MLB Bullets is not talking to you

Happy Friday and it’s the last day of school around my house.

• Boston has broken many a baseball man. If you remember, Theo Epstein once quit as general manager and snuck out of Fenway in a gorilla suit. Now Red Sox pitcher David Price announced that he was limiting his access to the Boston media.
• OK. Fine and good. Steve Carlton didn’t speak to anyone in the media for almost 15 years. But after CSNNE Red Sox reporter Evan Drellich tweeted about the situation, he and Price got into a loud argument after the game.
• Drellich tells his side of the story, although he refuses to reveal many details of what Price said to him. (Video)
• You are already aware of the domestic violence allegations against Addison Russell, but it pains me to report that he wasn’t the only ballplayer accused of such behavior since Wednesday. Rays catcher Derek Norris is being investigated by MLB after his ex-fiancée accused him of abuse on Instagram and in a blog post.
• This article has some direct links to Norris’s ex-fiancée’s posts.
• How can MLB Bullets get any more depressing? I know: It has been revealed that Oregon State pitcher Luke Heimlich is a registered sex offender. Heimlich was expected to be taken in the second or third round of next week’s draft.
• Jeff Passan reports that several teams have removed Heimlich from their draft boards, including the Cubs.
• On good news from the draft, Keith Law explains why Hunter Greene is a name you should know. Greene is expected to be one of the first four picks in the draft.
• Chuck Wasserstrom talks with longtime ESPN baseball reporter Jayson Stark, who was recently laid off from the company. Stark isn’t bitter and spends a lot of his day continuing to do the work that he used to get paid for, only he’s the only one who gets to see it.
• Michael Baumann asks with Mike Trout injured, who is the best player in baseball?
• Ben Lindbergh thinks that the AL East and the NL East could end up being the best and worst divisions in baseball history, respectively.
• But David Schoenfield explains why the AL West residents Houston Astros are the best team in all of baseball.
• Neil Paine notes that the Blue Jays are finally playing at the high level we expected out of them at the beginning of the season, but in the tough AL East it may already be too late for them to earn a playoff spot.
• Bob Nightengale reports from Astros camp and a belief that “this can be the year.” I had said for a while that the Astros were one year behind the Cubs in their rebuild. I didn’t mean it that literally.
• One bit of bad news for the Astros is that Dallas Keuchel was placed on the DL with neck spasms.
• Mark Kiszla thinks that Denver has become a baseball town this summer and identifies the exact moment he thinks it happened.
• While their attendance may be down, the television ratings for this year’s Yankees broadcasts are way up.
• Gary Phillips notes that CC Sabathia is pitching like an ace again, but that the Yankees need to limit his innings in order to keep him at this level.
• Why are the Athletics in last place? Their horrible defense is part of the problem.
• Jeff Sullivan thinks the Brewers may have found an ace in Jimmy Nelson.
• Joe Sparacio says pretty much the same thing about the Mariners and James Paxton.
• Jeff Passan reports everything we know about Shohei Otani coming to play in MLB: We don’t know anything. Otani would sacrifice around $200 million to come to MLB before 2019. He may do so anyway. Or he may not. We don’t know anything.
• Travis Sawchik notes that umpires are having trouble calling an accurate strike on the 6’7” Aaron Judge. A lot of pitches that are below Judge’s knees are not below the knees of most major league ballplayers, for example.
• Edwin Jackson was called up to pitch for the Orioles, marking the 12th different team Jackson has pitched for. That’s one short of Octavio Dotel’s record.
• Anthony Castrovince has five questions heading into this year’s trade market.
• Buster Olney looks at how baseball games are slowing down again and says there will be a pitch clock in MLB in 2018. Honestly, I’ve been to minor league games with the pitch clock and you don’t even notice it. I was also at a nine-inning game that lasted 2 hours and 14 minutes last week. Yes, it was not a high-scoring game and there were no mid-inning pitching changes, which also made a difference.
• Jerry Crasnick talks with Billy Hamilton about running the bases and how no one does it better than he does.
• Matt Snyder notes that Nationals manager Dusty Baker still doesn’t have a contract for 2018, despite the Nats’ success this season
• Grant Brisbee places Scooter Gennett’s four home run game in his Hall of Weird Baseball.
• Eric Young Jr. has a moving story about the death of his son and why he plays for the name on the back of his jersey.
• MLB pulled the auction of the jersey that Giants reliever Hunter Strickland wore the day he got in a fight with Bryce Harper.
• By the way, Bryce Harper managed to literally knock the cover off the ball.
• A Phillies game got delayed when Maikel Franco’s bat got stuck in the netting.
• Injured Mets ace and noted Mr. Met arch-enemy Noah Syndergaard thinks that Mr. Met had an emotional breakdown.
• Mike Oz opens baseball cards from 1992 with Dee Gordon, hoping to pull a Tom Gordon card.
• The Bachelor Canada show will feature former major league pitcher Chris Leroux as this season’s bachelor. A former Cubs minor league pitcher was the “winner” of the US-version of the Bachelorette a few seasons ago.
• Here’s something I didn’t know. The original idea for a stadium for what would eventually become the Padres was designed to be built floating on water in San Diego harbor.
• Arizona senator John McCain blamed his recent incoherence on staying up too late to watch the Diamondbacks. At least he had a good excuse.
• The Athletics Twitter account schooled Wendy’s.
• And finally, many of us get annoyed with all the graphics on our screens when we’re trying to watch a game. But the MLB Network learned the hard way that overlaying one graphic on another can lead to some embarrassing results. Hey, I’ve still got a copy of the 2010 Cubs Anal. (Sorry, Al.)

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