Sunday, June 3, 2018 | 1:10 pm
Comerica Park | Detroit, Michigan
PREAMBLE:
After some indifferent play in the field and then a meltdown from Seunghwan Oh, the Blue Jays blew a 4-2 lead to lose 7-4 for their umpteenth loss in a row.
Today, two struggling pitchers face off on the mound to see who can out-stink the other and hand their opposition the win. Two years ago, this would have been a great matchup of budding star pitchers.
NOTES:
Teoscar Hernandez is out with a dinged foot after fouling a ball off it in yesterday's game. X-rays were negative, so he ought to be good'n'ready for Tuesday's game. Then again, it's 2018, so who knows?
Get a load of these injury updates (from Keegan Matheson's feed):
Steve Pearce - "continuing his rehab and progressing slowly"
Troy Tulowitzki - "jogging on flat ground and tolerating it well"
I mean, what the fuck... these sound more like old people getting ready to walk again in time to join the retirement home lawn-bowling tournaments.
Oh hell no... make the Yankees suffer, MLB!
The #Yankees rained out once again and pleading with #MLB to alter plans for them to play July 8 ESPN Sunday night game in Toronto with doubleheader scheduled next day in Baltimore, meaning three games in less than 30 hours in two cities— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) June 3, 2018
Since it's getting depressing mentioning Blue Jays facts, let's go with ....
FUN FACTS (pulled from several sites online):
Javier Baez just hit his 5th career HR in the 12th inning or later. He's got 5 such HRs at age 25; Hank Aaron only hit two in the 12th or later in his entire career.
Mike Trout is now up to 5.3 bWAR. He's on pace to hit 53 HR and steal 36 bases - the record for most SB by a 50-HR hitter is 24. He's also on pace for 14.8 bWAR; the record for a position player is 14.1 by Babe Ruth. The highest non-Ruthian total is Carl Yaztrzemski with 12.5.
How good is the Astros' starting rotation? Combined, hitters are slashing .196/.260/.330 off the Astros' five man unit. That's historically good - if that was a single (non-pitching) hitter for his career with at least 600 plate appearances, that would be the third lowest batting average in the history of baseball.
Josh Hader of the Brewers has faced 123 batters this season. 69 of them have struck out (56%).
Shohei Ohtani has a chance to do something that hasn't been done in 100 years: hit more HRs than given up as a regular starting pitcher. Ohtani's at 6 HRs hit, 5 HRs given up. The last time this was done was by Babe Ruth, of course, who hit 29 and gave up 2.
Manny Machado has a chance to do something really special -- that is, if he doesn't get traded. He's hit 18 HRs and the LOLs have won 17 games. No player in history has hit more HRs than his team has wins. The closest was Sammy Sosa with 63 HRs for a 67-win Cubs team and Wally Berger with 34 HRs for a 38-win Braves team.
LINEUPS:
Jays:
LF Granderson
3B Solarte
1B Smoak
DH Morales
CF Pillar
C Martin
2B Travis
RF Grichuk
SS Diaz
Tigers:
The Tigers deserve the nice lineup look; the Jays don't until they start winning again. So there.
This is your "Happy Sunday reading" game threat.
