MLB Bullets Needs A Good Spanking

The Kings did their job. Now the Blackhawks have to do theirs to set up the Western Conference final that everyone wants to see. Oops. For a minute there I forgot this isn't NHL Bullets. Over on the NBA blogs, they're known as NBA Wizards these days.

• Interleague play goes on all season these days and fan interest seems to be down this year, at least judging by the attendance figures. I'm not really sure you can judge that since, in previous seasons, MLB artificially juiced interleague attendance by scheduling it right as school got out over summer weekends. On top of that, big draws like the Cubs, Phillies, Red Sox and Mets are coming off bad seasons. But it's possible that interleague play was never that popular to begin with, outside of the few big rivalry games.
• Tom Van Riper of Forbes.com thinks interleague play is boring. However, his solution is not to get rid of it or severely curtail it, but rather to revive Bud Selig's old radical realignment plan which eliminated the two leagues in favor of Eastern and Western conferences.
• There are a lot of pitchers in the major leagues right now if it weren't for the talents of orthopedic surgeon (and Angels team physician) Dr. Lewis Yocum, who died yesterday at age 65. Jon Paul Morosi says that Yocum and his colleagues had as much influence on the modern game as anyone. (video link)
• The Mariners demoted Dustin Ackley to Triple-A Tacoma and manager Eric Wedge thinks it's all the fault of sabermetricians getting into his head with all their silly ideas. Because we all know it's the job of the statisticians to develop young ballplayers. Oh no, wait. That's your job, Eric. Both Dave Cameron and David Schoenfield think Wedge needs to be fired. Not for insulting sabermetricians, but for being really crappy at his job and trying to shift the blame to bloggers. But mostly that really being crappy at his job part.
• The Royals aren't playing all that well lately, and manager Ned Yost asked "What are you asking me to do? Take off my belt and spank them?" Oh yes, please Ned. You can just use your hand though. But be sure to put the video up on the internet.
• Dusty Baker thinks baseball needs hockey fights. He thinks Matt Garza and Johnny Cueto need to go at it. Sure--as long as they do it on ice skates.
• As both the Astros and Marlins threaten the Mets 51-year-old modern record for losses in a season, Scott Miller talks to Roger Craig about what it was like to play for the 1962 Mets. He says that Casey Stengel made it bearable. There's some good stuff in there about Stengel, as well as a nice act of generosity by Bob Brenly.
• Dayn Perry points out that the Marlins are on a pace to lose 120 games despite having played the easiest schedule in the majors so far. Ouch.
• The Cardinals are promoting pitching prospect Michael Wacha to start Thursday's game.
• Ken Rosenthal thinks Wacha could be the next Cardinals ace. Are they bored with Shelby Miller already? Send him to the Cubs. There's a lot of other good stuff in the linked article about Carlos Beltran and his community work, about the Astros, their plans to trade everyone and Bo Porter's issues with delegating authority.
• In case you aren't already sick of my raving about the Cardinals, Matt Carpenter is a really good ballplayer who you may not be familiar with.
• David Schoenfield also asks "Who should play CF for the Braves?" and notes that the odds are really against B.J. Upton getting his batting average above the Mendoza line by season's end.
• Jeff Schultz in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that Jordan Schafer is superior to B.J. Upton in everything but his contract.
• Jay Jaffe wonders if Justin Verlander's workload over the past three seasons has finally caught up with him.
• Tom Verducci thinks it's time to stop having a designated closer and go back to the days when a team would have more than one reliever pitch in a save situation.
• Yu Darvish is on pace to have the most strikeouts in a season since 2002, back when Randy Johnson was still the Big Unit. And that's not just an excuse for me to write "Big Unit" and "Randy Johnson" in a sentence.
• Nationals announcer Bob Carpenter is happy with the numbers coming out to Nationals Park this season, but he wishes that Nats fans would get a little more into the game.
• Jackie Bradley Jr. is re-joining the Red Sox.
• The Dodgers insist there is nothing wrong with Matt Kemp's shoulder or anything else.
• If you're still interested in Jeremy Affeldt's new book, he gives an interview to the Huffington Post. He explains why he doesn't call himself a Christian.
• Kevin Gausman's first major league start was pretty bad, but Jason Hammel told him that everyone has bad starts and that he belongs in the majors. I want to make some joke along the lines wondering if Hammel told Gausman "Hey, if I can pitch in the majors for eight seasons. . . " but that would be cruel.
• Finally, Andrew Keh in the New York Times laments how baseball's first pitch ceremony has been changed from an honor designated for presidents and national heroes to just another marketing opportunity, often treated with all the solemnity of a sideshow at the circus.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.