clayton kershaw is one really cool guy.

The boys heading to Atlanta.

josh naylor traded to the mariners

The Blue Jays are now baseballs best team record wise! Not the Dodgers, not the Tigers, not the Yankees, not the Mets, not the Phillies. How that happen?

Not sure if you're being facetious, but here's how they've done it:
- focusing on contact instead of power, and playing great defense. with 3 true outcomes, people are forgetting how to play the field, and it seems like other teams are out-erroring the Jays 3-1.
- exeprienced starting pitchers who bend but don't break
- a high strike out Bullpen
- found money in the form of Addison Barger and Eric Lauer
- Ernie Clement's emergence as a super utility type.
- Bo Bichette, George Springer, and Alejandro Kirk back to All Star form.
- roster players 21-26 doing something 1-2 a week that contributes in a big way to a win

It's been a really fun run for the last month or so

Now, if Vlad Jr could finally get hot, then we'd have something. Lot's of hard contact, but not a lot of power.

yankees think they finally found a third baseman in ryan mcmahon.......new york does strange things to people, we;ll see.....

seems like every team wants jaren duran from the red sox and they will not trade him.

This development could real bad for the Yankees. Judge has elbow pain.

There was a game this week, in which he was visibly irritated with his right arm, after making a throw from the outfield.
He only has 7 hits in the last 14 days.

We were in Boston the last 5 days for medical treatments for my daughter and I thought I could catch a Red Sox game last night. Wrong. Since when is a regular season baseball game cheapest ticket available over $200 a ticket? I don't get it.

When they are playing the World Champion Dodger’s, and it is Mookie Betts first scheduled appearance in Fenway Park since getting traded.

Furthering the argument on how they're doing it - Bo Bichette earned a 13 pitch walk against Tarik Skubal - the hands down best pitcher in the AL - in the 6th inning of a 0-0 game. The Jays didn't score, but they chased him an inning early, and put up 6 runs against the bullpen to win 6-1. That's typical of what's going on.

channel 3 in cleveland did a very detailed story about emmanuel clase and ? ortiz on the 6:00 news last evening......they hypothesized that the 2 were betting on individual pitches (in ohio and elsewhere you can bet on each and every pitch) and it seems (through a very detailed montage) many of the first pitches that clase threw in any inning was a ball on numerous occasions this year, and this was not the case last year.

if you really think about it, it could very easily be done.......especially with all of the online gambling available in ohio right now, and for that matter, even in vegas at the individual sports books rooms all over town which usually have every game on a TV somewhere in the room.

i think clase and ortiz are both in a wee bit of trouble, and both are suspended until august 31 as of today.

Rest easily, Ryne.

I looked at the standings and saw the Milwaukee Brewers have the best record in MLB. Then I looked at their roster, then looked back at the standings to make sure I wasn't mistaken, then looked back at their roster. I then concluded that the quality of Major League Baseball is likely at an all-time low (like every other big-time professional league) and am glad I stopped paying "real" attention a few years ago.

Not real surprising as I do know enough to know that Manfred sucks.

we have found it simply amazing how many teams have starting everyday players with batting averages under .200. we watched a guardian/oriole game and 7 of the 18 starters were batting under .200.

the quality of pitching is good, but not that good.

The majors have spent the last decade pushing the 3 true outcomes in both roles, so not only are you getting 100 mph flamethrowers 1 after the other, but you're getting hitters swinging for the fences. As I said about why the Jays are in first, they're doing it by emphasizing contact (a .265 team batter average) and catching the ball (.985 fielding with 57 errors in 110 games). Same way Milwaukee's doing it.

To be fair, Twins were unable to get me to watch after last year's amazing collapse.

But Jeez!

SUMMARY OF TRADES
Heading to Minnesota: OF Hendry Mendez, RHP Geremy Villoria, OF James Outman, LHP Garrett Horn, RHP Mike Mikulski, OF Alan Roden, LHP Kendry Rojas, RHP Taj Bradley, RHP Sam Armstrong, RHP Ryan Gallagher.

Departing from Minnesota: SS Carlos Correa, OF Harrison Bader, RHP Griffin Jax, RHP Louie Varland, RHP Brock Stewart, LHP Danny Coulombe, IF/OF Willi Castro, 1B Ty France, (and Duran yesterday).

Quite the shuffle.


I thought they'd get rid of the rentals of course, even Durand (for too little) but to avoid paying his salary next year. Expect they'd be happy with either or both of Jax and Varland in the bullpen next year. They sold the whole bullpen. Carlos Correa seemed always an odd duck pick up and then picked up again on the Twins. Seemed a good enough player (hadn't cheated more than the others back then), but always struck me like he was doing the Twins a favor by even showing up in uniform.

NOW SELL THE OWNERS and I'll be interested in seeing what shapes out of this.

all said and done i thought that yesterday was a so-so day. i know MLB network played it up pretty big, but the only really names were suarez and correa and whole shitload of middle relievers.

no jaren duran and no steve kwan.

the american league west got very very competitive.

Sorry about the day the Twins had. that was a real dismantling. and moving some of those names didn't make sense to me, but thanks for Varland.

That third wild card team really has made a difference to the trade deadline, as .500 teams are generally no longer selling unless something has happened to a start player. So now, it's only the high leverage bullpen arms on bad teams and bench guys who get moved around. And the occasional GM Contract error.

The Mets finally did something they had to do, rebuild the bullpen (their weakest point) and even added a closer so Diaz doesn’t have to do it every night. And filled the CF spot that was a hole so overall a big improvement.