What a spicy headline! You are probably wondering what prompted all the takes that are about to be unleashed. Well, last night I had some rare down time to tune into some games now that my high school coaching season is over and the Tampa Bay Lightning had an off night from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I was flipping between a few games on MLB.tv on my computer and had MLB Network on the TV. There were some blowouts and then some really close games. Let’s start with the blowout.
White Sox 16 Twins 4
Nick Madrigal hit his first big league homer in the 3rd to go up 4-1 and the game was over by the 5th when the White Sox took a 10-1 lead. Time to turn it off. Game over. Nothing interesting is going to happen for the rest of this one.
WAIT! The Twins brought in first basemen Willians Astudillo to pitch the 9th. Queue the Cut4 Position Player Pitching tweet. Madrigal grounds out, Jake Lamb pops out, and up comes the Chicago thicc boi Yermin Mercedes. We now have a pitcher/hitter matchup weighing in at a total of a very conservative 470lbs, a true heavyweight bout.
The count gets to 3-0 and Astudillo throws his best get-me-over Eephus. And….
Yermin wins this one by KO. A true beer league softball moment in a Major League Baseball game with a 47mph pitch blasted 429 feet.
The Twins broadcast was not happy with the 3-0 hack as you can hear in the clip below. I get your team is losing by 11 in the 9th but come on, chill out. You are throwing a position player flipping in loopers against a hitter who is known for swinging at EVERYTHING and still trying to compete and have fun. Reminds me of the Tatis incident last year swinging on 3-0 and hitting a grand slam, broken down beautifully by Jomboy in this video. No one was watching this game and then suddenly it became must-see TV because of this matchup, and the announcers instead got mad that Yermin extended the White Sox lead from 11 to 12 on a solo shot off a position player with two outs in the 9th.
So that started off the night with announcers hating baseball. I then tune in to MLB Network and unfortunately see Mike Trout limping off the field and down the tunnel of the dugout with a calf injury. One of the MLBN crew members then says guys are lifting too much and training too hard causing them to get injured and stating that when he played they just ran, stretched, and did light weights to stay loose and mobile. I don’t think the very few Trout injuries shown below are because he was repping out too many bicep curls.
And I’m sure these guys would love for you to step in the box after spending an offseason knocking a few seconds off of your mile time and not lifting at all.
And these are just a couple of examples I heard from one night. If you tune into any game and listen to the announcers all they talk about are that no balls are ever put in play or no one is bunting and that hitters only care about home runs. You know what caused the NBA to explode in popularity starting in 2015? HIGHLIGHTS. Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors took the league by storm that year by not only dominating and winning the NBA Finals, but every night putting up ridiculous numbers and insane highlights. I don’t even particularly like the NBA but when Steph and the Warriors were playing it was must-watch TV, and if I did miss it I would see all the gifs of every play that night on Twitter. We are currently in the same golden age in MLB with young, superstar players that make incredible plays on a daily basis. That is excluding Mike Trout who is an “old guy” at 29 and in my opinion the greatest player to ever live.
Take last night for example. There were only nine games played (compared to a full 15 game slate on Tuesdays and the weekends) and there was still plenty to talk about. We had:
The aforementioned Mercedes beer league bomb.
26 year old, Walker Buehler, threw 7 scoreless innings with 7 Ks.
26 year old, Shohei Ohtani, hit a ball out that was at his eyes.
Two Cub legends come back to Wrigley for the first time as former Cubs.
One of the best hitters ever play his first game with the Dodgers.
All just in one night. People that cover baseball just want to complain about how pitchers are dominating the game and teams can only score with home runs. How about we highlight just insane how nasty some of these guys are that are able to throw 100mph start after start, or hit balls 450ft, or literally a guy who can do BOTH in Ohtani.
And it is not every baseball personality that does this. Greg Amsinger is my absolute favorite and he genuinely loves the game of baseball as seen in this awesome clip of when he correctly predicted a walk-off home run live on set.
I do believe it is getting better with personalities now covering baseball in a different way on the internet like Jomboy, Momentum, and Pitching Ninja which give young guys like me an alternative way to consume baseball content than having to listen to old heads complain that players are benching and squatting too much causing them to throw and hit the ball too hard. And hopefully, the BCBlog makes baseball fun to follow as well.
Thank you for reading my rant.
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jacksonjthomas
Jeremy Rodriguez
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Will Stern
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