MLB Bullets is off to a good start

Who own da Brewers? The Cubs own da Brewers.

• The Pirates called up prospect Nick Kingham from the minor leagues and he took a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Cardinals yesterday. The 20-straight batters Kingham retired to start a career is a record since at least 1961. It might be longer than that, but that’s all the farther back that Elias Stats will confirm at this point.
• Adam Berry has more details from Kingham’s debut.
• Which means that Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval only has 17 more batters to go as he retired the side in order on Saturday in his pitching debut in a 15-4 blowout against the Dodgers.
• Angels pitcher/DH Shohei Ohtani will miss his start on Tuesday with a mild ankle sprain suffered when running out a ground ball on Friday. And that’s a big reason why Ohtani may have to give up hitting even if he continues to mash like he has so far this season.
• David Schoenfield asks what is more likely: Ohtani throwing a no-hitter or hitting for the cycle?
• Buster Olney reports on how Mike Trout’s endless pursuit of self-improvement makes him the best player in the game today.
• Ben Lindbergh notes how Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius and Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons both went from Little League teammates in Curacao to unheralded minor leaguers to two of the best all-around shortstops in the game today. Gregorius and Simmons first met at age 7 and 6 as teammates. Also on some of those youth baseball teams the two played together on was Kenley Jansen, and that is one impressive collection of talent on one Little League team.
• Travis Sawchik has a philosophical question. On this play with a radical shift, is the Mariners’ Robinson Cano an infielder or an outfielder? He’s certainly closer to the right fielder than the infield dirt.
• Royals catcher Salvador Perez went all “fun police” on White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson for celebrating a home run too much. I don’t know that Anderson did anything that Perez hasn’t done many, many times. Bill Baer thinks that Perez may have been creating a controversy to fire up a struggling Royals team.
• Dodgers manager Dave Roberts benched first baseman Cody Bellinger for not hustling and Bellinger “politely” disagreed that he hadn’t hustled. Bellinger was careful not to criticize his manager, but he said that he was hustling on the play in question.
• Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper has walked 36 times already this season and he’s getting pretty tired of it. He showed his displeasure at being intentionally walked on Sunday. Harper only walked 68 times all of 2017.
• Craig Edwards believes that MLB would not lose much money by going to a 154-game schedule, although he’s still against it.
• Shane Tourtellotte traces the history of ballpark capacity throughout the 20th century until today.
• The Diamondbacks have won all nine of their series to start the season which no National League team has done since the Cubs in 1907. (The 2001 Mariners were the last team to do it in the American League.)
• On the other side, Jon Heyman examines the six worst teams in MLB so far this year.
• The Cubs have had a runner on third base and less than two outs 62 times this year and have scored a run 22 times. Do you know if that’s good or bad? Jeff Sullivan looks at how often should teams expect to get that runner home. (BTW—the Cubs total is bad.)
• Reliever Francisco Rodriguez has signed with the independent league Long Island Ducks as he hopes to continue his baseball career.
• Now for the casualty report. The Dodgers put Yasiel Puig on the disabled list with a hip contusion.
• The Padres put Wil Myers on the DL with an oblique strain.
• Phillies starter Ben Lively is on the DL with a lower back strain.
• Disabled Giants infielder Joe Panik will likely need thumb surgery.
• Diamondbacks starter Robbie Ray left his start on Sunday with a strained oblique.
• Braves outfielder Ronald Acuna has been in the majors for a week and Jay Jaffe is here to tell you why he’s got a better chance of making the Hall of Fame than you probably think.
• Former minor league pitcher Corey Baker has moved into the Twins video room and now he knows exactly what the job is like for those people who watch the video to decide whether or not to challenge a call. And if you read the article, you’ll know what goes on in that room too.
• Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez “accidentally” flipped off the audience and tells the story of the Dr. Seuss tie he got from Seinfeld.
• Here’s some video of the bizarre Chiba Lotte Marines fish mascot pushing a suitcase out of his mouth.
• Phillies outfielder Odubel Herrera robbed a home run from out of a tree.
• And finally, Red Sox pitcher Joe Kelly is serving a six-game suspension. So he spent the day at Fenway Park watching the game and eventually ended up in the bleachers. Because the Red Sox came back and won, it seems likely that he may spend more games of his suspension in the stands.

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