• You’re just gonna miss this pitch by a lot. It is so fast and moves so unnaturally. It looks easily in the strike zone out of the hand, and then it’s gone. At 101 mph. If you hadn’t known him before, you do now. Cleveland closer, Emmanuel Clase:
Emmanuel Clase, Silly 101mph Cutter. ✂️ pic.twitter.com/DXTjHaDYCA
• So far, the situation in San Diego is getting worse, with Fernando Tatis Jr. testing positive for COVID-19, and now also Wil Myers, plus all the guys out because of contacts:
To recap: Wil Myers and Fernando Tatis Jr. tested positive. Jorge Mateo, Jurickson Profar and Eric Hosmer (removed tonight due to contact-tracing protocols) join them on the COVID-IL. Both Tatis and Myers are asymptomatic. But that s 5/12ths of the Padres position players out.
Angels manager Joe Maddon on releasing Albert Pujols: Divorce is difficult By Blake Harper | Last updated 5/11/21
Los Angeles Angels manager Joe Maddon addressed the team releasing Albert Pujols last week, comparing it to a sad but ultimately necessary divorce. Divorce is difficult, he said on The Starkville podcast with Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville. It is difficult. There’s never a good time to go through with the act. … Sometimes it organically just has to occur.
Pujols was in the final year of his 10-year, $240 million contract that he signed all the way back in 2012. The 41-year-old had been in clear decline over the last few years, hitting above .250 only once in the past seven seasons.
May 7, 2021
The news was as abrupt as a mid-afternoon tweet, and yet long overdue: On Thursday, the Angels designated Albert Pujols for assignment. The 41-year-old Pujols is a no-doubt Hall of Famer, one of four players to attain the dual milestones of 3,000 hits and 600 home runs. But he’s now a month into his fifth season of sub-replacement level production, an impediment to improving a team that needs all the help it can get to overcome a league-worst defense as it scrambles to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
Mired in a 7-for-43 slump on a 13–17 team, Pujols is hitting just .198/.250/.372 with five homers and a 75 wRC+ in 92 plate appearances and making $30 million in the final season of the 10-year, $240 million deal that he signed following a remarkable 11-year run with the Cardinals. With his body unable to withstand a litany of leg and foot injuries hamstrings, knees, plantar fasciitis his megadeal provided little bang for the buck. Where he ma
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Good morning. The Texas Rangers are 9-5 against the AL East and have won four games otherwise. The only East team they have played that they haven’t won a series against is the Baltimore Orioles. So, yeah, baseball.
Daniel Guerrero writes that it was former Red Sock Brock Holt that delivered the game-winning hit against his old team for the Rangers in a 5-3 series-clinching win on Sunday.
Kevin Sherrington is bullish on Willie Calhoun’s bounceback attempt but bearish on Joey Gallo.
Levi Weaver writes that the positive series over the weekend (I’d like to point out that the only time that they lost was when they were wearing those gas-station-with-a-Long-John Silver’s-attached-to-it looking hats on Friday) shows that the rebuild is taking baby steps.
Why Madison Bumgarner s seven-inning no-hitter wasn t really a no-hitter
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Bumgarner keeps Braves out of hit column, but it s not recognized as a no-hitter (1:00)
Madison Bumgarner keeps the Braves out of the hit column in the Diamondbacks seven-inning win, but it s not recognized as a no-hitter due to the shortened game. (1:00)
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As far as baseball controversies go, maybe Madison Bumgarner s seven-inning no-hitter on Sunday doesn t quite rank up there with the designated hitter, Kevin Cash s decision to take out Blake Snell, or whether Jackie Robinson was safe when he stole home in the 1955 World Series.