MLB Bullets keeps hitting dingers

It was good to see Alfonso Soriano catching a Cubs game in St. Pete. Don’t be a stranger, Fonzie. It seems weird that Anthony Rizzo, Jake Arrieta and Hector Rondon are his only teammates left on the team.

• Royals outfielder Alex Gordon hit the 5,964 home run of the MLB season last night, thus setting a new record. Gordon didn’t hit them all himself, in case you were wondering.
• David Schoenfield says that Gordon was an unlikely candidate for the record home run, since he’s having a miserable season and only has eight home runs so this year.
• That wouldn’t come as a surprise to Sam Miller, who notes that baseball is overrun with a bunch of terrible hitters who have 30 or more home runs this season. He notes that this is a fairly new phenomenon.
• Jorge L. Ortiz summarizes some of the explanations for why there have been so many home runs this year. Schoenfield also goes into some of these reasons in the piece on Gordon.
• Grant Brisbee notes that if you think all these home runs are a problem, don’t blame the Giants because they’re the only team not hitting them and he’s going to explain why.
• Brisbee also notes that according to WAR, Mike Trout is already the greatest player in Angels history and he’s only 26 years old.
• Eno Sarris also speaks with Trout’s teammate Andrelton Simmons and breaks down why Simmons is having a breakout season.
• The Angels are also one of the teams alive for the second American League Wild Card spot and Jeff Passan notes that a seven-way tie for the spot is still possible. He also notes that MLB has no contingency plan for a tie of more than four teams.
• Other than that AL Wild Card race between seven mediocre teams, Alex Putterman thinks that this is one of the worst pennant runs in recent history.
• Travis Sawchik thinks that once the playoffs start, no one will want to face the Yankees. Maybe that’s why it seems like no one wants to be the second Wild Card.
• Tom Verducci thinks that the addition of Justin Verlander makes the Astros a team that’s built for playoff success.
• Cliff Corcoran looks at the Brewers on the eve of their critical week in their playoff hunt. Milwaukee is now just one game back of the Rockies for the second Wild Card in the National League.
• Speaking of the Rockies, David Schoenfield looks at the cases for both Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon for team (and NL) MVP.
• Here’s a longform article that you should take a look at. Wright Thompson looks at what went on in the Indians clubhouse during their American League-record win streak.
• Here’s one thing Indians pitchers Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco do in the clubhouse: They make caricatures of all their teammates out of baseballs.
• Ben Lindbergh looks at Ichiro Suzuki and his chase to set a record for most pinch-hits in a season, as well as what it takes to be a good pinch hitter. (Al wrote about this last month as well.)
• Michael Baumann has one reason for each of the 30 teams as to why Shohei Otani should sign with them. I feel like the Cubs offer of $300,000 is going to feel a lot like Lorne Michaels’ famous offer of $3,200 for a Beatles reunion concert.
• Jim Allen calls the current posting system unfair and that the recently-leaked details of the negotiations would make them even more unfair. He thinks this is bad for baseball in Japan and everywhere.
• Jesse Yomtov has nine upcoming free agents who have hurt their value with poor seasons in 2017.
• Maybe no one more than Jose Bautista has, and Dave Cameron believes Bautista may find himself out of work in 2018. And every year after that.
• One-time Mets ace Matt Harvey has been terrible this season and he’s never really recovered after his Tommy John surgery. Jon Tayler thinks Harvey’s sad tale is pretty much the perfect metaphor for the Mets.
• Dayn Perry looks at what 2018 looks like for the Pirates and what has to happen for the Bucs to contend again.
• Now that the Athletics have announced their choice for a new stadium site, the NIMBY brigade is out in force with their complaints. Some may be valid complaints. Others, probably not so much.
• Craig Calcaterra thinks that if you don’t know who A’s first baseman Matt Olson is, you’d better get familiar with this budding star soon.
• The independent minor league Wichita Wingnuts thought they had won the American Association title with a ground out, but as they celebrated on the field, the umpire ruled that he had called a balk on the play and the ball was dead. Wichita went on to lose game 4 of the best-of-five series to Winnipeg in extra innings. Last night’s game 5 was rained out, so Wichita has another chance to win the title tonight, weather permitting.
• Sad news as Orioles minor league pitcher Miguel Elias Gonzalez died in yet another car accident in the Dominican Republic.
• Stephon Pujols-Johnson recalls his love of the Mets and the connection he feels to the late pitcher Anthony Young.
• Tigers pitcher Jeff Ferrell was hit in the head with a line drive. He left the game but amazingly, he never left his feet.
• A better approach was displayed by Phillies pitcher Nick Pivetta who caught a line drive back to the mound inside his jersey.
• Forty-five people dressed like “Magnum P.I.” were kicked out of a Tigers game for being jerks. None of them were actually Tom Selleck.
• And finally, we’ve heard that Cubs pitcher Jose Quintana learned English in part by watching Jimmy Fallon, but apparently he’s an outlier. James Wagner reports that the show of choice for Latin ballplayers trying to learn English is Friends. Yeah, I’m not sure why either, but creator Marta Kauffman says she’s honored, that she’d like to meet the ballplayers and that she apologizes to the wife of Freddy Galvis who has been driven crazy with her husband’s Friends obsession.

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