Baseball Page 906 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Bryce Harper's Attempt At Hurdling Willians Astudillo Could Have Gone Better
A frequent, but debatable, criticism of Bryce Harper’s game over the years has been his occasional lack of effort. So naturally, when the opportunity arose for the new Phillies signing to show some gusto with his base running, things went pretty awry....

Pissed-Off Noah Syndergaard Sandbagged By Schedule, Teammate's Random Piss Test
Noah Syndergaard pitched brilliantly against the Nationals in the Mets home opener on Thursday afternoon. He allowed three baserunners through six innings of work, struck out six, and carried a no-hitter through five innings. He also took the loss, due to the combination of an equally dominant perfo...

Chris Davis Is Really Bumming Me Out
In what threatens to become an Orioles home-opener tradition, Chris Davis went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and was increasingly booed for each....

The Dodgers Simply Cannot Stop Dingering
The Los Angeles Dodgers went crazy on Opening Day, setting a record by becoming the first team to mash eight home runs in the first game of the season. We’re now one week removed from that historic performance, and the Dodgers have played six more games. They have not stopped bashing balls out of th...

Arrogant Dickwad Umpire Shouts "I Can Do Anything I Want" After Goading A.J. Hinch Into An Ejection
In the top of the second inning of Wednesday night’s Astros-Rangers game, home plate umpire Ron Kulpa called a low strike on a pitch from Rangers starter Mike Minor. It was not Kulpa’s first controversial strike zone call of the evening, and it greatly displeased the Astros bench. Kulpa, a sensitive...

Nationals Reliever Trevor Rosenthal Is Stuck On Infinity
A fun little quirk of the first few days of a new baseball season is the wild swings of relievers’ statistics. A seventh inning guy who gets roughed up in the wrong spot can spend a week with gruesome numbers; a specialist who serves up a dinger to his lone assignment can spend a night or two with a...

Good Lord, This Jose Alvarado Pitch Is Nasty
Jose Alvarado is just beginning his third year pitching out of the Rays’ bullpen, and all you really need to know about him is that his fastball is absolutely obscene. Here’s a 99 mph pitch from his appearance today against the Rockies—a pitch that let him finish striking out the side—which somehow ...

Xander Bogaerts Didn't Learn His Lesson, And It Cost The Red Sox A Chance To Win
Xander Bogaerts clearly did not remember what he learned on Monday night. Don’t run on Ramon Laureano! He’ll put you in the trash can from a mile away....

Luke Voit Was Steamed About Getting Hit And Then Shown Up
The Yankees lineup is all busted up, so you can understand why the remaining healthy players might be a little more sensitive than usual about potentially getting hurt themselves. This is how we ended up with Yankees first baseman Luke Voit appearing to call Tigers pitcher Joe Jimenez a “fucking fat...

Bryce Harper Pummeled The Nats Until He Heard Cheers
If there were any questions about how Nationals fans would greet Bryce Harper in his return to Washington, they were answered well before first pitch. A tribute video—the thing that usually inspires warm fuzzies, before the rancor begins—was played on the scoreboard and booed vociferously. Then Harp...

Impossible To Imagine Bryce Harper Recovering From This Devastating Fan Sign
Sure, Bryce Harper may have gone 3-for-5 with a double, a dinger, and three RBI in a dominant Phillies win over his form team, but one angry Nationals fan made a savage sign out of a grey “Bryce Arnold” image, framed by an oddly formatted and incomplete border, on a wrinkly and curling sheet of 8.5"...

Nationals Fans Greet Bryce Harper With Lots And Lots Of Booing
Bryce Harper returned to Nationals Park Tuesday night, making his first appearance in Washington since he signed his mega-deal with the Phillies back in February. Fans who’d been waiting to unleash their burns on Bryce were forced to wait through a 45-minute rain delay, but that’s a small price to p...

Don't Ever Test Ramon Laureano's Cannon Arm
Xander Bogaerts probably thought he was home clear....

This Is The Face Of A Man Getting Pulled In The Seventh Inning Of A No-Hitter
It didn’t take too long for the Baltimore Orioles, who came into this season with one of the most clown-ass rosters ever assembled in the history of clown-ass rosters, to do away with whatever good will might have been earned by taking two of three from the Yankees to open the season. They did so by...

Report: The Nationals' Second Offer To Bryce Harper Was Smaller Than The First
Tuesday night the Phillies travel to Washington, and with them, their new superstar Bryce Harper returns to the city where he spent seven extremely productive seasons and became the face of the Nationals. But D.C.’s relationship with Harper, especially in the later years, was increasingly fraught, s...

The Yankees Are Torn Up And Full Of Holes
How are things for the Yankees in the season’s early going? Well, their new third outfielder got to New York so hurriedly he’s living in a hotel room with his mom and his cats. They aren’t sure who their starter is going to be on Wednesday and may throw a bullpen game. Someone called Mike Tauchman w...

Max Muncy Bat Flips On A Harmless Fly Out Like A Complete Buster
Bat flips are great, as a stylish way of punctuating a mighty dinger. It’s less cool but probably acceptable to bat flip after a particularly well-hit non-dinger, if that non-dinger should be a walk-off RBI single. However broadly you are prepared to abide the spread of the bat flip, probably baseba...

It's Too Early To Say The Cubs Are In Trouble, But Not Too Early To Enjoy Their Fuck-Ups
The Cubs have not gotten off to the start anyone envisioned over the winter. They’re 1–3, having dropped a season-opening series to the Rangers, and having absorbed a deflating 8–0 loss to the Atlanta Braves Monday night. This is a vanishingly tiny sample size, and the Cubs were picked by various ex...

Universe Rewards Home Plate Umpire For Defending His Crew Mate By Directing A Fastball Into His Junk
This delightful baseball sequence begins with Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter leading off the top of the 11th inning against Pirates hurler Steven Brault. With the count at 2–2, Brault threw a breaking pitch down and away, and Carpenter appeared to check his swing. Third base umpire Jordan Ba...

Fixing MLB's Broken Economics Is About More Than Free Agency<em></em>
There have been a number of significant hints that MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association are headed for some very combative collective bargaining in 2021, but the two sides being willing to talk about economics ahead of schedule will stand out to anyone who has ever been through thi...