Outside the Confines: Take the “A” Train

Welcome to another edition of MLB Men Behaving Badly. I’m really getting sick of having to write that.

• Atlanta Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna was arrested on Saturday on charges of felony assault after he was seen choking his wife and throwing her against a wall by police officers of Sandy Springs, Georgia.
• Gabe Lacques explains what kinds of penalties that Ozuna could be looking at, both criminally and by MLB. He’s likely to get the longest suspension ever under the league’s domestic violence policy, even if he avoids incarceration.
• On to more lighthearted news. Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his start in Oakland last Thursday by transportation problems, as reported in Friday’s OTC. There was some confusion as the BART authorities said that there were no delays, but the Angels clarified over the weekend that Ohtani and his catcher and traveling partner, Kurt Suzuki, simply got on the wrong train, which delayed their arrival at the ballpark.
• Dayn Perry looks at what Ohtani has to do to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award this season.
• Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield examines Mets ace Jacob deGrom’s chances of beating Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA from 1968 this season. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Bradford Doolittle looks at two surprising Cy Young Award candidates this season: the Brewers’ Brandon Woodruff and the Giants’ Kevin Gausman.
• David Schoenfield has some surprising names atop the MLB leaderboards so far. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Will Leitch picks an All-Star team for the month of May.
• David Adler has ten players who are proving that their 2020 breakout seasons weren’t a fluke.
• Ben Clemens notes that both New York teams have been dealing with a ton of injuries this season. Yeah, and both Chicago teams and both Los Angeles teams are as well. Probably 24 of the 30 teams are having major injury issues this season. But it is a good look at how much the Mets and the Yankees have lost to injury in 2021.
• Or the Phillies, who have likely lost outfielder Roman Quinn for the season with a torn Achilles.
• Thomas Harrigan argues that Jameson Taillon could be the Yankees answer to losing starting pitcher Corey Kluber for at least two months, as well as other injuries to the pitching staff.
• Andrew Baggarly looks at Giants submariner Tyler Rogers and how his pitch seems to defy gravity (The Athletic sub. req.) and how changes in hitting approach has made it more effective. Baggarly talks to famous retired submariner Kent Tekulve who says Rogers’ pitch is what he had to spend two years learning not to throw, but that it’s an effective pitch today.
• Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said that third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes could come off the injured list on Thursday, the earliest day he is eligible to come off the 60-day IL. And I am glad the Cubs are done playing the Pirates for a while.
• Sarah Langs notes that the best way to throw a complete game in 2021 is to throw a no-hitter. A record 43 percent of complete games in 2021 are no-hitters, which is about 39 points higher than the all-time record for that mark.
• R.J. Anderson looks at how both the Orioles and Diamondbacks have become the worst teams in MLB so far this year.
• David Schoenfield wonders if the 2021 Rockies are the worst offensive team in modern history? The Rockies have been shut out in ten of their 25 road games so far this year.
• Owen McGratten examines how pitchers have changed in how they approach pitch selection in “hitters counts” over the past five years or so.
• Bob Nightengale speaks to Theo Epstein who tells him that changes are coming to baseball sooner rather than later. Epstein said that he wants to return the game to the players and he explains what he means by that.
• Twins infielder Josh Donaldson scored MLB’s two-millionth run over the weekend. I remember what a big deal they made out of the one-millionth run back in the seventies.
• David Waldstein has more background on the two-millionth run and how MLB is dealing (or not dealing) with it.
• Cuban national team baseball player César Prieto has defected.
• Gabe Lacques goes to see the Frederick Keys, a team that was banished from organized baseball and now compete in MLB’s Draft League, to see how they are doing with their new role.
• Since the road announcers are calling games from their home stadiums as a COVID protocol, the Reds announcers were in Cincinnati and not Wrigley Field for Friday’s game. So the broadcast team invited injured first baseman Joey Votto up into the booth and pretty soon, he was doing play-by-play. (The Athletic sub. req.) You probably won’t be surprised that Votto seems to be very good at calling ballgames from the clips provided. C. Trent Rosecrans explains how it all went down.
• Dallas Baptist first baseman Cole Moore made a spectacular catch over the first base wall that you’ll probably want to see.
• And finally, Ryan McGee has a Memorial Day story of now-Angels pitcher Alex Cobb and the bond he built with a veteran who lost his buddy in Iraq and the family of his fallen comrade. Cobb has made sure to be with the family and friend every year except last season, when it wasn’t possible. So Cobb made sure that the family were with their lost dad and husband through cardboard cutouts at Tropicana Field last year.

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