TONIGHT WE HAVE AN OLD SCHOOL, NINE ROUND BARE KNUCKLE BRAWL HERE IN BEAUTIFUL LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA!

IN THE RED CORNER STANDING 6’3 AND TIPPING THE SCALES AT 235 POUNDS, FIGHTING OUT OF HAVANA, CUBA — JORGE “EL YOYO” SOLERRRRR!

IN THE BLUE CORNER WEIGHING IN AT 225 POUNDS AT 6’1, HAILING FROM SAN PEDRO DE MACORIS IN THE DOMINCAN REPUBLIC — “EL REY” REYNALDOOOOO LOPEZ!

Jorge Soler was out for BLOOD on Tuesday night after getting a brush back from Reynaldo Lopez. As the tweet shows, the Cuban was hit the previous AB and clearly thought this was quite intentional.

After all, Soler somewhat dominates Lopez, this being his 5th home run off of the Braves veteran. So almost certainly that was some kind of pre-existing beef.

But much like at the plate, Soler appeared to dominate this matchup. Clearly being the aggressor, El Yoyo charged the bump and was throwing some absolute HAYMAKERS and came back with more. Reynaldo could do nothing but let his teammates take out the man seeing Red.

This one is over. And by unanimous decision: Jorge Soler wins it.

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Coming off a complete game, his first since MANY during the 2023 season, Sandy Alcantara was cruising towards going back to back CGs. This would have been the first regular season back to back CG since Corey Kluber did so in 2017 (Yoshinobu Yamamoto did it last postseason).

As Sandy got into the 9th, he got the first batter to fly out, but the next two reached. Sitting at 95 pitches and having not allowed a run to that point on 3 hits — it is reasonable to assume you might give the former Cy Young Award Winner a chance to wiggle out of that spot with a 2-0 lead when you’re the Miami Marlins.

But manager … Clayton McCullogh (had no clue he was there… or even who he is tbh) had other plans. He turned the game over to closer Anthony Bender and his 10.80 ERA who promplty allowed a double steal, a sac fly, a walk, and a wild pitch to tie the game 2-2.

The Marlins would go on to lose 6-3 in extras, and while I’m not a Monday Morning QB… what the hell was McCullough thinking?

Hindsight is obviously 20/20, but this one seems clear as hell to me.

You are probably a 72 win team, and you are taking the best thing to happen to your team in a long time and you take him off the field in favor of an over the hill reliever?? Come on now

Sandy might be too nice to say as such, but he might have in his own words

Maybe it’s time to stop babying starting pitchers again and let them go a little deeper into ball games again.

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Listen. It’s April 8th. I’m not sitting here sounding alarms that Goliath is down, or that the Ship is sinking… but I just felt a little drop of water while below deck.

On Tuesday night Tarik Skubal got touched up a bit by the Minnesota Twins. Which isn’t something to cause any true concern (though getting clowned by the Twins twitter might be). Having one bad inning, his 5th of the evening, is not alarm bell ringing in and of itself. Paul Skenes opening day was tough and nobody is scared of that man (6.1 IP of 1 Run ball in a win over the Padres Tuesday night).

But it’s some of the underlying things of Skubal that has me… questioning. He’s still the best or 2nd best pitcher in the game, but checking under the hood — is the fastball okay?

Here is a 4 year timelapse of the underlying numbers — I want you to look on the far right at the cluster of red dots the fastball. What do you notice

Now you might be saying… “what the fuck am I looking at?” Let me break it down.

Tarik Skubal is cutting the ball far more than he has in a long time. The cluster of red dots is sliding to the right, towards the vertical Y axis that delineates tail vs cut.

This means Tarik isn’t getting as much “tail” or horizontal spin on his fastball as he has over the last few years and it’s causing me to worry about the pitch shape. It’s now showing signs of cutting.

If you’ll remember: Tarik Skubal was not always the dominant ace he’s been these past 4 years. He was kind of mediocre in 20 and 21... Back when he used to throw a cutter.

Is that why he got hit by the Twins? We might never know. But let’s keep an eye on the Titanic. There’s ice in the water and it’s awfully foggy.

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No divisional breakdown for the red headed step child division (AL Central) we will have them back next week

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The Red Sox are just the gift that keeps on giving this season

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Feast your eyes on the best baseball Venn Diagram these eyes have ever seen

Some real high level jokes in there if you look hard enough

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Benny… buddy… be better

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Remember in yesterday’s edition when I called Contreras a hardo? He’s at it again, after the Miz shoved it up his ass.

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Don’t forget to strap up today gentlemen:

Have a great day