MLB Bullets Knocks The Cover Off The Ball

Happy Easter Monday or Patriots Day or whatever holiday you want today to be.

• Once again, the young superstar runs afoul with his former all-star manager from the 1980s for not hustling on the field. And I'm not talking about Yasiel Puig! Nope, this time it's Bryce Harper, who was pulled from the game by manager Matt Williams after not running out a ground ball. Harper's spot would come up in the bottom of the ninth as the potential winning run, but Kevin Frandsen was only able to get an RBI ground out that only got the Nationals to within one run before Jayson Werth made the final out.
• Nats beat writer Adam Kilgore said no one on the Nationals that he talked to objected to Williams' actions.
• Of course, even Harper said he supported Williams' decision "100 percent."
• Christina Kahrl thinks Williams acted correctly, but we have to remember that Harper is still only 21 years old.
• Mike Axisa understands Williams' need to make an example of Harper, but said that Harper has gotten into trouble in the past for hustling too much. He's also coming off a quad strain, so he wonders if Williams should have dealt with this differently.
• David Brown, on the other hand, calls Williams' move "a rookie mistake."
• Aaron Harang got pulled from a no-hitter, but he had thrown 121 pitches through seven innings. The Braves bullpen blew the no-hitter in the eighth, but they still won.
• In other managerial news, it must be tough to be Astros manager Bo Porter. He let his frustrations boil over and got into a shouting match with Jed Lowrie after Lowrie bunted with the Athletics leading 7-0.
• You've got to give Porter credit for the most imaginative managerial sound bite in history, though. After he was asked about a Matt Dominguez baserunning error in the postgame news conference, Porter responded with 17 seconds of silence before finally saying something. Poor Bo. At least the Cubs have the common decency to fire their manager after a terrible season or two.
• In the first (semi-) big trade of the regular season, the Mets sent first baseman Ike Davis to the Pirates for Zach Thornton and a horse with no name a player to be named later.
• Richard Justice thinks Davis needed a fresh start and Pittsburgh is a great place for that.
• The Tigers are back to square one in finding a shortstop now that they have released Alex Gonzalez.
• Christina Kahrl thinks the Tigers shortstop position has become an Abbot and Costello routine with "I Don't Know" at shortstop. She also wonders if the Tigers are serious about bringing back Omar Vizquel, they might want to consider Ray Oyler as well. Although Oyler has been dead for 33 years, he's probably as good a shortstop as Vizquel is at this point. (She does seriously suggest Darwin Barney)
• Ken Rosenthal says that the only move for the Tigers that makes sense is to sign Stephen Drew (VIDEO), although he thinks that at this point the Tigers will wait until after the June draft when they will no longer have to forfeit a draft pick.
• A bench-clearing brawl in the Brewers/Pirates game on Sunday started after Carlos Gomez didn't hustle out of the box after hitting a ball he thought was a home run but ended up as a triple.
• David Schoenfield says Gomez needs to be suspended. Not for not hustling. For starting the fight, of course.
• John Perrotto has a profile of Brewers third baseman (and that still sounds weird) Aramis Ramirez.
• There have been some grumbling about the way that instant replay has affected the "transfer" rule and what the new home plate collision rules are. MLB is likely to make a clarification to both rules by the end of the month. For the transfer rule, it will return the rule to the way it has always been called. The home plate collision adjustment will just make the rule clearer.
• Matt Snyder explains the problem with the transfer rule.
• The A's have agreed to a five-year contract extension with reliever Sean Doolittle.
• There are no talks about an extension between the Orioles and J.J. Hardy. His agent wonders why, because the Orioles had said they wanted to sign Hardy to an extension.
• Sam Fuld is a Twin! Does that mean his Wikipedia entry will be twice as long now?
• Bobby Abreu is expected to join the Mets today.
• Peter Gammons thinks the Red Sox need to sign Jon Lester to an extension for both his on- and off-field value.
• Do you think that in MLB Offices in New York there is a big sign that says "It has been xx days since a pitcher has undergone Tommy John surgery"? Probably. It looks like that number is going to go back to zero soon as Ivan Nova has a partially-torn UCL.
• Cuban slugger Frederich Cepeda has signed with the Yomiuri Giants under the Cuban government's new policy of allowing athletes to play professionally outside of Cuba. It should be noted that the US trade embargo would prohibit any MLB team from signing players like Cepeda.
• Mike Trout stinks.
• The Indians may have a lot of problems, but so far, playing Carlos Santana at third base hasn't been one of them.
• Ryan Howard just missed hitting for the cycle when a potential double was ruled a single and an error. Bill Baer calls the decision "questionable" but it looked like a single and an error to me.
• Mark Buehrle is off to a great start to 2014. Gabe Kapler explains why Buehrle is so good despite poor velocity. Kapler notes that he couldn't hit Buehrle at all and he's right. In 37 plate appearances, Kapler hit .216/.216/.270.
• Zachary Levine examines the numbers behind leaving top prospects in the minors for service time concerns. He says the way the system is set up, it makes too much sense to not do it.
• Nick Cafardo says you may not know who Chris Colabello, Charlie Blackmon and Yangervis Solarte are, but those players are having a big impact so far this season.
• Tomas Rios says that baseball is returning to being a game about speed and defense.
• Carl Bialik examines the phenomenon of longer major league games and what's causing them.
• Another athlete from a different league is trying to hook on as a baseball player. This time it's former Bills receiver Donald Jones, who had to retire from football at 25 because of kidney disease. He's trying to become an outfielder for the Independent League Somerset Patriots.
• In the "Knock me over with a feather" category, the new Braves stadium will now cost taxpayers $18 million more than Cobb County had said it would. I'd expect that this won't be the last price tag hike.
• The grandniece of Charles Weeghman will throw out the first pitch at the Wrigley Field 100th Anniversary game on Wednesday. The ball she will use is autographed by many former Cubs, including Joe Tinker.
• Here's Todd Redmond wearing the new protective hat for pitchers. Great Gazoo!
• Not for the squeamish, which probably means I shouldn't be reading it. Here is Delino DeShields Jr's face after getting hit with a 90 mph fastball.
• Finally, you've heard broadcasters say many times that a batter "hit the cover off the ball." But they were all lying before Friday, when Brewers catcher Martin Maldonado literally hit the cover off the ball.He reached first because Pedro Alvarez could not make an accurate throw to first with a flap of the ball hanging off.

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