that was with a very unexpected, fully scoreless 9th inning by JC Ramirez.

 

[JohnBM01]

I read an MLB alert stating that the Mets are close to signing SS José Reyes once he officially becomes a free agent later today. He is done serving suspension stemming from his domestic violence deal. Many say he shouldn't be given a second chance.

Enjoy this weekend's series! Good luck to all of your teams.

 

[JohnBM01]

In a game I didn't realize was on FOX Sports, the Houston Astros and Kansas City Royals continued their series. We have now won seven straight thanks to a 13-5 victory in Kansas City. The way this team is finding ways to win is making this team look like the team that could legitimately play in and win the World Series. Texas is still far ahead, but the Astros *may* have finally gotten it together. I don't want to be guilty of jinxing or jocking the positive vibes of the Houston Astros, so I'll leave it at that. Houston's winning pitcher was Michael Feliz. Chris Young was Kansas City's loser.


Congratulations to all other winners from Saturday, including the Miami Marlins taking down the visiting Chicago Cubs and the New York Mets with a shutout win in 11 Innings at the Atlanta Braves.

 

[IforceV8]

Locke did it again, 7ip,5h,1er and had a perfect game into the 6th. His ERA dropped this week fro 5.92 to 5.12 in 2 starts and last night was a must win game with Kershaw going tonight against a AAA call-up making his MLB debut in Chad Kuhl.

 

[JohnBM01]

6-1 was the score in Kansas City as the Astros' seven-game winning streak goes down in flames. Kansas City[, MO] is known for its many fountains, so it's fitting the hot Astros got cooled off big time. Seven and no more for the Houston Astros. We still won this series... just not in a sweep. Oh, well... can't win 'em all. It was a win for Ian Kennedy for KC. Doug Fister was HOU's loser. Win #40 for the Astros will have to wait, as we now fall to 39-37 after this loss.

Up next for the Houston Astros- LATE GAMES! After sweeping them here in Houston earlier this season, we're AT the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim starting Monday night for a three-game set. This will be the final series of this road trip before heading back to Houston to host the Chicago White Sox next weekend.


Elsewhere...

...I made an omission from yesterday's post. I failed to mention the praise Pete Rose got before the Padres at Reds game last night. Congratulations to Pete Rose on making the Reds' Hall of Fame. There were some pretty fun festivities before that game.


Congratulations to all other winners from Sunday... including the Minnesota Twins banging six jacks to subdue the New York Yankees in the Bronx, Cleveland sweeping the Detroit Tigers for the third successive time in MoTown, and the Cincinnati Reds blanking the San Diego Padres in Cincy.

 

[tbwhhs]

What has gotten into my Braves? They have actually looked like a real major league team the past week. They beat the Mets and Bartolo Colon 5-2. Bud Norris pitched 7 scoreless innings and Adonis Garcia had a 3 run HR for the Braves, who are 8-3 in their last 11 games.

 

[AnthonyD1993]

Detroit sucks against anyone that is decent but can kill anyone that is mediocre. Here's to another year of missing the playoffs. Oh well- at least the Tigers actually made it a few years ago.

 

[The Bman]

Clayton Kershaw falls to the Pirates.

 

[IforceV8]

I failed to mention the praise Pete Rose got before the Padres at Reds game last night. Congratulations to Pete Rose on making the Reds' Hall of Fame.

Did he find a bookie to give him odds on that date too?

 

[JohnBM01]

Tonight is the first night that Troy Tulowitzki plays at Coors Field as a member of a visiting team. Tulo was baller with the Rockies in his time there. Now, he's on an opposing team as his Toronto Blue Jays head a Mile High to take on the Rockies.


Enjoy this final week of baseball in June 2016 followed by some weekend baseball to start July 2016. Good luck to all of your teams.

 

[Blitz24]

Mets loss puts them in bad spot. Their best two pitchers this year both have bone spurs. They might be better off conceding season.

 

[Dolph Drago]

It took 15 innings to decide the Reds/Cubs game tonight. John Lamb pitched 6 innings of 2 run ball. And the bullpen put in a valiant effort: 8 innings, 0 runs...until Hoover came in. He continued to hold true to his name, sucking something fierce and giving up a grand slam. His ERA is now 13.5. Stellar job, good sir!

The final ended up 7-2 in the Cubs' favor. The one positive I could take from tonight was the late (regular) inning heroics, scoring both a run in the 8th and 9th to force extras in the first place. Jon Lester was stifling for the Cubs most all night, allowing only 1 hit until Billy Hamilton's 8th inning home run. It took a 2 out hit combined with an excellent slide by Phillips at home (after being nailed in the ribs in his at bat to get on) in the 9th to tie the game. Alas, it was all for naught. The Reds are still stuck on 1 win against the Cubbies this season.

 

[JohnBM01]

Latest Astros report... I didn't get to post about the Monday night and Tuesday night games at the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, so I'll knock these down first. We won 4-2 at the Angels on Monday followed by a 7-1 victory on Tuesday night. Tim Lincecum (whom I am a fan of) was the pitcher in the Tuesday game, and he took the loss. Just today was the series finale. We won 10-4 at the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Dallas Keuchel finally knocked down back-to-back wins in a while. He was HOU's winning pitcher today. I'm sure glad Kid Keuchy got it going. For the Halos, it was Jered Weaver who took the loss. If there's one interesting thing about the Astros recently, moving George Springer in the batting lineup has helped. Changing up the batting order can help as well as maybe moving certain players to other positions.

Up next for the Houston Astros... we're back home to host the Chicago White Sox for the weekend starting on Friday. So we finish June 2016 on a winning clip. Three straight wins, in fact.


Elsewhere... here are games that wrapped up earlier today:

* Tampa Bay had a ten-something losing streak. They've since found the winning mojo. Boston fell 4-0 at the Rays. Matt Moore picked up the win for TB while David Price took the loss for BOS.

* How about some Midwestern baseball? How about some NL Central action? Welcome to Cincinnati. Even including an inside-the-park home run, the Chicago Cubs won today 9-2 as the poor Cincinnati Reds fell again at home. It was Kyle Hendricks who was the winning pitcher for the Cubbies while Cody Reed took the loss for the Reds.

* Joey D and AnthonyD1993's Detroit Tigers defeated Omnis' Miami Marlins by a football-like score of 10-3 in MoTown. If this was the NFL, this would be the Detroit Lions ahead of the Miami Dolphins at Ford Field. Mr. Daniel Norris was the winner for DET while Tom Koehler was Miami's loser.

* It was 5-3 in Denver's Coors Field as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the home standing Colorado Rockies. For the Blue Jays, their winning pitcher was Aaron Sanchez. Tyler Anderson was the loser for Colorado. There was some brutal weather that impacted this game- heavy rain and hail. Yikes!

* At the site of this season's All-Star Game, the San Diego Padres hosted the Baltimore Orioles in this East Meets West Interleague game. The O's doubled up the Padres with a 12-6 rout. The Orioles' winning pitcher was Yovani Gallardo. Christian Friedrich was San Diego's losing pitcher.


My Astros won. If your team(s) also won on this Wednesday, congratulations! Congrats also to all other teams who win beyond the time of this post. And in case you're wondering... the Cleveland Indians have an 11-game winning streak going heading into their game at the Atlanta Braves. The longest win streak as I learned was 26 straight wins by the 1916 New York Giants, but that included a tie. The longest winning streak NOT including a tie was set by the Chicago Cubs of 1935, who won 21 straight games. I'm not saying the 2016 Indians will win again and again, but I just wanted to express this fact regarding winning streaks in Major League Baseball.

 

[IforceV8]

The homeplate ump Vic Carpazza is either having a really bad day in the bottom half of the innings or is corrupt. The Cle/Tor game on MLB network right now is a embarrassment. The strike zone tracker http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB...gid_2016_07_01_clemlb_tormlb_1/&prevDate=0701 thru 6 inn has 9 strikes called out of the zone in the Indians favor and 1 for Toronto. He has also tossed Edwin Encarnacion and the manager in the 1st inning on a terrible called strike 3.

 

[Dolph Drago]

The homeplate ump Vic Carpazza is either having a really bad day in the bottom half of the innings or is corrupt. The Cle/Tor game on MLB network right now is a embarrassment. The strike zone tracker http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB...gid_2016_07_01_clemlb_tormlb_1/&prevDate=0701 thru 6 inn has 9 strikes called out of the zone in the Indians favor and 1 for Toronto. He has also tossed Edwin Encarnacion and the manager in the 1st inning on a terrible called strike 3.

The Reds had a game like that last week or so. Both teams were questioning the ump's calls. I can't remember exactly which game it was or who the ump was though. On the radio, Marty Brennaman (long time respected announcer for the Reds) said they were some of the worst calls he had ever seen.

 

[IforceV8]

The Reds had a game like that last week or so. Both teams were questioning the ump's calls. I can't remember exactly which game it was or who the ump was though. On the radio, Marty Brennaman (long time respected announcer for the Reds) said they were some of the worst calls he had ever seen.

The total is now 11 outside vs 4 and a 3rd Blue Jay was tossed, Russell Martin who was catching was another victim of the fraud that is Vic Carpazza and had to be restrained by two people from killing the ump. BTW the game is still in in the 17th inning.

 

[Dolph Drago]

The total is now 11 outside vs 4 and a 3rd Blue Jay was tossed, Russell Martin who was catching was another victim of the fraud that is Vic Carpazza and had to be restrained by two people from killing the ump. BTW the game is still in in the 17th inning.

Here's a graph from the Reds/Astros game on June 18th that Carapazza called. Quite a few outside strikes called for the righties.
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB...gid_2016_06_19_cinmlb_houmlb_1/&prevDate=0618

 

[JohnBM01]

You know how I say that nine innings aren't enough to settle some games? Well, try 19. On this Canada Day, this one in Toronto took 19 innings to be settled as the Cleveland Indians won 2-1 at the Toronto Blue Jays. The deciding factor late was a solo jack by Carlos Santana (not the legendary guitarist, mind you) for Cleveland. This game lasted about as long as a 1000km race or the Bathurst 1000- some six hours. Trevor Bauer was the winner for CLE (whom have now set a franchise record for a winning streak of 14 games). On the other end, it was Darwin Barney who was TOR's loser.


Enjoy the weekend series! And of course, no matter who your favorite team(s) is/are, good luck to all teams.

 

[Dolph Drago]

Darwin Barney is still in the league? I hadn't heard anything about him after being gone from the Cubs. It's always so weird seeing position players in there pitching in those marathon games.

 

[Dolph Drago]

The Reds just finished another marathon game. This one was a 3-2 loss to the Nationals after 14 innings. We actually had good pitching, but the bullpen can only bend so much when being pushed out there inning after inning before finally breaking. Sure would be nice if we could, you know, actually put a run or two on the board in extras just once so the burden wouldn't continue to be put on the bullpen in long games.

 

[JohnBM01]

After a 5-1 road trip, my Houston Astros returned home to Houston to welcome the Chicago White Sox for the weekend. The boys from the south side of Chicago were treated to a 5-0 beating by my Astros. Mike Fiers was the winner for HOU while Miguel Gonzalez took the loss for CHW. The loss for the White Sox puts them at 40-40 on the season. My Astros, meanwhile, improve to 43-37 on the season. We suit up and play again Saturday afternoon for Game 2 of this series.


Congratulations to Friday's other winners, including 10-2 beat downs courtesy of Blitz24's Mets (vs. Cubs (and Mother Nature)) and AnthonyD1993's Tigers (at Tampa Bay).

 

[JohnBM01]

14... and no more. Cleveland's winning streak was snapped today with a 9-6 victory by the Toronto Blue Jays in Toronto. So this series will have its Rubber Game tomorrow in beautiful Toronto. And uh, J.R. Smith... put a shirt on! Or do you remember what wearing a shirt feels like? Winning for TOR was Jason Grilli and a Save from Roberto Osuna. The loser for CLE was Dan Otero.

That's the only game Final as of this post. One game in action right now is Texas at Minnesota, and Minnesota is up 17-5 in the Bottom of the 6th. My Astros are taking on the Chicago White Sox right now. The game is currently 1-0 in favor of Houston after one inning. A solo jack by José Altuve put the 'Stros ahead early.


Congratulations to all winners from Saturday's games up to and beyond the time of this post.


[UPDATE] It was 17-5 at the time of this post of Rangers at Twins.

 

[JohnBM01]

Astros update... there was plenty of offense today here in Houston. On the winning end of the 7-6 final was the Chicago White Sox. So our winning streak of about four games is snapped. The winner was Chris Sale for CHW, and getting the Save was David Robertson. Our Doug Fister was the HOU loser. Rubber Game tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Dolph Drago]

What did I just witness? A Reds win? Couldn't possibly be...

Yep, the Reds snapped their 5 game losing streak tonight. It again went into extras (third time this week I believe), but didn't go quite as long as the others. Cincy jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. Dan Straily was solid all game until the 8th when the Nats battled back after a leadoff walk, followed by a 2 run shot courtesy of Espinosa (who went yard from both sides of the plate in the other extra innings game), making it 4-3. Blake Wood came in from the bullpen and unsurprisingly pitched like our typical relief pitchers pitch; :censored:y, walking 3 and allowing a game tying hit by Harper in his .2 innings of work. Josh Smith bailed him out and pitched a scoreless 9th. What WAS surprising was Cincy immediately jumping on Washington's bullpen. They went to work on Solis, followed by ex-Red, Matt Belisle (evidently trying to do his best Reds' impression), for 5 runs. Big Jumbo Diaz worked a scoreless bottom of the inning to preserve the win. Yay.


Edit: made a mistake about the Nats pitchers in the 10th. Fixed.

 

[JohnBM01]

21-2. That was how much the Los Angeles Angels on Anaheim smashed Boston by in Boston yesterday. Ouch.

Later tonight, the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins will play at an active military base. I think I heard it will become a recreation park after the game.


Good luck to all of your teams. Enjoy today's and tonight's games!

 

[JohnBM01]

The Rubber Game of the Chicago White Sox at the Houston Astros went the way of... the White Sox. We failed again- 4-1 this time. Back-to-back losses for Houston. CHW's winning pitcher was José Quintana, and David Robertson gets the Save. Collin McHugh was the loser for HOU.

Up next for Houston... our next two series are at home against Divisional opponents. We host Seattle starting tomorrow afternoon for a three-game set followed by hosting Oakland.


Congratulations to Sunday's winners, including several teams winning in wreck fashion with scores like 17-1, 12-1, 14-3, and so on.

 

[Blitz24]

Mets complete 4 game sweep of Chicago, making it 8 in a row vs. the Cubs and bewildering all of their fans.