MLB Bullets Isn't Perfect

Have a nice day!

• Everyone here is a fan of baseball and we talk a lot about baseball. We talk about the players, the owners, the coaches and the fans. We talk about finances. We talk about the equipment: the uniforms, the balls, the bats and the helmets. But one thing we pretty much never talk about are the bases. You know, the thing that gets lead billing over the ball? Baseball? Steve Wulf has a three-part examination of the issues around bases for ESPN.com. The first part is about how the nature of the base could be leading to all the sliding injuries we've been having lately and how there is a better alternative out there that MLB has not even really examined, despite being around for 25 years.
• Part two is on the inventor of that safer base and the obstacles he has faced.
• The third part is on the colorful character who invented the bases that MLB currently uses, the Jack Corbett Hollywood Base. (Invented by Jack Corbett in Van Nuys, of course. No one would buy the Jack Corbett Van Nuys Base.)
• The big news over the weekend was Yu Darvish's almost no-hitter, the second one that he's had broken up with two outs in the ninth.
• Well, technically. The controversy of this no-hitter was a routine David Ortiz pop up that dropped between Rougned Odor (making his major league debut) and Alex Rios. The Arlington official scorer ruled it a hit. Eric Stephen looks at the rulebook and says that by the letter of the law, the scorer was within his rights to rule it an error.
• But as Deadspin points out with numerous examples, it is never ruled an error.
• Even after the game was over and Darvish lost the no-hitter, the ruling was still controversial.
• Joe Posnanski has a thoughtful (does he write anything else?) look at the situation and says that the error rule is ridiculous. In fact, the very concept of an error is ridiculous and that it is a result of the cult of the pitcher (my term, not his) over looking at run prevention as a team effort. (Of course it is. We give pitchers no-hitters because we think that the second baseman should have caught the ball. But we never take a no-hitter away from a pitcher because the center fielder made a spectacular catch on a screaming line drive that should have been a double.)
• Steven Goldman is happy that Yu Darvish has failed to throw a no-hitter because we remember almost great a lot more than just the great.
• Posnanski has another great article provides more evidence that Ned Yost is The Worst Manager in Baseball.™ This one has to do with the absolute idiocy of an intentional walk to Robinson Cano in the third inning of a game.
• The Phillies' Mike Adams started to issue an intentional walk, but Chase Utley apparently convinced him to pitch to the guy. End result? Strikeout.
• Howard Megdal thinks that Utley is should be a serious Hall of Fame candidate, although he likely isn't going to be. He thinks that's a shame.
• Tim Hudson probably isn't going to the Hall of Fame, but he's an early candidate for the NL Cy Young Award this season. His great season is due in part to his cutting his already low walk numbers almost down to zero. (Hudson has three unintentional walks in 60.1 innings so far.) Buster Posey's ability to frame a pitch has played a role in that.
• One of the criticisms of the Reds Joey Votto is that he's too passive with runners in scoring position. Jonah Keri says the data shows that Votto does let more strikes go by with runners on base.
• The Rockies are cutting down their strikeouts this season and becoming an offensive powerhouse.
• The legend of Sonny Gray, ace of the Athletics.
• Let's start with the positive injury news. The Reds are happy that Billy Hamilton returned to the lineup.
• More importantly, Aroldis Chapman returned to a major league mound and struck out the don't-strike-out Rockies in order for his first save. True story. My phone buzzes with an alert from MLB. Up on my phone comes the notification "Reds LHP Aroldis Chapman struck" and the rest was cut off. My first thought was "He was struck by a line drive AGAIN? Oh no!"
• The Orioles got Chris Davis back from the DL. Christina Kahrl examines Davis' impact and if that will be enough to keep the O's in first place.
• On the bad news front, the Giants' Brandon Belt was hit by a pitch and the resulting broken thumb will keep him disabled for six weeks.
• Yet another possible draft pick for the Cubs is going to have Tommy John surgery as UNLV's Erick Fedde will go under the knife. The way this is going, there will only be three healthy draft-eligible players by June.
• The Yankees CC Sabathia heads to the DL with knee inflammation.
• Even though he only pitched there a couple of months, Sabathia is still a hero in Milwaukee.
• Speaking of the Brewers, they tried to make Rickie Weeks learn to play left field. He said no, no, no.
• Peter Gammons says that the current free agent and draft pool system are completely broken.
• Rob Neyer thinks certain teams ought to lose the draft pick and sign either Stephen Drew or Kendrys Morales now.
• In a video, Ken Rosenthal says that Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson probably needs to have a good homestand to keep his job. Of course, last year he said Don Mattingly was going to get fired too. He did mea culpa that one though.
• The Tigers moved the start time of a game to accommodate a Detroit Lions game. However, the situation was totally different from last year's Orioles/Ravens brouhaha.
• I really had hoped I was done with Biogenesis. Maybe if I bury it near the bottom of the links no one will notice. You guys all skip these links, right? Anyway, it turns out that Alex Rodriguez was right about at least one thing: MLB bought documents that they knew were stolen and withheld them from law enforcement officials for months, despite being told to turn them over immediately if they came into their possession.
• Georgia State University has big plans for Turner Field after the Braves leave.
• Tracy McGrady's professional baseball debut didn't go all that well.
• He's still having the time of his life.
• Finally, we've certainly had a lot of Reds news today. Here's one more. Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman gave the Rockies broadcast crew the finger during a broadcast over the weekend.

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