MLB Bullets Is Headed To The Desert

Now I'm glad that I never got around to installing that moon door at my house.

• He's back! The Diamondbacks announced the hiring of Tony La Russa as their new "chief baseball officer." What's a chief baseball officer? Apparently it's the guy the owner hires when he's lost faith in his general manager but doesn't want to buy out his contract.
• La Russa missed the thrill of competition when he worked in the commissioner's office, writes Bob Nightengale. He also says that La Russa won't make any quick decisions. He'll spend the next few months evaluating the entire Diamondbacks organization before he fires Towers and manager Kirk Gibson.
• Craig Calcaterra asks if Towers could co-exist with La Russa in the Diamondbacks organization and says he survived for four years under almost the exact same arrangement in San Diego.
• Jon Paul Morosi says that hiring La Russa will change the identity of the Diamondbacks for the better. How? I have no idea. I've read the article three times and I have no idea what that means.
• Jay Jaffe thinks the Diamondbacks may be beyond La Russa's ability to save and that their problem starts with ownership.
• The Rockies are a team that seems to have been changed for the better this season. A big reason is that their hitters have decided to party like it's 1999. At Coors Field, the Rockies are averaging an unbelievable 7.67 runs per game.
• Our friends over at Purple Row published a very interesting article that tosses some cold water on the Rockies title chances, however. Looking at the RC+ numbers on Fangraphs, they concluded that either the numbers are being incorrectly calculated for Coors Field or the Rockies are operating with the greatest home field disadvantage in history.
• A big reason for the Rockies success this season is Charlie Blackmon, who almost didn't make the team out of spring training. Jack Etkin traces the long road Blackmon took to becoming an early MVP candidate.
• Thanks in part to an interference call, the Rockies turned their first triple play since 2007. According to Cliff Corcoran in the article linked, it's the first triple play with an interference call since 1905.
• The Penn State Nittany Lions laugh at your puny triple play. They turned two triple plays in the same game on Friday. It's only the second time in NCAA history that a team has turned two triple plays in the same game. It's only happened once in MLB history.
• I guess now is as good a time as any to total up the butcher's bill. Gio Gonzalez is heading to the DL with shoulder inflammation.
• The White Sox put Jose Abreu on the DL with tendonitis in his left ankle.
• Prince Fielder isn't heading to the DL yet, but his streak of 546 consecutive games played was snapped by a herniated disc in his neck.
• The Reds are trying to decide what to do with Joey Votto, who missed the weekend series in Philadelphia with a knee strain.
• An attorney for Jose Fernandez says that being hit by a ground ball may have contributed to his needing Tommy John surgery. I always get medical diagnoses from my lawyer. Seriously, how could he possibly know that? In any case, Marlins manager Mike Redmond says he didn't see anything different about Fernandez's delivery after he was struck.
• Hyun-Jin Ryu is set to come off the DL on Wednesday.
• Ryan Zimmerman isn't ready to come off the DL. But when he does, is a move to left field in his immediate future?
• Gabe Kapler talks to Jarrod Parker and he's determined to come back from Tommy John surgery a second time.
• Wendy Thurm takes a look at exactly how much money has each pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery in the past year lost.
• Pitch counts are apparently doing a lousy job of preventing elbow injuries. But Rob Neyer thinks that they're doing a great job in reducing shoulder injuries, which are much more likely to end a pitcher's career.
• Sam Miller talks to Old Hoss Radbourn about pitch counts and injuries. Obviously, Radbourn's comments shouldn't be taken too seriously as he's a pitcher and not a physician. He's also been dead for 117 years. But the answers are predictably hilarious. Complete with a Carlos Zambrano joke.
• Danny Duffy took a perfect game into the seventh inning on Sunday.
• Jesse Spector thinks that MLB needs to expand to 32 teams ASAP. He suggests Montreal and Las Vegas and also calls for a return to the radical realignment plan of Bud Selig's that got shot down back in 1997.
• Craig Calcaterra doesn't seem to have an opinion on radical realignment and he thinks Las Vegas is a lousy candidate for expansion (which it is). But he does agree that MLB needs to expand to 32 teams in order to fix the schedule.
• Peter Gammons wonders if baseball can ever be successful in Florida.
• Bill Baer notes that the Athletics are just wiping the floor with everyone this season. Their run differential is already at +95.
• Yet the A's still get no respect. The Sacramento River Cats are trying to switch their affiliation from the Athletics to the Giants. Presumably, the A's would then have to move to Fresno. The irony here is that while the Giants are the far more popular team in Sacramento, the Athletics routinely put great, prospect-laden, winning ball clubs in Sacto while the Giants generally field mediocre teams in Fresno.
• The Cardinals are off to a mediocre start and the team is frustrated. I'm sure you're all choked up about this.
• David Schoenfield blames Matt Carpenter, Trevor Rosenthal and Allen Craig for the Cards slow start.
• Danny Salazar is off to a slow start, so the Indians told him he could start slow in Columbus. Trevor Bauer was promoted from the Clippers to take his place.
• Mike Petriello says that the Twins are a perfect example of how not to construct a ballclub. (ESPN Insider only)
• Grant Brisbee despairs that Alfredo Despaigne may never get a chance to play in MLB after his troubles in Mexico.
• Why no one can hit Johnny Cueto this season. The Reds might just win their first Cy Young Award.
• Jim Caple talks about baseball movies and thinks we may be in a new golden age of baseball movies.
• Jerry Crasnick has the true story behind the pitchers featured in "Million Dollar Arm."
• Joe Posnanski sticks up for "Field of Dreams," which has been taking a critical drubbing lately.
• David Price lost a milking contest at Angels Stadium.
• A woman was seriously hurt after falling down an elevator shaft at Fenway Park. It was not Diana Muldaur. (And yes, I included that link just so I could tell a 25 year-old L.A. Law joke.)
• Julio Franco is going to play for the independent Ft. Worth Cats this week. Franco is 55 years old.
• Someone on the Mets staff emailed the media GM Sandy Alderson's credit card number, complete with the security code and expiration date. Oops!
• Finally, you're Carlos Gomez. You just signed a big money three-year deal before last season. So what do you do now that you've got that money? If you're the real Carlos Gomez, you ask Google what rich people talk about. You know, just so you won't be left out of the conversation. Apparently they talk about the amount of potassium in kiwifruit. Who knew?

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