MLB Page 1019 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Pirates Relief Pitcher Sings The National Anthem Before Pirates Game
The Pirates have a college-educated singer in their bullpen, and they’re putting him to good use. Before Pittsburgh’s game tonight against the Brewers, relief pitcher Steven Brault stepped up to the plate and sang the national anthem, pulling off a rare feat that was maybe done most memorably in rec...

World-Class Doofus Hunter Strickland Out For Two Months After Punching A Wall<em></em>
Giants reliever Hunter Strickland was very definitively Not Mad while exiting the eventual San Francisco loss last night. On his walk back to the dugout after blowing his team’s lead, Strickland exchanged words with Giant-killing Marlins outfielder Lewis Brinson after Brinson both tagged Strickland...

The Beef Between Lewis Brinson And Hunter Strickland Is Currently Medium Well
Hunter Strickland has long been established as the biggest baby, as he once threw a retaliatory pitch for a nearly 3-year-old dinger. It doesn’t take much to get under the Giants closer’s skin, besides exposing him as kind of a mortal pitcher in front of large crowds....

Mike Trout Doesn't Deserve This Shit
Mike Trout got on base four times against the Diamondbacks on Monday night, thanks to two walks and two singles. Trout is basically always on base—he’s currently sporting a career-high .464 OBP—so that’s not a remarkable thing in and of itself. Neither is the fact that his teammates failed to drive ...

Umpire Dutch Rennert Has Died, But His Strikeout Call Is Probably Still Echoing
Laurence “Dutch” Rennert, a National League umpire from 1974–1992, has passed away at the age of 88. You might not even know his name! You know his strikeout call:...

Cocky Millennial Busted By Bartolo Colon's Pick-Off Move<em></em>
The Royals’ Whit Merrifield has 15 stolen bases on the year, and Rangers pitcher Bartolo Colon had yet to pick off a baserunner this season heading into tonight. In this case, one would think that the 29-year-old on first base would have the clear advantage over the 45-year-old on the mound. But tha...

Strong Teen Juan Soto Smacked The Hell Out Of This Dinger
Juan Soto is 19 years old and has been in the majors for less than a month, and he’s already qualified as a Yankee killer. He followed up last week’s two-homer game in the Bronx by hitting this absolute dong during the resumption of a suspended game today in D.C.: ...

Brewers Pitcher Just Barfs Everywhere
Brewers hurler Adrian Houser got recalled from AAA for just his fifth career MLB appearance, was tapped to pitch the top of the eighth inning, finished his warm-up tosses, and then promptly barfed....

The Nationals Offense Is Junk, But They're Mighty Fun On The Bases
The Nationals are depressing. After another disappointing loss Sunday afternoon they’re a ho-hum 37-31, having just been swept by the crummy and forgettable Toronto Blue Jays. They can’t hit the damn ball: they’re 10th in the National League in runs; they’re a miserable 11th in on-base percentage; n...

The Orioles Finally, Mercifully Shelved Chris Davis
It appears the Orioles will not, in fact, let Chris Davis have the worst season in baseball history. Davis hasn’t played this week, and Friday night Orioles manager Buck Showalter reportedly indicated there’s no timetable for his return. This news is less happy than, say, news of Davis breaking out ...

That Wacky Astros Four-Man Outfield Shift Is Spreading
The defensive shift is having a moment. It’s of course being used more than ever, and now even by certain crotchety types who’d previously resisted it. Royals manager Ned Yost, for example, is skeptical of statistics that support use of the shift, and in fact is vocally in favor of the shift being b...

Talking To Davey Johnson About Numbers, Players, And What Managers Actually Do
There’s a thing that happens to old ballplayers, a strange and salty suspension that leaves their approach to the game frozen at precisely the moment they left it and tends to lead them to spend the rest of their days grousing spicily about everything that happened since. That never happened to Dave...

Twins Send Former All-Star Miguel Sano All The Way Down To Single-A
Less than one year ago, Twins slugger Miguel Sano was busy bonking baseballs out of the yard and looking like one of the best young sluggers in the league. He hit .276/.368/.538 to go along with 21 homers in the first half of 2017, which was good enough to make him an All-Star for the first time at ...

MLB On Ejection Video Scrubbing: Our Ass Would Be In The Jackpot If We Didn't
It’s only been a few days since MLB umpire Tom Hallion introduced the phrase “our ass is in the jackpot” in a leaked video that contained full audio of a 2016 Terry Collins ejection. While we’re still no closer to understanding why Hallion used the word “jackpot” instead of something more normal lik...

Adam Wainwright Is A Merciless Prank Artist
Skip Schumaker spent the first eight of his 11 years in the majors playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, where he was teammates with, among others, career-Cardinal Adam Wainwright. Schumaker retired in 2016, after stints with the Dodgers and Reds, and is now the first base coach for the San Diego Pad...

The Mets Screwed Up A Chance At Greatness Because They Couldn't Stop Being The Mets
When the Mets stuck Jacob deGrom with his second loss of the season on Wednesday afternoon, it was their 10th defeat in 11 games. DeGrom, who has been the best starting pitcher in the National League, allowed just one earned run and struck out seven over seven innings. The Mets didn’t get a hit off ...

Juan Soto Is 19 And Crushing It
Juan Soto is a boy with a man’s bat. With his two–home run night in the Bronx on Thursday, the 19-year-old Nationals outfielder became the fifth youngest player in baseball’s live-ball era with a multi-homer game, and the list (Danny Murphy, Mel Ott, Ken Griffey Jr., Andruw Jones) puts him in some p...

Punches Nearly Thrown In Near Brawl After Matt Kemp Trucks Robinson Chirinos At The Plate<em></em>
We’ve got ourselves a near donnybrook! Hands nearly thrown! Faces nearly smashed! Scores nearly settled!...


So Is Scooter Gennett Really This Good Now?
There are usually a very limited number of ways that most fans will ever come to know that a guy like Scooter Gennett exists. He’s a player you would know if you’re the type of Brewers fan that keeps up with those 16th-round role-playing guys, ones that hang around for a few years and never really f...