MLB Daily: David Ross Achieves Career Highlight; Cardinals Continue to Own the Dodgers
By Mike Cardillo
Welcome to MLB Daily on a Friday. Hopefully you can survive Saturday and Sunday without this daily posting …
Fun ending: David Ross picked Clint Robinson off first base to end the Cubs-Nationals game. That’s a rough way to lose if you’re Washington since Anthony Rendon, fresh off the disabled list, was at bat with a 3-1 count and runners at first and second in a one-run game.
Ross, 38, is a longtime backup catcher and a veteran of 770 Major League games, yet he reacted like a kid after the final out. This makes sense. If you’re a catcher is there a better way to end a game? Holding onto the final out after a close play at home plate probably trumps it, but throwing behind the runner and getting the out at first is a rarity and to have it be the final out is extra special.
Don’t look now but the Mets have crept a half-game ahead of the Nationals in the NL East.
Bogey team: The Cardinals beat the Dodgers 7-1 last night in Los Angeles. Wins don’t really mean much for a starting pitcher, we know this, but Michael Wacha is 8-1 with a 2.18 ERA. Offense is down across baseball and it *is* the National League but the St. Louis staff, sans Adam Wainwright for most of the year, sports a 2.62 ERA through 52 games. That’s nearly a half-run lower than Washington’s 3.03 team ERA that led baseball in 2014.
The good news for the Dodgers is they’re still 31-23 and atop the West. Less encouraging is they’re now 1-3 vs. the Cardinals in 2015, on the backs of series losses in each of the last two postseasons to the Red Birds. Nobody is going to straight up say, “we don’t want to play this team” but the Dodgers would be quite happy to avoid the Cardinals in the playoffs, saying nothing of the theory in sports you need to get through your nemesis in order to be a champion.
More encouraging for the Dodgers is news Yasiel Puig could return from the disabled list this weekend. No, this doesn’t help offset all the injuries to the pitching staff but it might give Don Mattingly another option rather than batting Justin Turner in the clean-up hole.
Fun with Stats: The Blues Jays have the third-worst team ERA (4.81) but lead baseball with five complete games. Buehrle Ball, baby!
Hey now, you’re an All Star: Alcides Escobar is probably going to end up your starting shortshop for the AL at the All Star Game next month. All Stars make barehanded plays … at short, no less.
Cleveland beat Kansas City last night, to keep up its recent upturn in play. Trevor Bauer trumped Chris Young, who are probably as disparate as two right-handed pitchers as you can find — in terms of stuff. Bauer throws hard and a variety of pitches and has 70 strikeouts in 70 1/3 innings. Young is a sinkerballer with 34 strikeouts in 45 2/3 innings. After last night, however, both starters have five wins and ERAs under 3.00.
There is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.
This & That: The Twins were universally mocked for signing Torii Hunter in the winter. Now he’s up to eight homers after yesterday’s Twins’ win over the Red Sox in Boston. … You have to be a serious baseball fan to readily recognize anyone aside from Evan Longoria in the Rays lineup, yet they keep winning and moved to a half-game behind idle New York in the AL East. … The Tigers — my team — are a hot mess at the moment. That’s all that needs to be said. …. Until next week …?
[TGIF]