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TICKER TAPE
√ Mariners deal for a starting pitcher who takes the slab, steps up to his 3 runs, and delivers a victory. X's and O's, baby.
√ Cleveland, who we don't play, wins their 8th and 9th in a row. They'll tear up the Angels, Royals and Twins for us and then they'll be tired so we can very easily dispatch them late.
√ Yankee$ lose. Badly. To Boston and Doogie. They're feeling like the Antifa guy who kicked a tear-gas canister back at the police and took undue retribution for his efforts.
√ Pesky rodent Angels storm back from 6-2 and 9-4 to tie the game 9-9 .... yeahhhhhhhhooooNNOOOOooooo a stolen base, error and wild pitch undoes it all. That's so Angels-y.
27 games out, that leaves us with:
- Minny +6 (we know we can count on yer in a pinch, Twinks)
- Balmer +3
- Rodents +3
- Rays =
- Rangers =
- Mariners -1
And, of course, all these teams will be going hammer-and-tongs against each other. Here's to a double-forfeit between the Rangers and Angels over the weekend.
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ZUUMBALL
Got two crisp fastballs low, on the black. Reached out and crisply returned them cross-court, one inside the RF foul pole and one into the right-center gap. This leaves his SLG at .486 in Safeco for 2017, and his OPS+ at .... did you say 114 ?! That's some nice collateral. In THIS game it was collateral that left us riffling the currency after the game.
Other major league hitters with SLG's in the range of .485, many of whom play in slightly friendlier parks: Edwin Encarnacion, Andrew McCutchen, Yasiel Puig, Adam Jones, Matt Kemp, Buster Posey. Most of us remember the day when we were calculating irrational OPS+ numbers for Tuffy Gosewich, figuring that Zuumball just wasn't da man. We remember the day 'cause it was like last Tuesday.
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MORE X'S AND O'S
Tie score early on, the M's loaded the bases for K-Swag with one out and he carefully lifted a fly ball to medium right-center. The CF settled under, Maniger blasted off from 3B and ... Robinson Cano sauntered from 2B to 3B. The Orc sighed and tossed Cano out at third. The game-winning run scored. Now, thass' ole timey baseball. No word on how much Robby had to hold up to make sure Haniger beat him across the base.
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AND SOME Y'S AND Z'S
Dipoto dug deeeeeep into his Cheney Carousel for (1) Dan Altavilla, (2) Shae Simmons and (3) Andrew Moore. Meaning that Jemanji's Rule of 19 will be in FULLLL effect for HWMNBN's start on Saturday. I can just taste that Paxton start, dudes, can just taste it.
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BABVA,
Dr D
