Here's why I hate "roles" in the pen; heart of the order coming, up 4, and Padres skipper goes with the middle reliever only to give up 2 runs and now he brings in the closer. Why? Just bring in your best guy against their best guys. Why even allow yourself to get into a save situation? So dumb and further deepens my disdain for the save.

Rockies dummied Giants for 13-runs in an inning....

Gotta tip your cap to Rea. He pitched a hell of a game.

The Mets continue to be entirely reliant on the longball though. There are going to be games when the offense looks like this.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...out-any-money/

This is a long read but it's brilliant for anybody who might feel the slightest bit nerdy about baseball.

Two days ago, A-Rod to the DL. Yesterday Gardner. Today Sabathia.

Doesn't get any better than this. Nova moves to the rotation, Phil (Loves) Coke called up to the open spot in the 'pen.

Lol Dickey's is pitching tomorrow

I'm feeling pretty good about 3/5ths of the Os rotation so far.
Tillman 3-1 2.81 era 1.13 whip 33k's 1 hr 32 ip
Gausman 0-1 1.43 era .68 whip 14k's 1 hr 19ip
Wilson 1-1 3.03 era 1.10 whip 13k 2hr 23.2up

Tillman is even better than 2014 Tillman with 9ks in his last two starts.
Gausman missed 3 starts but has been ridiculous in his 3 starts.
Tyler Wilson started in the pen but has made 3 good starts.

Leaves Ubaldo and Mike Wright (who has pitched ok in place of Gallardo but not as good as the first 3) even with them the Is are 78th in Team ERA which is higher than most people predicted

MLB pulled the Puerto Rico games scheduled between Pittsburgh & Miami because of Zika.

Games will be played in Miami.

Tomorrow Ellsbury..left the game tonight with a hip issue

Joey Rickard is hitting 12% below league average, no pop and atrocious defense. He's now at negative value. Ready to give up on him, Droford?

Ump for the Red Sox-Yanks game tonight was atrocious near the end of the game. Surprised only two Red Sox guys got tossed but he cost them at least one run from how bad the strike zone got against them.

Saw that. Just terrible. Being on the robot umps.

Happ, Sanch, Stro and Estrada have all be legit though. They're pitching with swag.

Wish the fans would stop booing Cecil. I mean he's pitching like garbage but he's a fucking Blue Jay lifer and is a slow starter. Fucking assholes, he deserves better.

WAHH WAHHH WAHHHH DON'T ARGUE BALLS AND STRIKES.

jk, I fucking hate when umpires can't do their god damned jobs properly and they aren't held accountable at all.

Don't have a big problem with a mistake or two during a game but this ump managed to do a few in back-to-back innings that killed potential scoring drives in a very close game. The ones against Hanley and strike two against Ortiz were borderline at best but strike three against Ortiz was comically bad. Didn't help that the ump's smiling when Ortiz is yelling at him which made things worse.

Hanley pretty much had to do HR-type swings for the final out since he knew anything close probably was going to be called as a possible botched strike.

I'm the same as you. Don't mind a few mistakes throughout, but there is never an excuse for missing obvious calls, or when they are inconsistent with the same locations. Like yeah I never mind if they are caling low and outside a strike, if they're calling it a strike all game.

Like I said, the Mets play horribly in San Diego. Every year. The Padres have a better winning percentage against the Mets in Petco than they do any other NL team.

The Dickman vs Kershaw today. Ugh

Can't remember the last time the Yankees sent Price to the dugout this early.

Looked at the score and thought Buchholz pitched. Shit. Hope he doesn't end up on the DL.

BARTOLO COLON HOME RUN OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!

Genuinely can't remember the last time a single play had me react like that. I've been sick and mostly in bed all day. Colon's HR gave me a burst of energy and I immediately called my dad to rejoice as if it was a World Series win or something.

https://streamable.com/txu0

Anybody who still wants the NL to have a DH can eat my asshole.

I want the dh and Bart has further solidified my stance.

Lol amazing

That was awesome lol

Don't think Big Bart is gonna retire anytime soon.

.282 with 3 homers isn't awful

Its as many homers as he was projected to have all year

Hell ya, White Sox are still crushing their crappy division. Pretty damn amazing.

Is anyone going to tell Dallas Braden that he looks like Kelsey Grammer from the first three seasons of Frasier?

6 homers for the Orioles

This 8th inning for the Mets illustrates why I hate bullpen roles. In this instance I'd use Familia against the heart of the order and use someone else for the 9th against a worse part of the lineup. Who cares about the saves stat?

I'll simplify it. He makes lots of outs and doesn't hit for enough power to offset the outs, to The point where he's mediocre at best offensive relative to league average. And he's a terrible, terrible defender. Of 33 American league left fielders with at least 20 innings logged, Rickard ranks dead last in runs saved.

So a maybe mediocre hitter who's a zero On defense. Why keep playing him. He has minus war. The Orioles are less likely to win with him playing. Why keep playing him? Makes no sense.

Yes no better than Kim in the OF. And Rickard played a lot of CF early on when Adam Jones was out.

The entire OF sucks

That's from my favorite Orioles site today

And yet somehow with all that AND 5 guys in the lineup hitting less than .212 (Jones and Davis .200 Alvarez .206 Flaherty.208 Wieters .211) they have 2nd best record in AL at 18-12. Eventually they're going to start hitting and if the pitching stays around the same they're going to be even more of a force. Right now it's Trumbo and Machado carry the team on offense..

This just in:

Nationals lock up Stephen Strasburg. 7-years, $175 mil. Got an opt-out at either year 3 or 4.

Wow. The free agent market for pitching this offseason was already looking bad, now with Strasburg off the board it's totally barren.

Another player caught.

Royals infielder Raul Mondesi Jr. suspended 50 games for a positive drug test.

wouldn't have bet a dollar that Strasburg was staying in Washington, thought for sure he'd be in pinstripes next season.... props to him for staying loyal to the organization that brought him up....

If he's the person ESPN was teasing about last week, a bunch more are going to get punished very soon.

Sox helping out pitcher who has a career era of just under 6. Eight runs so far.