June MLB delivers D C thunder, a mysterious Arizona phone number and a walk-off triple play in Bronx espn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from espn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In her 2012 novel
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn wrote that the Midwest is full of people who are nice enough, but easy to manipulate. “Easy to mold, easy to wipe down,” Flynn wrote of these people, who she described as having plastic souls. But she could not have foreseen two current Midwest residents who are breaking the mold of modern baseball.
The major-league walk rate has comfortably sat around 8% for the last 100 years, and with 21st-century front offices emphasizing on-base percentage, the game’s elite offensive players regularly walk more than 10% of the time while boasting on-base percentages in the .400 club.
April 30, 2021
The moment was certainly worth a chuckle. In the seventh inning of a 10-0 drubbing by the Braves on Wednesday night, Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo took the mound. After retiring Johan Camargo on a grounder to first and then walking Ronald Acuña Jr., the NL leader in wRC+, the lefty-tossing Rizzo faced off against lefty-swinging Freddie Freeman, the reigning MVP and struck him out.
Neither combatant could keep a straight face as Rizzo fell behind 2-0 via a slow curveball that was about two feet outside, and then a 70-mph fastball that missed the outside corner. Freeman laid off another 70-mph fastball that was in the zone, fouled one off that was a few clicks faster, and then went down swinging at a sweeping 61-mph curve that was low in the zone.
A s make it nine in a row, beat Twins, 7-0 theusnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theusnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.