MLB Bullets Is Buster Posey's Good Friend

Today's the home opener! It's a battle for first place as well. Good times.

• Dodgers rookie pitcher Ross Stripling, in his first major league start, was pulled in the eighth inning of a no-hitter on Friday after throwing 100 pitches. The crowd at AT&T Park booed the decision, even though it led to a Giants victory.
• One person who agreed with the decision was Stripling's father. Stripling underwent Tommy John surgery two years ago and hadn't thrown more than 78 pitches in a start this spring.
• Cy Brown also agrees with manager Dave Roberts' decision.
• R.J. Anderson also agreed with Roberts' call to the bullpen.
• Dieter Kurtenbach, while not completely arguing with the decision, does point out that the "100 pitches" limit is a completely arbitrary number and that there is no evidence that 100 is any sort of magic number for pitch limits.
• The other rookie story of the week is Rockies rookie Trevor Story, who has set a record with his seventh home run in the first six games of the start of a career. David Schoenfield breaks down his record-setting accomplishment.
• The Orioles are the last undefeated team in baseball. Matt Snyder looks at the Birds start to the season.
• Grant Brisbee is encouraged by the White Sox start to the season, so he wonders what it would take for the South Siders to make the playoffs.
• And of course, the Padres became the first team in major league history not to score in their first three games. Owen Watson says that statistic is pretty meaningless for predicting the rest of the Padres season. Indeed, the Padres took two out of three in Colorado and they scored a lot of runs.
• Pablo Sandoval swung so hard at a pitch on Saturday that his belt burst open.
• So the next day, a Blue Jays fan in the stands brought an extra-big belt for Sandoval. Just in case.
• Speaking of belts, the Giants have signed first baseman Brandon Belt to a five-year extension.
• Will Leitch gives you ten reasons to go to a minor league baseball game. Yes! Do it. You'll have a great time and it will be affordable.
• Although a minor league doubleheader was played before an empty stadium this weekend.
• Peter Keating has a piece on how baseball now has its best young stars in 20 years.
• Mark Saxon thinks the Cardinals early season pitching and hitting looks good, but their fielding is a problem so far.
• Time for the injury report. Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos had his arm broken on a pitch, but finished the at-bat and flew out to deep right field, although he was in obvious pain. He'll miss 2 to 3 months.
• On that point, Dayn Perry thinks that Jonathan Lucroy would be a great fit for the Rangers. He even suggests Texas deal Joey Gallo for Lucroy.
• More bad news for the Rangers as Shin-Soo Choo will miss 4 to 6 weeks with a calf injury.
• Braves pitcher Dan Winkler broke his elbow while throwing a pitch on Sunday.
• Mets hurler Jacob deGrom may miss his next start with a sore muscle on his right side.
• More Mets news: Mr. Met is not happy that he's not getting an NL Championship ring. That's pretty lousy of the Mets, but I do have to admit it would probably be expensive to make a ring that could fit those giant fingers.
• And the Mets are feuding with Mike Piazza over the "9/11 jersey" that Piazza wore in the first game back from the tragedy. Apparently the Mets sold it to a collector who is now auctioning it off.
• So there's that going on in Queens. But on the awesome side, a Mets broadcast turned Bartolo Colon into a blue-skinned smurf. Papa Smurf indeed.
• And Colon made an over-the-shoulder running catch. He's the Willie Mays of infield pop-ups.
• The Dodgers made a minor deal with the Indians, picking up Zach Walters and James Ramsey from the Tribe for cash.
• Some of you last time were wondering about buying a "Cleveland Caucasians" t-shirt. Sales of these shirts have gone through the roof since Bomani Jones wore one on ESPN.
• Phillies infielder Cesar Hernandez, who has been in the league for four season, apparently still doesn't understand the infield fly rule.
• Barry Petchesky reports on a new rule this year that almost no one had mentioned before: Touching a runner with only the laces of a glove no longer counts as a tag. Good rule.
• Jose Altuve tried the hidden ball trick by sticking the ball in his back pocket. No dice.
• John Lott has a report on someone who could be a baseball superstar one day soon: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
• Russell Carleton looks at the data and disagrees with a Tom Verducci column that baseball comebacks are becoming more rare. I linked to that Verducci column last week.
• Bob Klapisch has a report that the Diamondbacks figured out that Andy Pettitte was tipping his pitches in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series. Pettitte got hammered for six runs in 2+ innings that day.
• Craig Calcaterra has an essay about the idea that the Yankees are "The Pinnacle of Baseball."
• Mitch Williams thinks he's been "blackballed" from baseball. I hope so. He's also suing MLB and Deadspin for wrongful termination and defamation.
• The story of the man who has sold over one million beers at Orioles games. (h/t Hardball Talk)
• The Nationals have added Herbert Hoover to their Racing Presidents. Really? Hoover? I get that FDR might be in bad taste, but Hoover? (Having said that, I have great admiration for Hoover's life before he became president. But as president? Not as much.)
• A look back at the punk music career of former major league pitcher and current Angels coach Scott Radinsky.
• Radinsky pitched for the White Sox, of course, so his games were called by Hawk Harrelson. Here's Hawk calling a home run blast by Mark Canha "a can of corn."
• Even the best announcers make mistakes sometimes. Jon Miller tried to cover for his mistake when he called a home run hit by Hunter Pence "a grand slam by Buster . . .Posey's good friend Hunter Pence." Pence even changed his Twitter bio to "I'm Buster Posey's good friend Hunter Pence" after that.
• And finally, the Athletics are in first place in the American League West, but they still get no respect. They had to fly home from Seattle in a plane adorned with the Giants logo and slogan. The Rodney Dangerfield of MLB teams.

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