Hi, hello and welcome to THE USB Baseball Report! I'm Steve Cook, and it's been another crazy week in the world of baseball. The Cubs are still the best team and should be for awhile, but there are still plenty of other surprises! Then again, maybe there aren't as many surprises out there as people might think...
2. Tigers at Nationals (Monday-Wednesday): Both teams are in tight races within their divisions right now, and the pitching matchup of the week has to be Jordan Zimmermann vs. Max Scherzer on Wednesday. The former National returning to D.C. to take on a former Tiger should be good stuff. Zimmermann has been great so far this season, Scherzer not so much but he's always a threat for a lights-out performance.
"Always a threat for a lights-out performance."
So Max Scherzer struck out twenty batters on Wednesday and tied the major league record for strikeouts in a game. I think that qualifies as a lights-out performance, don't you?
Thank you, thank you. Tell your friends. This guy knows his baseball. Now let's get to the stories.
Baseball Players Are Not Role Models
The first notable thing Charles Barkley ever said was his declaration that he was not a role model in a Nike commercial. Which, let's be honest, made sense. Athletes should not be role models.
It's been a really bad week for behavior in baseball. Bryce Harper, quite possibly the best player in the game right now (don't get mad, Mike Trout), got suspended for one game after F-bombing an umpire after a game. When you add in the fact that he had already been kicked out of the game and shouldn't have been on the field anywayy, it makes it a wee bit worse. He appealed the suspension at first but then decided to serve it in the second game of a double-header against the Marlins. Harper would have probably gotten one of those games off anyway, so it was a very smart move by the Nationals.
Jose Reyes got some headlines in the middle of the week, as MLB finally decided what his punishment should be for allegedly abusing his wife. He'll be out until May 31st, the end of this month. He'll have missed 51 games in total, and he's also lost his job in Colorado since Trevor Story has become a phenomenon at his position. The Rockies will be looking to move Reyes, but it's going to be tough because his value has never been lower. The Cincinnati Reds can tell you that trying to trade a player with similar issues is pretty difficult...they had to settle for a lot less than they should have gotten for Aroldis Chapman, the best closer to come along in at least a decade (maybe two or three, quite frankly) but also has some domestic violence issues.
Then on Sunday, the tension that I've mentioned in this column before between the Blue Jays (Jose Bautista in particular) and the Rangers finally boiled over. Bautista tried to slide right through Rougned Odor on a double play attempt, and Odor decided he had had more than enough of Jose Bautista. It should probably be mentioned that Bautista was hit by a pitch from Rangers reliever Matt Bush (a heck of a story, by the way, maybe we'll get to that one of these days) so Joey Bats was in a pretty crappy mood. But here's the replay (assuming YouTube doesn't take it down):
I'm impressed Bautista didn't go down, but man is he lucky that Adrian Beltre & some other folks got in there. Odor would have messed him up. Multiple fines & suspensions are expected from the melee that followed, and fortunately for the Rangers, they did win the game. Knowing how Texas operates, I have no doubt that Rougned Odor is now the most popular baseball player in the state of Texas. I mean, that's the best punch I've seen since Nolan Ryan.
(And we're going to see that later.)
The bottom line is that as much as we want to look up to athletes, we really shouldn't. I made the same mistake when I was a kid. I wanted to look up to the guys on the baseball diamond or the football field or the basketball court. It was a bad idea. Many times the people I looked up to would disappoint me. If I was to give one piece of advice to today's youth, it would be to not look up to professional athletes.
Or politicians. Who are even worse role models than athletes, quite honestly.
Reds Update
Honestly that video kind of sums it up. To be fair, the Reds did split a series with the Pirates thanks to a rainout on Tuesday. Monday featured a rare 0-run performance from the bullpen, and Wednesday had a bunch of people getting hit by pitches because that's what happens with the Reds & Pirates for some reason. I don't know if it's a Cincinnati/Pittsburgh thing...I'm inclined to believe it's a Pirates thing because it seems like they have these problems with every team in baseball. They got into it with the Cubs over the weekend when Jake Arrieta accidentally hit
Reds relief pitcher Ross Ohlendorf was suspended for three games after throwing at David Freese after warnings were issued. It's unclear whether or not MLB realized that suspending Ohlendorf for three games wasn't a punishment for the Reds. Ohlendorf is still appealing his suspension, so he was able to appear in Sunday's game and give up 1 run in 1 inning of work. Yay? Bryan Price was suspended for one game and he served it right away because managers don't have a union.
Side Note: Anytime I type "Ohlendorf" I have to fix it because I type "Ohlendork" every single time. I bet he got that a lot in school.
The Reds lost the first two games of the series in Philadelphia but came back with a strong win on Sunday. That brings their road record to an absolutely dreadful 3-12. This week is all about interleague play. Two games in Cleveland against the Indians, two games in Cincinnati against the Indians, then a weekend series hosting the surprisingly competitive Mariners. The Indians are doing pretty well too, so it'll be tough sledding for the Redlegs this week. Hopefully they'll at least win one game so they can appear in the column.
Baseball's Top Ten: My Favorite Players As A Kid
Most things in life are never better than when you were a kid, and baseball is no different in that regard. As a fan that hasn't seen his favorite baseball team win the World Series since he was six years old, I'm prone to going in the wayback machine and wistfully pining for days gone by. That's why I thought it would be fun for this edition of Baseball's Top Ten to list my favorite players when I was a kid. Now, it's kind of tough to perfect the order here because it's been a few years and maybe I liked #6 better than #5 and just don't remember correctly, and there might even be a few people I'm forgetting, but I know who #1 was and have a pretty good idea on the rest.
10. Pete Rose: The Hit King retired before I can remember watching baseball, but he was still one of my favorites as a kid because he held the hits record & he played for the Reds. I was a history nerd, and I put as much effort into learning baseball history as I did actual history. The highlight of my Knothole baseball career was wearing the number 14 my third season in as part of a team sponsored by NL umpire Randy Marsh. Unfortunately my number of hits wearing the number paled in comparison to Pete's worst years and my career ended soon after.
9. Will Clark: Even though the Giants were in the NL West with the Reds, I always liked Will. Probably because of his nickname: "The Thrill". I love nicknames that rhyme with the person's name.
8. Ozzie Smith: Believe it or not, there was a time where I didn't despise the St. Louis Cardinals. They were in the NL East while the Reds were in the NL West so we didn't see them as often. Ozzie was a magnificent shortstop that flipped through the credits of my favorite weekly show that wasn't pro wrestling: [i]This Week In Baseball[/i].
7. The Nasty Boys: Yes I'm including three people in one spot. Deal with it. Norm Charlton, Rob Dibble & Randy Myers were greatness personified. Dibble was a total hothead that threw the ball really fast. Charlton was part of my favorite play of the 1990 season: him running over Dodger catcher Mike Sciosia to score a run. And Myers was the best pitcher of the bunch. Those were great times for a six-year old.
6. Cal Ripken Jr.: There's something to be said for a guy that shows up to work day after day no matter what. That's what Ripken did for 2,632 games, a feat that will likely never be equaled. Sure, we said that about Lou Gehrig's 2,130 games, but that's a couple of extra seasons. I'll never forget watching Cal break the record in September 1995 and completing the same lap around Camden Yards that I had made while on a tour of the ballpark a couple of months earlier.
5. Nolan Ryan: My favorite non-Red of all-time, Ryan was probably the biggest badass to take the pitching mound during my time as a fan. Ask Robin Ventura what would happen if you tried to rush the mound on Ryan:
Keep in mind that Ryan was forty-six years old at the time this happened. It would be the most impressive thing he ever did if not for the seven no-hitters.
4. Barry Larkin: Larkin was the best Cincinnati Red of the 1990s and the only member of the 1990 World Series championship team to be elected to the Hall of Fame. His greatness was often in the shadows of other shortstops like Ripken & Smith and later guys like Jeter & A-Rod, but Reds fans knew that they were watching one of the best to don the uniform. A great batter & a great fielder, Larkin had no real weaknesses other than a tendency to miss time due to injury. Which, playing on that Riverfront Stadium turf for most of his career, can be excused.
3. Tom Browning: Browning was known as "Mr. Perfect" by Reds fans for pitching a perfect game in 1988. He lived in my hometown of Edgewood, Kentucky, so naturally I was a big fan. I even had him sign my Bill Mazeroski glove, which was pretty cool until the ink faded away. I remember looking at my new Cincinnati Reds Record Book and noting how close Browning was to some of the Reds all-time records on the very day that he broke his arm. He was never the same pitcher after that day and his career ended soon after. My dad says he's a joy to golf with, though.
2. Ken Griffey Jr.: Who didn't love Junior? He was a happy-go-lucky kid that had fun playing the game without rubbing people the wrong way. He wore his hat backwards, was the best hitting & fielding center fielder during the 1990s, and had some fun video games. Unfortunately injuries caught up with him in Cincinnati and his second half of his career paled in comparison to the first, but man, that first half of his career.
1. Chris Sabo: Somewhere there's a baseball card of me at six years old that lists my height, weight, favorite baseball team & favorite player. My favorite player? Chris Sabo, third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds. He had a gutsy, never say die attitude that reminded a lot of Cincinnati fans of Pete Rose. He wasn't the most talented player, but he was one of the toughest. He also had funny looking goggles, which helped him stand out. He won Rookie of the Year in 1988 and was a key contributor to that 1990 championship...sadly, Sabo's performance tailed off after a solid 1991 season and he was out of the game after 1996. Baseball Reference's Fan EloRater puts him at #1004 all-time, between Pete Ward & Omar Infante. Maybe he isn't ranked as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but he ranked as my favorite player as a kid, and that has to count for something. Reds fans still look back at Sabo fondly, and they voted him into the Reds Hall of Fame in 2010.
Random Thought
The Atlanta Braves & Minnesota Twins are currently the worst teams in their respective leagues. The Twins are a dreadful 10-26 while the Braves are a hapless 9-27. The last season they both finished in last place in their respective divisons? 1990. What happened in 1991?
One of the greatest World Series of all time, featuring the worst-to-first Braves & Twins.
I'm just saying.
Three Series To Watch This Week
1. Nationals at Mets (Tuesday-Thursday): I'm pretty sure these teams had a series in this section before, but when you're the two best teams in the East and the best two teams in the National League that aren't the Chicago Cubs, that's what happens. Sure, the Phillies are in second place right now, but they'll come back to Earth eventually. I think. Unless they're the MLB version of Leicester City. Until that point, enjoy two of the best teams in baseball going at it in the world's biggest city.
2. Mariners at Orioles (Tuesday-Thursday): I'm typing this on Friday night and both of these teams are in first place in their divisions. Who saw that coming? The Orioles have shown some fire in recent years, but the Mariners haven't contended for much of anything since the early 2000s. They're a rebuilding team with a ton of young talent that's gotten hot early in the season. Can it last? It'll get its toughest test yet this week in Camden Yards. We should at least watch this so we can learn who some of these young Mariners are. Of course there's Robinson Cano, don'tcha know. Ketel Marte is on my fantasy team. Nelson Cruz. King Felix. That's the list of Mariners I can name off the top of my head.
(Editor's Note: Yes, this is mostly the same excerpt from last week. I messed up the schedule last week. Nobody called me on it, which is kinda depressing.)
The Orioles are now tied with the Red Sox and the Mariners are a half game behind the feisty Rangers, but that doesn't make this series any less interesting.
3. Royals at White Sox (Friday-Sunday): The defending World Series champs are off to a rough start. They're looking up at not only the surprising White Sox, but the Cleveland Indians as well. This is a chance to make up some games in the division and show the baseball world that the road to October will go through Kansas City.
Welp, that's all we have time for this week! Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
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