Outside the Confines: It’s a sticky situation

For the first time since March, I barely watched any baseball on Sunday. I did see a few innings here and there and the final inning of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans game went on for about 45 minutes. But overall, I picked a good day to watch soccer and spend time with my family.

• Mariners pitcher Hector Santiago became the first pitcher to be ejected for a foreign substance since the crackdown began last week. Santiago had already been taken out of the game by his manager, but his glove was checked as he left and umpire Phil Cuzzi tossed him. Santiago is facing a 10-game suspension, but he insists all he had on his glove was rosin, which is legal.
• Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt thinks all this checking for foreign substances is just an excuse for today’s hitters who can’t hit. Schmidt argues that defensive shifting and filling hitters heads full of analytics is the reason for the dip in offense. That ignores that about half the pitchers in the league now throw as hard or harder than Nolan Ryan did when Schmidt was active.
• Shohei Ohtani came a single shy of the cycle to help the Angels beat the Rays on Sunday, 6-4. Even the Rays players couldn’t stop admiring Ohtani’s talents.
• Ben Lindberg has ten questions about Ohtani. The Angels have the two best players in baseball and they’re three games under .500. (Admittedly, Mike Trout is injured.)
• They announced the finalists for All-Star Game voting and Will Leitch ranks all the finalists at each position for you.
• Leitch also has the most surprising player for each MLB team.
• One All-Star for each team that you probably forgot about. Except no Cubs fan has forgotten that Bryan LaHair was an All-Star.
• The Red Sox swept the Yankees over the weekend and Lindsey Adler notes that the Yankees don’t look very good when compared to Boston at the moment. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Yankees ace Gerrit Cole has not pitched well in the month of June with an ERA of 4.56. Bradford Doolittle examines whether or not the Yankees have cause for concern.
• Jake Mailhot examines what’s driving the breakout season of Giants pitcher Anthony DeSclafani.
• Gabe Lacques profiles Marlins rookie Jazz Chisholm Jr. and explains that no one loves baseball more than he does. Chisholm is also convinced he’s destined for stardom. He’s already the second-best player by WAR ever from the Bahamas.
• Zach Crizer writes that the Astros don’t need to steal signs: Houston is one of the best hitting teams ever.
• Time for the butcher’s bill, which is by necessity is incomplete because MLB has been dropping players at an unprecedented rate this season. But Cleveland outfielder Josh Naylor was carted off the field on Sunday after a scary collision with second baseman Ernie Clement.
• Braves pitcher Mike Soroka hasn’t pitched since tearing his Achilles tendon in his third start of 2020, but now Soroka won’t pitch at all in 2021 after tearing the same Achilles again. He tore it this time by simply walking around the clubhouse.
• Padres pitcher Dinelson Lamet went on the injured list with forearm inflammation. It’s the second time this season Lamet has gone on the IL with that diagnosis.
• Luke Hopper looks at why Padres utility man Jurickson Profar has been struggling at the plate this season.
• The Pirates have signed free agent Shelby Miller to a minor league deal. The Cubs released Miller on May 31 of this year.
• Pirates general manager Ben Cherington talked about making the first pick in this summer’s MLB Draft. He admitted that he and the Bucs “have to get this right.”
• Matt Kelly has an introduction to California high school shortstop Marcelo Mayer, whom many observers believe will be the Pirates’ choice with the first draft pick.
• Marc Normandin writes that even with the pay increase that MLB has given minor leaguers this season, most minor league players still can’t afford to pay their rent.
• I mentioned all the injuries in baseball earlier, and that’s one of the reasons (but not the only reason) why teams are signing players out of the independent minor leagues (now called “Partner Leagues”) at an unprecedented rate this year. (Baseball America sub. req.) The Cubs have signed 11 players out of Partner Leagues already, which is the third-most among all 30 teams.
• The defensive analytics indicate that Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado is having a poor defensive season, at least by Arenado standards. (It’s pretty average by the standards of all MLB third baseman.) Justin Choi tries to figure out what’s wrong with Arenado’s defense and whether this is just a fluke or the start of a long-term decline.
• And finally, in 1961, 10-year-old Gwen Goldman wrote the Yankees and said she wanted to be a bat girl for the team. She was told that as a young lady, she’d feel “out of place” in a major league clubhouse. Now, 60 years later, 70-year-old Gwen will serve as the Yankees bat girl for tonight’s (Monday) game at Yankee Stadium against the Angels.

And man, if that story doesn’t make your day. . . Have an even better one tomorrow.