Royal Rumble

I’m back from a nice weekend of standing in a parking lot and listening to names being called into a microphone, let’s get right into it

What an electric game for Sunday Night Baseball. Coming in this one certainly raised eyebrows as the league’s choice. Featuring a heavyweight matchup of the last place Royals and the team that squandered the entirety of Mike Trout’s career, I can’t imagine people were psyching themselves up for this one.

And frankly the early going was as boring as this one was billed, as the Angels went up 6-0 in the first 2 innings.

But down by 2 in the 9th and down to their last night, Jac Cags came to the rescue

But once again the Royals found a way to mess it up going down again in the 10th on the back of a passed ball run.

But when they were once again down to their final out? An unlikely hero came to the rescue

Man, ABS really is the best.

After a pair of great outings from Emerson Hancock (6 IP, 2 ER — 2.86 Season ERA) and Michael McGreevy (6 IP, 1 ER — 2.97) this game was knotted heading into the 9th

And we almost had an all time bad call determine this game, but thankfully fate — and Rob Refsnyder — intervened

It’s hard to fathom a team doing worse than the Mets right now. Combining for 1 run in 18 innings and getting swept by the Rockies, it’s hard to envision Mendoza’s future with the club has much runway left

The Mets squandered another great Nolan McLean start in Game 1 (5 IP, 1 ER, 7K — 2.55 ERA) but then got an absolute stinker from Kodai Senga in G2 (2.2 IP, 3 ER)

Meanwhile for the Rockies Chase Dollander continues to dominate for Denver, as he went 7 Shutout Innings with 7 punchies and lowered his season ERA to 2.25

Enter the team doing worse than the Mets

Losers of 9 of the Last 10 and now featuring their third starter with an ERA over 6 on the season (Aaron Nola allowed 6 ER in 4.2 IP) things are cratering hard for the Phils.

But on the other hand, the wagon keeps on ROLLING

Off the back of Chris Sale’s dominant 6 Inning, 9K, shutout start (one where he almost lost his head), the Braves became the first team to reach 20 wins and are the only team not to lose a series so far this season

I’m going to give an obligatory, perhaps cursory, mention of something that happened in this game

But we all know where the real juice is here, as more and more info comes out in the Alex Cora saga — I need to join in on the parade.

This is not Cora’s fault whatsoever. He isn’t winning and I get it, but this falls solely on the shoulders of Craig Breslow who might be on the longest streak of losing trades perhaps of all time

And clearly the team did not want Cora to go:

So things are obviously going GREAT in Boston. But who knows, maybe this bullshit will pull the team together for the stretch run?

One of those disaster trades by Breslow? Giving up Kyle Harrison

Harrison dominated the Buccos to avoid the sweep Sunday, going 6 Shutout innings with only 1 hit allowed, and lowered his season ERA to 2.28

And it was all due to that fucking funky looking change-up

The Blue Jays may have the worst run differential in the AL East, but you know what they also have?

Gratitude

Remember a few weeks back when I declared Spencer Torkelson was not going to be one of the 10 worst hitters in baseball much longer?

Yeah, THAT BOY HOT

And while the Reds lost they have a few dudes en FUEGO themselves

I didn’t have much eyes on this game but a pitching stat absolutely got my attention

And I’m not talking about Spencer Arrighetti’s 7 IP, 1 ER, 8 K outing where he only allowed 3 hits and lowered his ERA to 2.00 — the only good pitcher on the Astros staff at the moment.

No, i’m talking about Luis Gil. He sucked in this one allowing 6 Earned in 4 Innings. But he has one of the more ridiculous stats i’ve ever seen:

Ildemaro Vargas. That’s the whole blurb

This game occurred, or so I’ve been told. Have a “Yandy Diaz is a freak” stat in lieu of a write up

Jose Tena delivered the Nationals a W with his pinch hit HR in the 10th that proved to be the insurance run the Nats needed

Look, it’s really hard to have a takeaway from every game, and getting 2 hit by the Giants is tough scenes for the Fish

But perhaps my biggest from this game is larger than the Marlins

It’s about how AWFUL the NL East is aside from the best in baseball Braves.

The non-Atlanta teams are 44-69 and almost all trending downwards and the Marlins are no exception

A couple weeks back we discovered Carlos Cortes together, and boy has that paid off!

It’ll be interesting to see how Brent Rooker’s return affects his playing time, but I don’t think the A’s can afford not to play this guy every day at this point.

Certifiably electric.