MLB Bullets Says Misery Loves Company

You're going to have to forgive me that today's MLB Bullets is shorter than normal. Most of the stuff is about the draft anyway, and we've been covering that pretty well around here as it is. That and Don Zimmer, which we've also covered. Oh, and the World Cup, which is starting to grab the attention of the general interest sports writers. Also, I am completely gassed and at the end of my rope. And I have two more days of the draft to go.

• The Tampa Bay Rays lost their tenth straight game last night, have the worst record in baseball and are 14 games out of first place. Although they were many people's preseason favorite to win the AL East, David Schoenfield says the Rays are finished and they need to trade David Price now.
• Craig Calcaterra concurs.
• Buster Olney (ESPN Insider Only) says the Phillies have no easy solution to their long-term problems. I feel sorry for Ryne Sandberg. Anyone could tell the Phillies were a train wreck, but what was he going to do? Say no?
• This one is rich. Pete Rose, of all people, criticized Jimmy Rollins for going after a record. He really has no self-awareness, does he?
• The Dodgers are still above .500, although just barely and they're eight and a half games behind the Giants. According to manager Don Mattingly, the team is playing "S**tty baseball" and strongly implied the team is selfish. David Brown thinks maybe they just aren't that good, payroll or no payroll.
• Calcaterra asks isn't it the manager's job to keep a level head in these kinds of situations?
• The Astros, on the other hand, after three season of being absolutely awful, are above .500 since May 1. Richard Justice says the team believes the worst is behind them now and they're heading in the right direction.
• Mike Bates says that the contract that Jon Singleton signed with the Astros was an offer he couldn't refuse. No mention of horse heads, however.
• Joe Posnanski looks at how Oakland continues to win a decade after Moneyball.
• Now that the draft is underway, teams can sign Kendrys Morales without losing a pick. He appears ready to sign with someone after agent Scott Boras declined the Yankees request to wait until they could assess their own injury situation. It appears to be down to the Brewers, Mariners and the "mystery team" that usually wins.
• The draft pick that the Marlins sent to the Pirates for Bryan Morris was almost sent to Oakland for Jim Johnson.
• Jordan Lyles broke his (non-pitching) hand in the first inning on Wednesday. And then he stayed in the game for three more innings. Old Hoss Radbourn would approve, except for the "Three innings" part. He should have gone all nine.
• A scary moment for the Marlins. A broken bat form Giancarlo Stanton hit Casey McGehee in the on-deck circle. Luckily, it did not hit him with the pointy end and impale him like Tyler Colvin a few years back.
• Now here is scary news. Red Sox hitting coach Greg Colbrunn is hospitalized after suffering a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage. The team does say he's expected to make a "good" recovery, however.
• Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias hasn't played yet this season, and he won't.
• To avoid Tommy John surgery, Rob Neyer thinks that baseball needs to come up with clear and easy to understand guidelines for children.
• OK, one draft link. Rob Neyer has an oral history of the Cardinals 2009 draft, when they got five current good major leaguers in one draft. Of course the punch line, of whom they were going to take if Shelby Miller wasn't available, just goes to show that drafting is an inexact science even by the best of them.
• OK, two draft links. This one ties into my "history of the Cubs draft" article I just published on Tuesday. Ben Lindbergh runs the numbers for all current major leaguers and who they were drafted by. By both sheer number and value, the Cubs actually finish in the top ten. There's one metric they don't do so well in, but it's a lot better than "the worst drafting team of all time" that I called them.
• One final draft story, although it's more than a draft story. Andrew Marchand has an oral history of the story of Brien Taylor, the #1 pick in the draft whose career was ended in a bar fight one night. It's not a happy story.
• Greg Doyel has no problem with players who were suspended for PED use being in the All-Star Game, just not in the Hall of Fame.
• The Rangers/Kings Stanley Cup Finals (Go Kings!) has rekindled memories of the last time New York and Los Angeles faced off in a major sports championship--the 1981 World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers. (This, of course, doesn't count the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals between the New Jersey Devils and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, or as more than one wag commented at the time: "Only the NHL could screw up a NY/LA final.")
• Anthony Castrovince has a look back at Cleveland's infamous "Ten Cent Beer Night" which was 40 years ago this week.
• Grant Brisbee has a slideshow of photos from that game. Look, I'm not saying baseball was better in the 70s and that I want to go back to that. It wasn't and I don't. But boy, the seventies were a lot more interesting than today's game.
• 50 Cent has a rather. . . umm. . . unusual excuse for his poor first pitch. Might not want to click on it at work.
• But as this video proves, Vladimir Guerrero can hit it anyway!

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