Baseball Journal September 2023

MLB.TV kind of stopped doing daily free games during the month.  The Rangers’ radio coverage started becoming spotty with the start of Football season.  The El Paso Chihuahuas continued to slide into oblivion.  I didn’t have a lot to report on as the regular season ended. 

 

8-29-23

Admittedly, I’ve gotten a bit lazy covering baseball stories lately.  There was a potentially interesting development in the post-trade deadline player market.  This was the last day of the season that teams could cut players and make them available to other teams.  It’s more complicated than that (I’m writing this a month after it happened), but any team willing to take on a released player’s salary could have them without a trade.

 

The Angels took advantage of this and unloaded everyone they traded for to give Shohei Ohtani a chance to compete for the postseason.  (Of course, him and Mike Trout were injured by this point.)  The Yankees also cut loose Harrison Bader.  He was good there when he was healthy, but couldn’t stay that way. 

 

Some Player Union Reps were disturbed by this mass dumping that done purely for salary purposes.  Get used to it.  Later in the season, teams want that waiver trade deadline that was done away with and this is how they’re getting it back.       

 

9-2-23

I was watching the MILB Showcase game on Stadium between the Triple-A Norfolk Tides versus the Worchester Red Sox to see Joey Ortiz.  In the seventh, the coverage kept showing the WooSox mascot, an anthropomorphic steam whistle.  He was going to be doing something between innings and was in the tunnel, but he was constantly in the shot in the background of the batter.  He was having a good time interacting with the fans, so they kept focusing on him in between pitches.  [By the way, the Tides would go on to win the Triple-A Championship.  The Orioles have a lot of talent sitting in Triple-A.]

 

9-8-23

Daniel Johnson had some magic tonight as he hit a walk off laser beam home run in the ninth with two outs for the Chihuahuas.  Great to see DJ doing well. 

 

Not so magical were the Rangers tonight.  I watched the scoreboard with increasing apprehension as they lost to the A’s.  Not a big deal except for losing three to the Astros at home this week and all three losses were nearly by double digits.  Worse, with the football season starting, I can’t even listen to them on the radio on weekends anymore.  They’re fading fast.

 

9-15-23

Daniel Johnson is still putting on a show.  He hit a three-run homer in the eighth to tie the score.  (The Isotopes still won the game.  Sigh.)  Single-A call up Jose Sanabria impressed with his first hit, a steal, scoring a run on an infield single, and playing well on defense. 

 

The Rangers have now lost three ace pitchers this season with Max Scherzer going down.  Well, stick a fork in them . . . Wait, they’ve just won six in a row, including a three-game sweep against the Blue Jays, whom they were chasing.  Is this going to be like the Rays?  They’ve lost pitchers all year long and lost Wander Franco to scandal and are now only one game back of the Orioles for the AL East lead.   

 

9-15-23

Rangers’ winning streak ended in Cleveland.  An oddity of the game was backup catcher, Austin Hedges, becoming the pitcher in the bottom of the eighth with the Indians up 12-0.  Hedges had a scoreless inning pitched, but in the top of the ninth, the light-hitting player drove in two runs.  With the advent of the universal DH, these were two rare runs driven in by a pitcher (not named Shohei Ohtani).  The game was so out of hand, I actually missed all of this, but heard about it in the postgame show. That was interesting in itself, as the guys were way too giddy and had communications issues between them.  Weirdness.  Also, the Rays beat the O’s again.  The AL East lead is tied.

 

9-16-23

Shohei Ohtani has been shut down for the season.  His arm injury was keeping him from pitching, but his oblique injury was what sidelined him completely.  Shohei also cleaned out his locker before the announcement.  I’m not betting on the Angels re-signing him in the offseason.  I’m not betting on Mike Trout still being an Angel next year if the rumors are true.  Owner Arte Moreno should be forced to sell the franchise for wasting all the best years of the two best players in baseball for their generation. 

 

Actually, I’m wondering who’s going to want Shohei.  No matter how much Baseball beat writers hype up his free agency, Shohei is a huge risk at this point to commit the kind of the money his agent will be looking for.  He’s likely going to be on the shelf most of next season as a pitcher.  Logically, he should take a short-term, somewhat modest deal, and bet himself to get the big contract after he’s proved he’s healthy.  Keep dreaming.  It’ll be 10 years, $600M and probably result in complete franchise destruction for any team not named the Dodgers or the Yankees.  (I’m looking at you, San Francisco.) 

 

Unfortunately, the result of the two-way experiment is going to make a byword of Shohei’s name.  “Nah kid, you ain’t gonna hit no more.  We just want you to pitch.  We don’t want to Shohei you.”  This has already happened with Hunter Greene on the Reds.  I’m not saying the Unicorn isn’t going to come back to form after recovering from his injuries, but enjoy whatever you’re going to get from Shohei Ohtani in the future and don’t look for a third coming (Babe Ruth being the first). 

       

9-20-23

This is a story I can’t quite wrap my head around.  The Tampa Bay Rays got a new stadium in St. Petersburg.  Wait.  Isn’t this the reason given for their poor attendance? They’re not actually located in Tampa Bay and fans have to drive across this long bridge to get to games?  (There’s reportedly a sign on the bridge telling motorists to make sure they’re got enough fuel to cross it.)  This is also going to be built next to the current stadium and is just going to be another domed stadium without a retractable roof?  I just don’t understand this.   

 

With the A’s more-or-less committed to moving to Las Vegas, that does fix the worst stadium situations in the league and open the door to MLB expansion.  Those two teams’ stadium problems were the only thing holding that up.  But, now I’m hearing about other teams crabbing about their stadiums.

 

I’d already heard about the Royals wanting a new downtown stadium after Kaufman Stadium had been refurbished before their two recent World Series appearances.  Suddenly, the White Sox want to move.  Their recently remodeled stadium (whatever the name currently is) isn’t good enough.  The Brewers are citing structural concerns with their retractable roof.  The Orioles ownership, in the midst of packing their classic ballpark from finally having a winning season, also wants a county-paid-for remodeling, or they’ll move.  I want to say I also heard something about the Diamondbacks and Chase Field.  Why not? 

 

There seem to be two drivers here: demand and opportunity.  There are cities wanting a franchise, like Nashville and Salt Lake City.  They’d probably prefer a new one, but there are other cities that would lose out and gladly take somebody’s castoff.  So there’s demand.  The opportunity is the success of Atlanta’s Battery District next to their new stadium.  The new stadium in Tampa Bay plans to include a residential district with it.  In Arlington, there’s a whole entertainment district that was built with the new ballpark.  The revenue from the real estate around the ballpark can make these publicly-financed stadiums a lot more palatable to the citizens.         

 

9-23-23

After coming home happy from Aggie Volleyball, I managed to catch the bottom of the ninth with the El Paso Chihuahuas playing at the Sugarland Space Cowboys.  The pups were up a run and three batters later, they’d lost.  This was their seventh loss in a row, a team record.  Also Tim Hagerty hasn’t been calling the games this week.  I wonder if he’s out sick.  [I sent him an e-mail.  Tim was being honored by Vermont State University.]  The Chihuahuas did win their last game of the season the next day.  The broadcast ended with a heartfelt prerecorded message from Tim.  He spoke about the season highlights and thanked the fans.

 

 

9-27-23

I almost missed it and I was so pissed at myself.  MLB.TV has been a bit stingy on showing free games for the last two months.  Tonight, there was a relevant game on and I didn’t tune in until the seventh.  The game was the Cubs and the Braves.  Chicago is fighting for a Wildcard slot. 

 

I’d seen a clip from last night’s game, where Seiya Suzuki dropped a flyball, which led to the Braves winning.  In this game, I saw the Cubs make two bad errors, which let the Braves back into the game.  Usually, the Cubs only have this kind of self-inflicted drama in home games, but this was in Atlanta.  The Cubs did not roll over though, until they ended up losing in the tenth.  That was after Ronald Acuna Jr. stole his second base of the game and was then driven in as the winning run.  I did miss that steal, which was historic.  Acuna became the first MLB player with a 40 homer/70 stolen base season.  That’s what I get for stepping out the room for 30 seconds. 

 

Also, the Padres managed not to set an MLB record by finally winning an extra innings game tonight.  They had been 0-12 this season up to this point.  Meanwhile, Nathan Eovaldi has made it back into the Rangers’ rotation.  He’s not 100%, but can still pitch.  Max Scherzer is rehabbing in hopes of making it on to the team for the postseason.  The Rangers need to win two games of their last four to win the AL West (along with several other scenarios, but this is the easiest one).

 

9-29-23

The Giants suddenly fired Gabe Kapler today as manager.  Admittedly, he was personally the reason why I haven’t been rooting the Giants the last couple of years.  His proud Anthem knee-taking made it impossible for me to root for them.  That said, it was hardly his fault that the team didn’t land Aaron Judge or Carlos Correa.  He also didn’t let the team languish in the offseason or at the trade deadline.  This was a deflection by Farhan Zaidi and Giants’ management.  Rehire Kapler and then fire him for the right reason.       

 

10-1-23

I got to listen to the Rangers on Thursday.  The announcers sounded so confident, as any combination of two wins/two Astros losses would give the Rangers the AL West.  They took a one-run lead into the ninth against the Mariners.  Aroldis Chapman put the next three M’s batters on base.  Relief pitching managed to get two outs, but finally gave up two runs on a double and they lost. 

 

Friday, the Rangers lost 8-0.  They did come back and win on Saturday, which I got to watch Saturday night.  On Sunday, I went over to see dad and watch the NASCAR race and watch some of the Cowboys game.  By doing so, I passed on the final free day on MLB.TV.  On the other hand, at least I didn’t have to listen to the Rangers lose 1-0.  (I did hear the very end of the radio postgame.)  They lost three of four to a team they’d swept last week.  Meanwhile, the Astros won four in a row against a DBacks team that was playing for something.  And that’s how the Rangers lost the AL West.  (In fairness, the Mariners were also playing to get in, but didn’t.)