MLB Bullets Is Off To A Great Start

I need to apply for a job with Amazin’ Avenue for all the time I spend thinking and writing about the Mets.

• Ben Lindbergh looks at seven teams who are off to surprisingly good starts in 2017, how they did it and can they keep doing it.
• Dayn Perry examines just how the Reds are managing to be early-season contenders in the NL Central.
• Jeff Sullivan credits the Reds’ outstanding defense this year for their early success.
• Will Leitch breaks down MLB teams into good teams, bad teams and lucky teams.
• Mike Lupica notes that the Yankees and Mets are both in the spotlight this season (well, more than usual) and that is solidifying New York as a baseball-first town.
• Mets closer Jeurys Familia is on the disabled list for an unknown amount of time for an arterial clot in his pitching shoulder. Zach Kramm looks at the Mets injury woes and thinks we’ve hit peak Met-ness.
• Anthony Castrovince has some predictions for the trade deadline. I would like to see Yu Darvish in Cubbie blue. How much he’s going to cost is the issue.
• Dodgers outfielder Andrew Toles will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL.
• Jeremy Dorn believes that the Dodgers should and will restart the Ryan Braun trade talks with the Brewers.
• Jonah Keri thinks the Dodgers Cody Bellinger has “Wally Pipp’d” Adrian Gonzalez.
• Jack Magruder thinks this is the year that the Giants finally become sellers at the trade deadline.
• The Giants did something they haven’t done in exactly two years: They won a game that they trailed after eight innings. The last time they had a ninth-inning comeback was also on May 10, but in 2015.
• As you might imagine, Grant Brisbee got a little loopy over this development. He does say that we’ll all get through this if we hoard gold and canned goods.
• The Mariners pitching woes got worse as Hisashi Iwakuma went on the DL with shoulder inflammation. Dayn Perry thinks the Mariners are going to have a hard time staying in the AL West race.
• The Mariners had to play two men short in Toronto as visa issues kept pitcher Ariel Miranda and outfielder Guillermo Heredia from getting into Canada by the start of the M’s first game against the Blue Jays.
• The Phillies gave manager Pete Mackanin a two-year extension.
• However, Phillies reliever Joaquin Benoit doesn’t seem to be a fan of Mackanin’s handling of the bullpen.
• Dave Cameron notes that Phillies outfielder Aaron Altherr is finally living up to his early promise. Altherr has essentially been as good a hitter as Eric Thames has been this year.
• Ryan Zimmerman is definitely back to his all-star ways this year, and he’s enjoying things for the first time in a few years.
• David Schoenfield notes that Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel has been as good this season as he was the year he won the Cy Young, but he’s not doing it the same way.
• Jay Jaffe picks a “Face of the Team” for each MLB franchise.
• There has been a lot of talk about a “juiced ball” this year. Sam Miller thinks the only issue is that MLB needs to be more transparent about the ball.
• Mike Petriello argues that there are more home runs not because the ball is juiced, but because more hitters are trying to hit home runs. He also asks hitters why they think they are hitting more homers.
• Buster Olney thinks that MLB is heading towards ties or tiebreaker rules for games that go longer than 12 innings.
• Will Leitch thinks that’s a terrible idea.
• Indians owner Paul Dolan said that the matter of Chief Wahoo will be “resolved in a couple of years.” There’s only one way this can be “resolved.”
• The Athletics have reportedly narrowed their choices for the site of a new ballpark down to two. Neither one is the current site of the Coliseum, although that’s being described as the third choice.
• Sometimes Mike Trout goes 0 for 5. And likewise, sometimes Rays Gold Glove outfielder Kevin Keirmaier has a couple of bad days on defense.
• Seth Romero was expected to go in the first round of this June’s MLB draft, but that is in doubt now as Romero was kicked off the University of Houston baseball team after getting into a fight with a teammate. It was not the first problem that Houston has had with Romero, as he had been suspended at least twice before.
• Paul Lukas has some suggestions for making MLB batting helmets a little more decorative. Some of them are good ideas and some of them aren’t, Lukas admits. But I like the effort.
• Manny Ramirez is still hitting home runs in Japan. Are they going to have a ring ceremony for him in Japan with his independent league team? (I don’t even know if Manny is getting a World Series ring.)
• And finally, Yasiel Puig learned a painful and embarrassing lesson that it takes more than anger and brute strength to break a bat over your knee.

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