MLB Bullets can travel through time

Good morning.

• Angels outfielder Mike Trout should play his 1000th career game tomorrow. David Schoenfield and Sam Miller looks back at what Trout has accomplished and how he stacks up with the other all-time greats.
• Bob Nightengale is more interested Trout’s future and in particular, the year 2020 when Trout can become a free agent.
• This is a fascinating article in The Atlantic, which looks at how teams are attempting to understand “team chemistry.” Does it exist and if so, what role it plays in winning? The next step, of course, is how can you build a team with “good chemistry.”
• Susan Slusser notes that there are signs that the “Billy Beane era” in Oakland could come to an end after the 2019 season, as Beane does not have a contract past next season and there has been little effort to extend Beane’s current deal. She also speculates that Beane could be headed across the Bay to the Giants in that case.
• Bob Nightengale writes that Mickey Callaway is the latest Mets manager to learn that the job will keep you up nights.
• Matt Snyder argues that the Mets should be open to trading ace pitcher Jacob deGrom.
• Jon Paul Morosi reports that the Diamondbacks have had preliminary talks with the Orioles about Manny Machado. That’s a long way from a deal, but at least we know of one team that’s interested.
• Just don’t trade Machado before Sunday. That’s when JJ Roddenberry is going to get to see his favorite player play his hometown Braves for his 14th birthday. The kid’s reaction to getting to see Machado play went viral and now Machado has invited Roddenberry to hang with the Orioles during batting practice. Unless they trade him to the Braves. That would work. It would also make some sense for the Braves.
• The Nationals made a move as they picked up reliever Kelvin Herrera from the Royals for three minor leaguers.
• Jeff Sullivan looks at what the Nats got in Herrera how they will likely use him.
• Eric Longenhagen looks at what the Royals got back from the Nationals.
• But did they get a time-traveler? Because the Nationals apparently got one. Outfielder Juan Soto hit a home run in a game five days before his major league debut.
• The Giants and Marlins got in a beanball war yesterday and everyone behaved foolishly.
• But as David Schoenfield writes, especially the Giants behaved foolishly. Even Giants fans and Bay Area writers agreed.
• Speaking of acting foolishly by the Giants (and you can read in the link in the last bullet of how these two events are related), closer Hunter Strickland is out for 6 to 8 weeks after punching a door with his pitching hand after he blew a save.
• I guess that’s as good a cue as any to write up the butcher’s bill. Phillies infielder J.P. Crawford is out 4 to 6 weeks after his left hand was broken after getting hit by a pitch.
• Mets reliever A.J. Ramos has a torn labrum and will undergo season-ending surgery.
• Nationals first baseman Matt Adams is on the disabled list with a broken finger. Again, his finger was hit by a pitch. This would be a great time to tell that old joke that the best way to break (fill in the blank)’s finger is to hit him in the nose, but someone would think I was serious and then I’d get angry letters to ignore.
• So it’s a good thing that Phillies outfielder Nick Williams didn’t break his finger. Because he left Monday’s game with the Cardinals after a ball bounced off the outfield wall and clobbered him in the nose. There was a lot of blood (as noses are known to do) but Williams says he’s OK.
• Later in that game, the Phillies won when Aaron Altherr hit a walk-off two-run double that Cardinals left fielder Marcell Ozuna dived for rather than trying to keep in front of him in order to keep the winning run from scoring from first base. Craig Edwards runs the percentages on how Ozuna should have played that ball. Admitting, of course, that Ozuna wasn’t doing math in his head before he dived for the ball.
• The Astros 12-game winning streak is over and Michael Clair has a look at the best moments of the streak.
• The Rangers demoted reliever Yohander Mendez to Triple-A for breaking team rules. Apparently Mendez wasn’t the only one punished for whatever happened, but he was the only one sent to the minors.
• The Orioles designated Pedro Alvarez for assignment. Not because he broke team rules, unless “Try not to suck” is also an Orioles team rule. If so, they’d have to punish a lot more players than just Alvarez.
• Just last year, the Athletics released Max Muncy. As Michael Baumann writes in this profile, just one year later, Muncy has come out of nowhere to save the Dodgers season.
• Jeff Sullivan notes that a big reason for the Brewers terrific season is free-agent signing Lorenzo Cain, who is having the best season of his career at age 32.
• R.J. Anderson thinks the White Sox may have found a gem in Dylan Covey.
• A strong performance by the Mariners bullpen propelled them to a great start to the season. The members of the M’s bullpen were expected to regress back to their career norms as the season progressed, but as Rian Watt writes, the bullpen has stayed good and so have the Mariners.
• Travis Sawchik looks at the Yankees impressive record of developing little-heralded pitchers into productive major leaguers.
• Sad news as longtime National League umpire Dutch Rennert has died at 88. Rennert retired after the 1992 season, so if you’re too young to remember him, please go to that link and watch him call a strike. Those of us who watched National League baseball in that era will never forget it.
• Red Sox pitcher David Price has been having a good season since coming off the disabled list for carpal tunnel syndrome that some in the Boston media speculated (probably falsely) that Price got from playing video games. Anyway, Price isn’t too keen on pitching in the All-Star Game, feeling he needs the rest. So he joked that if he gets named to the team “I’ll play a lot of Fortnight the night before” the game.
• David Schoenfield makes a College World Series All-Star team of current major leaguers. Anyone able to guess which two current Cubs made his team?
• Whitney McIntosh thinks the Mets should sign Jennifer Lopez to a contract. This is just an excuse to show video of J-Lo playing whiffle ball with A-Rod, but really, could she be any worse than Jose Reyes? Is it any sillier than signing Tim Tebow? Of course, “Jenny from the Block” is all about being from the Bronx, so changing allegiances to Queens might be a subway ride too far for her.
• Diamondbacks outfielder Steven Souza Jr. wandered the concourse of Chase Field in full uniform, fist-bumping D-Backs fans as he went.
• Pirates pitcher Steven Brault sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Tuesday night’s game. The guy can actually sing.
• And finally, in honor of the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie Bull Durham, the Potomac Nationals recreated the famous “mound scene” from that movie. I know they did do a lot for the 30th anniversary, but how in the world did the Durham Bulls not think of this? They’ve gotten all snooty since they moved up to Triple-A.

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