MLB Bullets suffers a setback

Remember in Spring Training when the big debate in the comments section at MLB Bullets was whether Shohei Ohtani should start the season in the minors?

I have to admit, however. I thought he’d be a great pitcher, but I didn’t think he’d hit in the majors.

• The Angels found new damage in the elbow of Shohei Ohtani and have recommended that he undergo Tommy John surgery. So naturally, he went 4 for 4 with two home runs on the same day. He also stole a base.
• Bob Nightengale is bummed about this and thinks everyone else should be too. For once, Nightengale is correct.
• Jeff Sullivan writes that despite this, Ohtani’s rookie season has been a “major” success.
• R.J. Anderson looks at Ohtani’s case for American League Rookie of the Year. He should win it, but he probably won’t.
• Michael Baumann writes that as bad as this development is, things could have been a lot worse for Ohtani and the Angels.
• David Schoenfield thinks the Angels handled everything as well as possible and what we should expect for Ohtani’s career post-surgery.
• And here’s a big reason why it could have been worse. Jeff Passan writes that Ohtani should still be able to hit in 2019. So while he won’t pitch again until 2020, he’ll still play in 2019 as a DH.
• Tim Brown looks at the good things in sports that explain why we’re fans. It might have something to do with something from a different sport, but Brown writes about baseball here.
• Grant Brisbee looks back at steroids, baseball and the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and thinks we’re remembering it all wrong.
• In the weirdest story of the week, the Tigers broadcast team was sent home from Chicago after color commentator Rod Allen tried to choke play-by-play announcer Mario Impemba. One has to assume they’re done as a team.
• Second weirdest story? Athletics reliever Shawn Kelley injured himself washing dishes. He cut his pitching thumb while cleaning a sharp knife. That’s why you place the knife on a flat surface and wash one side and then flip it over and wash the other side.
• Zach Kram looks at the state of the races for the postseason BBWAA Awards.
• Jon Heyman reports that Blue Jays manager John Gibbons will be fired at the end of the year. Heyman also reports that Gibbons knows this already.
• However, Indians third baseman Josh Donaldson, through his agent, have flatly denied a Heyman report that Donaldson turned down a three-year extension offer from the Blue Jays early this season.
• The Blue Jays are defending their decision to not call up Vladimir Guerrero Jr., saying it has nothing to do with service time. They also say that he can help his development more by playing in the Arizona Fall League than in the majors, which is probably the biggest crock of nonsense this season.
• The Players Association is filing a grievance over the Guerrero situation. It will probably go as far as the grievance about Kris Bryant in 2015, which seems to have disappeared.
• As long as we’re in Toronto, the Indians will remove their Chief Wahoo logo from their sleeves for their series with the Blue Jays. Good. They can leave them off. They’re going away next season anyway.
• S. L. Price goes inside the Nationals clubhouse and examines where the season all went wrong.
• The A’s have experimented with the “bullpenning” strategy that the Rays have used successfully this year. But the team is getting some resistance from their pitchers, who do not seem to like it. (The Athletic subscription req.)
• Craig Calcaterra admits that “bullpenning” may be a good strategy, but he does not like it and explains why.
• Mike Petriello examines Astros reliever Ryan Pressly and how his “spin-rate” is the key to his success.
• Emma Baccellieri looks at the Women’s Baseball World Cup as a terrific example of how the game is growing. Also, these women can play. No, none of them are going to be major leaguers, but they’re very good at what they can do.
• Rockies shortstop Trevor Story hit the longest home run of the Statcast era at 505 feet. It was just one of three home runs he hit that night.
• The A’s just faced the Yankees in a three-game series that served as a preview of the AL Wild Card game. Coley Harvey has five things we’ve learned from that series.
• Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier is not expected to return this year from injury.
• Padres rookie Francisco Mejia hit two home runs in his first major-league start.
• Nationals closer Sean Doolittle has issued a challenge to hitters: hit a home run off of him and celebrate so much that you get fined. Then Doolittle will match any fine with a donation to a charity of the player’s choice. Of course, Doolittle has to get back on the mound for that to happen. Maybe Javy Baez can do it this weekend?
• Cody Benjamin looks back at baseball in 1918 and argues that the sport was forever changed by America’s entrance into World War I. One thing I never considered was that horses were enlisted into the war effort, so a lot of gamblers moved from horse racing to baseball.
• Eric Robinson writes about how being a baseball fan helped him recover from a stroke.
• The Mobile BayBears of the Double-A Southern League are going to become the Rocket City Trash Pandas in 2020. They’re moving to the Huntsville area which means shorter road trips for the Smokies.
• “Marlins Man” is going to sign a one-day contract with the Marlins. He won a charity auction for that. It will be his first time in Marlins Park since his feud with the new owners started this past offseason.
• Bryce Harper got to design a set of baseball cards for Topps and they’re pretty neat.
• And finally, there are few joys in life like watching Andrew McCutchen talk about his life on a self-shot video. Here’s McCutchen complaining about his off-day in Seattle after his luggage was lost. He threatens to walk about Seattle in the hotel robe because he’s got no clothes.

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