MLB Bullets sits on the Iron Throne

As I write this, I have not yet seen the finale of Game of Thrones. I will have seen it by the time you read this. I still ask that people refrain from spoilers in the comments. I will say that I have it on good authority that the Royals mascot Sluggerrr fails to win the Iron Throne. I think he gets poisoned by Orbit at a wedding. I hope that’s not a spoiler.

Can you imagine if MLB had a system of promotion and relegation? The Mets and the Marlins would be on their third manager this season already.

• The Mets are in trouble as they’ve lost their last five games, which is bad but the worst part of that was that three of those losses were to to the lowly Marlins. These losses were highlighted by two baserunning gaffes by second baseman Robinson Cano.
• Mets manager Mickey Callaway defended Cano.
• Buster Olney writes that Callaway’s job is in jeopardy as the Mets fall out of contention. (ESPN+ sub. req.) Olney also looks at the Mets long history of firing people to distract from the general failures of the organization.
• Callaway is supposed to meet with team general manager Brodie Van Wagenen today, but the word is the Mets will not fire Callaway today and that his job is safe for now.
• Mets ace pitcher Noah Syndergaard (and deep-fried Lannister spear thrower) Noah Syndergaard defended his manager.
• If Callaway does get canned, look for former Cubs manager Jim Riggleman to get the job, at least on an interim basis.
• The Mets collapse is so bad, that they may single-handedly prevent what Jay Jaffe wrote about the Marlins on Friday and their chances of winning fewer than 40 games this year. Jaffe also looks at how the Marlins got in the mess they are in.
• On the other side of town from the Mets, the Yankees have claimed first place in the AL East. R.J. Anderson has four reasons why the Yankees have been able to move into first place.
• Mark Townsend has one very weird home run stat that sums up the Yankees odd season so far.
• Eric Stephen notes that Dodgers pitcher Hyun-jin Ryu has been the most dominating pitcher in baseball this season. Ryu currently has a streak of 31 scoreless innings going.
• Michael Beller breaks down exactly what Ryu has been doing differently this year that has made him so good.
• Another good pitcher is Astros reliever Ryan Pressly, who set an all-time record with 39 straight appearances without allowing a run. He had to make a terrific defensive play himself in appearance number 39 to set the record.
• In case you haven’t seen it yet, Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper hit a mammoth home run that landed in the Delaware River, which is over a mile away from Citizens Bank Park. OK, it wasn’t quite that far but he did hit it over the batter’s eye and over the wall behind it in center field.
• Phillies manager Gabe Kapler praised his $330 million outfielder and said that when Harper is on, he has the “ability to transcend the game.”
• They aren’t as cold as the Mets, but the Cardinals are struggling and have gone 5-13 in the month of May and have fallen to 4th place in the NL Central. Mike Axisa lists four things the Cards must do to get back in the pennant hunt.
• Doug Glanville talks about the racist incident at Wrigley Field last week and the role that ambiguity plays in aiding racism in society.
• Marc Carig profiles Brewers rookie Keston Hiura both as a player and as a person who wants to be a role model for Asian-Americans (The Athletic sub. req.) in the game.
• MLB has fined Padres infielder Ian Kinsler for shouting an obscenity at someone after hitting a home run at Petco Park last week. Whom he yelled it at seems to be a matter of some debate.
• Bill Shaikin reports on a plan from a couple of years ago where the Dodgers would have moved a High-A California League team onto the site of a failing shopping mall in the San Fernando Valley, but the plan was squashed when the Angels refused to give their permission. To be fair to the Angels, they weren’t jerks about it and they said they’d give permission if they were also allowed to move a minor league team into Los Angeles at a future date. The Dodgers weren’t willing to agree to that condition—at least not to an Angels farm club in Los Angeles itself. (h/t Hardball Talk)
• The State of Pennsylvania is expected to approve a new rule that would allow online and mobile wagering, which means you could bet on Pirates and Phillies game from your phone while you were at the stadium sometime later this season.
• Rangers reliever Shawn Kelley had two “decent-sized” lumps removed from his throat over the weekend. The initial biopsy on them was inconclusive. Here’s hoping he gets good news next week when a full biopsy is completed. Kelley says he plans to continue to pitch unless and until they say he shouldn’t.
• Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto hopes to be back pitching for the team in September. Cueto had Tommy John surgery last August.
• Diamondbacks pitcher Taijuan Walker had a setback in his attempt to come back from Tommy John surgery. His elbow is reportedly fine, but now he has a problem with his shoulder which is interfering with his rehab.
• The Braves released pitcher Jonny Venters.
• The Pirates plan to convert outfielder JB Shuck into a two-way player. With the new roster limits coming on the number of pitcher a team can carry, I fully expect that more teams will try to develop two-way players.
• Softball and baseball are different sports, but let’s give a hand to the Florida State Seminoles softball team who became the first team ever to hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs in an NCAA tournament game. That’s four in a row in case you didn’t want to count backs.
• Finally, with Game of Thrones ending last night, Jon Tayler looks at how many MLB players are fans of the show (or the books) and how they go about discussing the show in the clubhouse while a lot of players are trying to avoid spoilers.
• And finally, staying on the Game of Thrones theme, Chris Landers tells us which major league managers match up best with which GoT characters. Funny, I thought Joe Maddon was a lot taller than that.

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