Alrighty baseball fans, need some advice on Yankees games. We're going to NYC in early May and there are two games we could see. A day game versus Detroit or a night game against the Astros. Pros and cons to each? Thanks! Edit - Never mind. We leave the inlaws on Sunday the 5th and no way to get to NYC, checked into the hotel and up to the stadium by 1:30pm. Night game it is
Too bad it's not the next weekend. Braves @ Mets. As much as I hate the Mets, it's so easy to get to Citi Field, it's fun.
I didn't even think about the Mets. It's more of a "Yankee Stadium" thing for me than the teams playing. My dad was a Braves fan so I'll sure I'll see them at some point. Edit - Mets aren't playing at home while we're there anyways
I'm trying to verify the connection or follow this part of the Ohtani story - it doesn't seem to be in mainstream media outlets. But, is it true that the news breaking about Ohtani gambling issues came from a Twitter user with the handle SugarTits, since she caught his first home run ball, or something? Because, what a fun extra part of the story, lol
This sounds SO sketchy to me. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39920849/ohtani-interpreter-ippei-mizuhara-stole-16m He bet enough to win $142 million. Damn, MLB interpreters make a LOT more than I thought.
This is hilarious: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1c2qp93/highlight_full_terrorism_replay_of_angel/
He made other bad calls during that game. It was the MLB network game, and the announcers were just beside themselves. He's so bad.
Good day at the ballpark, yesterday, especially watching the Bravos walk it off in the 10th for a series win against the Guardians. The Braves picked off 2 baserunners and threw out 3 trying to steal. And, I saw a call I'd never seen, that was very hard to understand live in person what they were calling. In the bottom of the 10th, Ronald Acuña was the ghost runner to start on 2nd. Apparently, he took too long getting out there, and they charged the Braves with a clock violation, and that went as a strike against Ozzie Albies. So, he started his at-bat 0-1. It was weird. Also, I've been hearing murmurs about the ball not being wound as tight this year or whatever? That balls with similar exit velocity and launch angle 2024 are dying on the deep warning track instead of being home runs. I have been going to at least 5 games a year for the past 40 years, and I have a little feel for when "that one is gone!" type sound and launch. But, that's not really scientific, so I think we'll have to wait until the end of the year to see where it shakes out. But, man - Matt Olson and Austin Riley hit two balls yesterday, that I immediately stood up for, thinking they were at least 5 rows deep. And, the wind was blowing in a little . . . but, nope. Fly ball out. Odd.
I watched this game on TV (they show all of the Guardians games here on the local Ballys channel, so it's one of the few non-national TV times I can catch the Braves) and it was even more weird on TV with them trying to figure out the clock violation. They first assessed it against the Guardians pitcher, since Albies was clearly in the box ready to go, but the camera views never showed Acuna being late to get to the base, so it was probably a whole 2 minutes just trying to figure that thing out. Regardless, at least you got to see a good game that they won. Are you going to try and get to next year's All-Star game, by chance? I've still never been down there, and I'm trying to convince the wife that we need to take a summer trip down south next year and I would love to have my first time at Truist be the all-star game.
I am absolutely going to try and get to the game! In 2000, when it was at Turner Field, I was a volunteer for that whole All-star Weekend. It was a blast! I am going to try and do that again.
Oh, ETA, for you casual fans: the Guardians are the team in Cleveland. They used to be the Indians, and the name change was the only word they could think of that ended in -dians. (I saw several Cleveland fans wearing Indians jerseys.)
With David Fletcher's investigation about to start, good luck to his interpreter. I guess we're all supposed to just keep playing along that Ohtani never bet on baseball? When Austin Riley got hurt, instead of calling Fletcher up from AAA - which is WHY they signed him - the Braves put in Zach Short instead, whom they'd just signed. Okay.
I don't know why the umpires hate Acuña so much. He has a little language barrier and absolutely loves baseball, and I think they think he's always being cocky. He was called out on 6 pitches in this at bat. All 6 were outside. Not just this at bat - the umps have called these on him all season. https://twitter.com/StoolBaseball/status/1794516173662654630?t=dZv23n0MLq5_dpgrB5GRjw&s=19 And, then he tears his ACL and is out for the year. I know some people don't like him, and even I have accused him of loafing. But, man, baseball is worse off with him out.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2024/05/27/angel-hernandez-retires-mlb-umpire-stats/73873676007/ Holy fuck is this overdue. My theory is that he would have been fired long ago if he hadn’t filed that discrimination lawsuit. MLB was afraid of how it would look, even though he was simply a shitty umpire.
He was shitty before the lawsuit, too and should have been dismissed years ago. He's been around since way before the Statcast era, and since before the telecasts projected the strikezone onscreen. One of the funny things about Hernandez is how just how horrible he is, all over the place. Like, those strikezones don't always tell the story - Ozzie Albies and Matt Olson's width of plate is going to match, but the is going to be different for them. So, the zone is going to vary a little. Plus, the strike zone is going to be different over the depth of the plate, when you're calling a 99 mph 4-seamer, or 96 mph cutter that's moving the other way, or an 86 mph curve that has 4.5 inches of break, or when the ump has to position themselves differently behind the catcher on lefty batter vs righty batter. So, I get it - sometimes, you'll see an umpire consistently miss the same pitch in the same location. And, pitchers will take advantage of that. And, batters know it. But, the reactions to Hernandez are just hilarious. He's awful inside, outside, up, down, lefty, righty - doesn't matter. One of the guys - I think it was "Talking Baseball" did a whole 30 minute episode showing the data of how awful he is. Just for this year, he has the #1 worst call (farthest out of the strike zone) of any umpire, and 3 of the top 4. For those of you who don't know, here's a sample:
My biggest umpiring gripe is that many of them don’t adjust the strike zone according to the batters, as you posted above. They seem to envision the same “box”, whether it’s Aaron Judge or Manny Machado at the plate. If umpires can’t call games as per the rules, bring on the robot umpires, at least for balls and strikes.