Happy 250th, USA
I hope everyone’s 4th of July went well. Even for people in Philadelphia…. that’s how strongly I feel about America. On the other hand, I’m still not excited about the semiquincentennial All-Star Game there. They announced the lineups tonight which might bear some relationship to the actual teams once guys don’t opt out. In addition to starters Ozzie and Drake, the Braves will also start Shea Langeliers for the AL. Oh, wait… he isn’t here any more. I will say that the breakout career of Drake Baldwin makes me feel a little better about losing Langeliers. They will be joined by Matt Olson and William Contreras, another catcher whose replacement by Drake Baldwin is now acceptable. Now if the old Sean Murphy can return soon, we’ll be OK behind the dish. No Michael Harris II, no Mauricio Dubón, at least for now. As y’all know, I’m fine with that.
As far as hurlers go, Chris Sale and Iggy are Philly-bound, but if we work Chris Sale correctly, he won’t waste effort pitching in the ASG. One extra day of rest ought to do it.
Shifting the Subject, the Subject is Shifting
We all have things that we regard as inviolate to our appreciation of baseball while recognizing that changes in athletic prowess and strategy sometimes necessitate rule changes. Some of these are universally approved from the start: pitch clocks are the archetypal example here, and I think the ABS challenge system is pretty close, although there are those who think the strike zone has been bent out of shape beyond their liking. (By the way, imagine the ABS system on October 12, 1997.)
Other changes, like the Manfred Man, seem to be hated, though as I have said on several occasions, it really doesn’t bother me at all. If you don’t like it, win the thing in the first nine innings. It’s still recognizably baseball, unlike say, penalty kicks to decide a World Cup elimination. People don’t want baseball games to last four hours. (Apparently, Gen Z phones are too likely to run out of juice before the game ends, at which point it would have to be pointed out that there was an event happening if they lifted their heads). The Manfred Man rule has cut the length of extra-inning games dramatically, while still allowing baseball to settle the outcome. I’ll take the win, but YMMV.
And then there’s the Shift. The Shift Rule was instigated because… well, I’m not exactly sure why beyond the fact that nobody liked seeing Joey Gallo sulk any more than necessary. It has two salient features. (1) The shortstop, second baseman and third baseman have to start on their sides of the field; and (2) they have to start touching dirt. As near as I can figure, the net impact of these changes is as follows:
- Either the shortstop or the second baseman now plays behind the pitcher sometimes, so much so that pitchers should often actively try to miss fieldable balls.
- We don’t have to pause to send the third baseman into right field on occasion.
- A few left-handers got a few more hits, though not enough to change batting averages or scoring to any appreciable degree
- Infielders have slightly dirtier shoes
None of these changes has accomplished anything worthwhile, and they have done violence to what to me is a central precept of strategy: the ability to deploy seven of your nine fielders where you like (the pitcher and catcher are stuck) and then allow the batting team to react. The Shift Rule, as near as I can figure, was a semi-embarrassment because the batting team either couldn’t, or wouldn’t react. Neither was a good look. If you can’t react, it lays bare the fact that the best players in the world lack a fundamental skill. If you choose not to react, it shows that three-outcome baseball is so important that some extra left-handed outs don’t matter.
That is not a reason to implement a new rule. The Shift made baseball more interesting, and we are worse off for not having it. With the Shift, the batting team revealed a preference for hitting into the shift rather than change anything about their approach, and the Shift Rule punished the defense for a strategic choice freely made by the offense. Rewarding the offense for refusing to “hit ’em where they ain’t” gets the strategic incentives exactly backwards.
If you want to increase scoring through artificial fielder rules, I have a few possible suggestions.
- Creating a fielding box for every player, not just the catcher.
- Use invisible fence technology to keep every fielder within a unique zone on the field. Make special dispensations for Ozzie’s chains when fitting the shock collars. For really dramatic scoring changes, add some areas where no fielder is allowed to go. (I call that the Lava Rule.)
- Make baseball like elementary school volleyball. Require all the players to rotate position after every batter.
- Designate one player every pitch to begin the play lying down.
- Make players wear golf gloves, not baseball gloves. I’ll exclude catchers from this rule. I’m not a monster.
- Penalty kicks. I’m not sure how you’d implement these exactly, but I like seeing stupid ideas proliferate.
The Game
There are a lot of great things about America, but there is no question that one of them is Chris Sale. As a Braves fan since 1966, I have had the incredible privilege of rooting for some great, great athletes. As pitchers go, I think it was still more fun to watch vintage Greg Maddux than Chris Sale, but saying that Chris Sale is a close second is no exaggeration.
The scoring started in the 2nd with an Eli White solo homer off Sean Manaea. A bases-loaded single by Harris in the 3rd made it 2-0. That brought up Eli White again, at which point the lolMets started lolMetsing. White was credited with a double when a simple pop to center field turned into three earned runs. This was not a double. (I expect the official scoring on this play to change, but I could be wrong. My only question is what would have happened had there been one out, not two, Sam Holbrook.)
The discussion of July 4, 1985 waited until the Braves had a 5 run lead. I think they said Camp ten times, but I lost count. The Sterling mentions were exactly right. Nobody talked to Lenny Dykstra. While they were discussing it, Dubón hit a solo homer to make it 6-0.
Chris Sale with a 6 run lead is in pretty good shape. He has never lost a 6-run lead, although there was one game where he had a six run lead, gave up 5, and the Red Sox ended up losing the game. If you’re Chris Sale, you’re allowed one game like that in your career.
Tyrone Taylor got back one of the three he botched in the third with a homer in the fifth. If this were hockey, he’d be a -2. But then a Mark Vientos two-run homer in the 6th made it 6-3. Another single and a long at bat from Alvarez and his night was over with only 3 strikeouts. Dylan Lee redeemed his last outings with three quick Ks.
Joey Bart drove in their 7th run with a double and the official scorer, who apparently took the night off, failed to credit the second Mets error, giving Mateo an unearned hit. An eighth run scored on a Dubón groundout, getting the lead back to 5. A Yaz 2-run homer in the 7th made it 10-3.
JR Ritchie, who is listed at 6’2″, but looks easily a foot shorter than Chris Sale through some sort of optical illusion (or lie) finished up the last three innings. The Mets last serious chance evaporated when Ritchie struck out Lindor with the two outs and the bases loaded in the 8th.
In the bottom of the 8th, just to prove that they are not a major league team, the Mets gave up a 3 run homer to someone named Austin Riley. I thought he had retired from baseball. 13-3. That was enough runs even for Roger. Despite that, the Mets decided to let catcher Luis Torrens pitch. He proved that their nonpitchers are neither better nor worse than their pitchers, giving up a homer to Michael Harris II, and a single to Yaz. 14-3.
Game 3 of a wraparound series tomorrow. Nolan Mclean against Martin Perez. Happy 4th.
We must remember: IWOTM.
“…gave up a homer to someone named Austin Riley. I thought he’d retired from baseball.” Ha and ouch!
Austin Riley and Cal Raleigh (say it aloud) are both 29 years-old. From 2021 to 2023 Riley was the more productive player. In 2024 and 2025, Riley had started his dive, and Raleigh was in ascent. But this year Riley has caught Raleigh, as they are both rocking Baseball Reference WARs of -0.1.
Baseball is a hard game, especially to play well.
It is a hard game to play, and can also be a hard game to watch.
Thankfully, we were on the right side of it this time.
Riley’s mechanics often lapse even when healthy so it’s not terribly surprising how bad he’s been after multiple injuries.
It’s painfully ironic that a front office that strives to avoid dead money and has avoided long-term contracts to franchise stalwarts will still probably end up with one of the worst contracts in the sport.
First pitch @ 2:15
“Make baseball like elementary school volleyball. Require all the players to rotate position after every batter.”
Yeah, I’d like to see Rowdy Tellez or Alejandro Kirk play SS.
While neither Tellez nor Kirk did (I checked), I imagine that a lot of big and slow players played mainly SS in high school, because high school teams tend to put their best athletes at short (or CF or pitcher), and almost anyone good enough to make MLB was his high school team’s best athlete. Along those lines, I suspect a lot of relatively new fans would be surprised by the concept of Marcell Ozuna, pretty good major league center fielder.
On penalty kicks, at the World Cup & similar tournaments you need a way to prevent games from taking too much extra time, partly for TV and audience interest reasons but mainly because a team that wins a hypothetical 3-hour match would be at a great disadvantage because of accumulated fatigue when it has to play a few days later against a team that only played 90 minutes. The US team has a slight advantage against Belgium tomorrow night because Belgium had to play 120 minutes to win on Thursday, while the US only had to play 90. For a while the World Cup had a golden goal rule where a goal in extra time ended the match immediately, which reduced the fatigue issue. My solution would be to do something like after 15 minutes prevent the goalies from using their hands, after another 15 remove the goalies, and after each succeeding 5 minutes make each team remove another player.
If we’re looking at the impact of recent rule changes, it might be worth thinking about one of the oldest rules, the walk. I believe the original idea of walks was not to let walking become an offensive skill or tool, but just an incentive for pitchers to throw the ball where batters could reasonably expect to hit it. Even 50 years ago, people wrote about a good batting eye as a benefit because you would only swing at pitches that you had a good chance to hit, not because it let you draw 120 walks a year and score a bunch more runs. On the other hand, the penalty for walks is so low that in some cases teams intentionally walk players. (Bill James pointed this out in a late 1980s Abstract and suggested having the second IBB in a game move the batter to second, and the third to third, saying that doing this would give Dale Murphy more RBI.)
Fouls in basketball are sort of similar – some players try to get fouled, which wasn’t the original intent of the rule, while in other circumstances hack-a-Shaq fouling is an efficient tactic. Basketball has changed its rules several times to try to deal with these issues, though.
Perez is just tough to watch. Like Hanson back in the day. Those starts were somehow always dreadful to watch for me. Perez has got nothing today. Same as his last start against St. Louis.
OK. Time to make a move Walt.
I think the same regression bug that hit Elder is now hitting Perez.
I said this before he got hit with a literal line drive.
Classic Hibernation Mode.
Cue Roger saying “We can’t win if we can’t score.”
Carrasco pitched multiple innings, so I fully expect him to be DFA’ed after the game for another random arm who can provide long relief.
If Martin Perez has to go to the IL, at least they could bring back Karinchak without waiting 15 days. There are still 5 starting pitchers on the roster.
Can we not bring Carrasco back this time?
What a waste of an almost comeback
These one run games amirite
Not sure if we win or not since pitchers would have been different but you gotta blame this one on Weiss. No way should Carrasco have been allowed to stay in the game in the 9th. After this performance, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last Dfa/ re-sign combo we see with Cookie.
Recapped.