Tim Kurkjian posted a wild fact. By the time the Reds' Jesse Winker hit his 20th MLB HR, he had hit at least one HR from all nine spots in the lineup.

The way he acted after hitting the game winner the other night you would think he never had one. I would wager if the Mets are down big or up big tonight he gets one between the numbers.

Let baseball players have fun.

How that work out against Rhys Hoskins? :)

I am as big a Mets fan as there is and I was laughing the whole time he was rounding the bases. I loved it.

That being said I thought Hoskins was kind of a bitch about it. No way he was throwing at him on purpose.

You blast one off Diaz to take the lead in the 9th, enjoy your celebration.

Fixed

Bases loaded, Trout up, you're down 2-0, 1 out.

Do you just saw fuck it, and walk in a run? Or do you face him?

Stroman took door #2. Double down the line. Cleared the bases.

I’m sitting in 6th in a gpp on FanDuel. Have Goodwin and can jump everyone ahead of me. Knew I was screwed.

You face him.

He's roughly a .300 avg / .400 OBP guy in that situation. That's certainly darned good & dangerous but the odds of getting him out are in your favor.

Naw, he's .300/.400 in normal circumstances. In those spots, where you have to pitch to him.if you're not walking him, you're basically fucked.

Actually had Trout in a couple DK contests. But I always have him. I operate on the "never a bad idea to have Trout in my lineup" concept.

Vlad Jr. swings like his dad.

I pulled his career splits (since not all of these are broken down by year at baseball reference & there's some choice as to which you want to apply to the exact situation)

1 out - .316 / .415
bases loaded - .393 / .429
late & close - .243 / .403
within 2 runs - .303 / .417
ahead - .313 / .435

Those all have reasonable sample sizes. His 1 out/bases loaded IS .500 / .545 but that's 30 plate appearances out of 4792 pa.

They gambled & lost, but it wasn't a bad gamble by the numbers. They had a better chance of getting him out than not.

Kevin Gausman = Pepperidge Farms

FOX Sports: Braves on Twitter: "Here's the pitch behind Jose Ureña that got Kevin Gausman ejected.… "

This was so sweet, especially after the shit Paddack was talking. I don't ever remember being so excited for a player than I have been with Alonso this year. Not sure we have ever had a guy like this, Strawberry is the closest.

Official Statcast data:
598 ft, 237 mph
pic.twitter.com/qWUu8gDiQj

— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) May 8, 2019

Think that was the first real pulled HR he's had this year too.

I was bummed when I realized that bat flip was way more exaggerated than he actually intended.

Meanwhile, the Reds were no-hit last night. That's still big news, right?

Me too. He would have had every right to showboat after Paddack did the same thing Monday.

But the HR wasn't off Paddack....

Not when it happens in the dark in Oakland in front of about 350 people.

So?

He still hit a HR that won them the game the night after Paddack celebrated like he won the world series.

I guess it's okay then even though Paddack had no influence on the outcome.

Nick Senzel looks like the real deal in Cincinnati. Also impressed they decided to move on from Matt Kemp. Big question is what to do about Votto. I wouldn't say he is holding them down or anything but certainly starting to look like Albert Pujols version Angels.

Joey Gallo hit his 100th career home run. He has yet to hit his 100th career single.

Votto traditionally starts slowly and it's gotten worse as he's aged. He isn't an MVP candidate anymore, surely, but I wouldn't worry much at this point. If he's still at this level in June, then it's time to be concerned.

Senzel does look like a stud. Still think it's a little early to give up on Votto. He's struggling but also been a little unlucky with BABIP.

Hey don't get me wrong as a Cardinals fan I am not losing sleep over the Votto decline but much like Matt Carpenter here in St. Louis he just looks lost right now. I am kind of a middle of the road guy on "old school stats" vs saber so I will concede the slow start and BABIP but I would just say I am much more scared to face Winker and Senzel and even Dietrich right now than Votto. (And 5 years ago I would have been biting fingernails nervous with Votto in the on deck circle at a crucial moment) And I am no homer... Yelich, Baez, Senzel these guys are legit and the NL Central is the most fun it's been in a long time I just think Votto's time has passed.

(Sadly my $25 auction bid in an NL only league on Votto may fuel some of my pessimism. )

Congrats to the Cubs for that barrage of self righteousness over banning the circle game fan*. Almost like they're trying to bury the return of a chronic wife abuser or something.


*circle game guy def needs banned, I guess his social media was all kinds of awful.

Yeah I thought exactly the same thing. Intentional or not the timing couldnt have been any worse.

People have been playing that game since the 50s. I have not seen his social media. But I think this one is getting blown out of proportion.

And he got millions to look, didnt he.

He wasn't playing the circle game, he was flashing a white power symbol. Good riddance.

Why is it one and not the other here? Because I've paid 0 attention to it, read nothing. I am joe average looking at a headline and a picture. I'm asking not because I can't look it up, but because there's a vast difference in amount of attention that a person who opposes 'white power, and this is totally that here' and one who thinks that 'every little thing' is about 'white power' and it's not worth reading about, and someone has over reacted. Nearly every headline paints the story like the former, which means that there's a big population of people who are likely to not read anything, and lock in their judgements because they have already made up their minds.

A symbol that's so widely known that I've never heard of it until this rush-to-create-a-tempest-whether-one-existed-or-not.

On the flip side, what dumbass adults still play that? I may have when I was like, 8.

I'd never heard of the circle game, or any white power symbol that it's tied to, until this.

As it happens, I don't have a clue what THAT version of the story is either.

You clearly need to go watch the classic:

The Brain!!!

Batwing!

The best case scenario is that he was doing it ironically, but as has been said, if you're only fucking a goat ironically, you're still fucking a goat. He's either a racist or a jackass, and either way he got what's coming to him.

Pretty much anyone under the age of 25 or anyone who works with anyone under the age of 16, knows what the circle game is. It's stupid, but my students spent all of last year thinking it was funny to get me to look at the stupid OK sign for obnoxious reasons of "Got ya"

I’m in this camp. Apparently, if you flash an upside down OK sign below your waist and get someone to look at it, you get to punch him, like punch bug. Who determined that was a white power symbol?

I guess I am clueless here.

Did anybody else play Doorknob in their youth? If somebody burps, they have to call out 'safety'. If they forget, somebody can say 'doorknob' and punch them until they touch a doorknob. Pretty stupid, but along the same lines.

We always played it with farting, never burping

+1

basically the way I understand it, it was one of those ironical things at firrst from the various chans "Hey, let's make the normies think we're throwing up white power signs (because from a certain angle it can look like WP).

Then when people complained it was like "HA! TRIGGERED YOU NORMIES!"

However, people actually started using it to mean just that, and pretty much now, people don't care if you're using it "ironically" or not, people will assume you're being racist.

See we're talking about this instead of that scumbag Addison Russell

I remember that, and the okay sign game too.

How about the jinx game? Another variant along the same lines.

White people are triggers now. Or should I say, non-liberal white males.

Wife beaters dont matter when non liberal white males do something.

(rolls eyes)

Don't worry, we can hate both stupid asshats equally. And that's what equality is about, ain't it?