Not done yet: 7-3 so far.

Greetings from the Balearic Sea

So the Braves are finally in Queens. I live about 15 miles from Citi Field, so of course today I am on a cruise in the Balearic Sea, roughly 4,000 miles away. Since i left the country, the Braves have not won a game and Ronald Acuña Jr. has pulled the same hammy again. Look, people. At some point I’m not going to be around any more. Someone else is going to have to hold the team together… I take these little breaks so someone can step up…. so do it.

We are not stopping in the Balearics, but there was apparently some daft idea that Menorca was where the Cyclops lived in The Odyssey. Also, in my youth I read a lot of Classics Illustrated comic books… so many that I’m sometimes still not sure whether I got some fact from reading the book or its comic book variant. Their version of Jules Verne’s Off on a Comet involves a comet striking the earth and shearing off the Balearic island of Formentera. So I’ve wanted to be somewhere near the Balearics since I was about 7. Mission accomplished.

I will be in Malaga tomorrow and it appears my planned tour of the Roman ruins has fallen through. If anyone else has some suggestions, let me know.

Baseball Bacon

So last week before I left NY I started learning about network models and graph tables. I am unsatisfied that I have learned any concept until I’ve used it to make some baseball inquiry, and I have created the idea for a website called Baseball Bacon; it should be active early next week.

What is Baseball Bacon? It is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon adapted to Baseball Teammates. Pick any two players in MLB history, and Baseball Bacon will give you one of the shortest path pairs of teammates to complete a link between the two players.

My initial exploration was Babe Ruth – Freddie Freeman. There are many, many ways to get from one to the other in six steps — some with much better-known players that others. My first successful attempt yielded:

1	Babe Ruth	Ray Mueller	Boston Braves	1935
2	Ray Mueller	Warren Spahn	Boston Braves	1951
3	Warren Spahn	Gaylord Perry	SF Giants	1965
4	Gaylord Perry	Danny Darwin	Texas Rangers	1980
5	Danny Darwin	Billy Wagner	Houston Astros	1996
6	Billy Wagner	Freddie Freeman	Atlanta Braves	2010

There are lots of other 6 Degree paths between the Bambino and Freddie. For example:

1	Babe Ruth	Ray Mueller	Boston Braves	1935
2	Ray Mueller	Warren Spahn	Boston Braves	1951
3	Warren Spahn	Tug McGraw	New York Mets	1965
4	Tug McGraw	Julio Franco	Philadelphia Phillies	1982
5	Julio Franco	Peter Moylan	Atlanta Braves	2002
6	Peter Moylan	Freddie Freeman	Atlanta Braves	2010

When the software is completed. There will be a button that gives you a different path. What I am not implementing (because it takes too long) is to find, for example, the minimum hop path that maximizes combined WAR. For my own purposes, however, it appears to be:

1	Babe Ruth	Ray Mueller	Boston Braves	1935
2	Ray Mueller	Warren Spahn	Boston Braves	1951
3	Warren Spahn	Phil Niekro	Milwaukee Braves	1964
4	Phil Niekro	Steve Bedrosian	Atlanta Braves	1981
5	Steve Bedrosian	Chipper Jones	Atlanta Braves	1993
6	Chipper Jones	Freddie Freeman	Atlanta Braves	2011

Mueller and Bedrock are needed to cement the path, but Spahn, Niekro and Chipper are over 290 WAR. Furthermore, this chain is entirely contained within the franchise.

The basic framework is done, but I have a few niceties remaining (like dropdown boxes with every players and inclusion of 2026 rookies) before it’s ready, and I am on vacation, after all. More on this tomorrow, I hope.

The Game

I was told the game would begin at 1:15 am here, off the coast of Malaga. I dutifully logged into Apple TV at 1:15. was finally admitted into Apple TV at 1:33 (a mere 18 minutes!), only to discover that there were inclement conditions in Flushing. I have been to Flushing many times, and while the weather is often fine, the milieu is rarely clement. I was being treated to Arizona-Cincinnati, a game that, no matter what its merits, did not merit a 1:15 am recap. I toddle over to the US Weather Service, that has a severe thunderstorm warning in effect until 9 pm, ie. 3 am. But lo… they have announced a start time a full half-hour earlier. time for another 45 minute nap before the Lindor-less Mets faced the Acuña-less Braves — the nightmare of PR-forward flacks in both towns.

It’s been awhile since I watched the Braves and Mets this late… the last time was July 4th, 1985. That was fun, despite the result, so how bad could it be? But if you see this recap seem to miss a few innings, it’s because the recapper lost consciousness for a few innings.

When you live in the NY area, you are used to (a) a large imbalance between Yankees fans and Mets fans; (b) an amount of self-flagellation by Mets fans in a poor season, and sometimes even in a good one, that is a little difficult to understand cometimes; and (c) the primacy of media narratives (largely coming from one very powerful sports radio station, WFAN, but also from nearby-headquartered ESPN) over actual results. From listening to WFAN, you’d think this was the 1961 Mets. It isn’t. They still have talent, though they have underperformed. They are a 0.500 team when Juan Soto is in the lineup. They have a talented young pitcher in tonight’s hurler: Nolan McLean.

BUt their problems are big ones. They pay Marcus Semien a lot of money to showcase a once-great declining career. Along with the other three guys at the bottom of the order (Brett Baty, MJ Melendez and Luis Torrens) an opposing pitcher can breathe for an inning every three. Though to be fair, the Braves’ lineup tonight, which featured Kim and Wynns, hitting under .100 combined, should allow very deep breaths, albeit only for two hitters, not four.

The top of the order is still potent. After a slow start, Bo Bichette has come around, bhitting a first-inning dinger off Spencer Strider to prove it. Soto followed with another one on a 3-2 count and it was 2-0.

Having been handed a two run lead, McLean lost the ability to throw strikes. How do I know this? Because he walked Kim to load the bases. Nobody who knew where the plate was would do that. He gave up two runs to tie the game, but then recovered getting Wynns, Dubón and Harris with the bases loaded to keep the game tied. But after a very easy first inning, he was now at 55 pitches after two innings.

Remember that breathing room I talked about in the Mets lineup? Not to Strider. A double to Melendez, an infield single from Torrens (well, it wasn’t really… it was a botched play by Strider) and a hit batsman brought up Bichette again, and a grand slam on the first pitch gave the Mets a 6-2 lead. Unlike Chico Escuela, Citi Field has not been good for Spencer Strider. He left after 68 pitches with some sort of medical issue, with his fastball falling under 90. It’s now about 4 am and I think I need another nap.

He was replaced by JR Ritchie; a sac fly made it 7-2 and it was Enter Sandman for me for a half-hour.

I groggily awoke at 4:51 and it was 7-3 in the bottom of the 6th. I made an Executive Decision to create a new Braves Journal Feature: Y’All Finish It While I Sleep. We can still win this thing, but you’ll have to do it without me. Readers: please complete the recap. I’ll be back tomorrow.