Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Tuesday Morning Hot Links

 Well, for a guy with an MMA podcast, Lance McCullers Jr. sure does like no hitting!

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Ok that was not my best, but —and this is important — James is not the boss of me and he gave me admin privileges on This Site and I can do whatever I want now. I'll be taking over for a little while until James returns or burns this place down in disgust.

McCullers attributed his success last night to trusting Martin Maldonado's pitch calling. 

I saw some weeping and gnashing of teeth over the "missed" play by Bregman that broke up the no-hitter, including by Bregman himself in the McTaggart store above. Short of a miracle, I think he would have beat out a hit even if Bregman managed to glove it. Judge for yourself

Here's the Associated Press' Kristie Rieken on the Astros 6-4 win last night.

Oh yeah. If you went to bed after the seventh, things got interesting. I mean, interesting is a strong word, but Josh James continued to struggle. He's still striking out double digit batters by nine, but he's walking even more. Which is not ideal. 

Discipline on the Jomboy Presents: Astros Fight Club™ is expected sometime today or tomorrow. Laureano regrets ($) calling Cintron a "loser."

Baseball Genius Rob Arthur ran some studies ($) on the drag of the 2020 baseball and it appears more similar to the 2018 ball, which will lead to a drop in home run rate.

Ben Lindbergh theorizes why BABIP is down across the league. 

Noted Rule Follower Mike Clevinger appears to have knowingly risked infecting his entire team after going into town and then getting on the team plane despite his teammate Zach Plesac had been publicly chastised for the exact same violation-of-protocol.  

Jeff Passan wrote a phenomenal profile on Fernando Tatis Jr., who is Extremely Fun. This is now a Padres blog.