fast Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The MLB has reached critical stupidity with these new baseballs
Remember when the NBA tried new basketballs, and the response was so overwhelmingly negative that the league switched back to the old balls midseason? If you fall into the Venn diagram of baseball and basketball fans, you probably recall this story, but if you’re strictly a baseball person, what hap...
The baseball is deflated again
I’m cribbing heavily from Joe Sheehan’s newsletter again, but in his latest missive he points out that things keep getting better and better for pitchers. Thanks to technology and greater study, they discover new pitches or tweaks to existing ones as they keep throwing harder and harder. At the same...
The Japanese pitching sensation that refuses to let hitters reach base
One of the biggest stories in Major League Baseball right now is the dominance of 27-year-old Japanese rookie Seiya Suzuki. In 10 games Suzuki is slashing .429/.564/.929 with four home runs and 11 runs batted in. With Suzuki’s early success and Ohtani’s 2021 MVP campaign fresh in everybody’s minds, ...
Thanks for allowing us to exhale, Jake
Jake Arrieta announced his retirement yesterday, though the league had basically announced it for him about two years ago. Still, I’ll never forget his run that really started in 2014 and carried through the 2016 World Series....
Baseball Zen is the rare case of MLB doing something right
If you’re a veteran of getting various out-of-town sports packages (Monday morning is a bit early for the jokes that would normally go here) you’ve probably been annoyed by what goes on during commercial breaks. DirecTV would just show you your market’s commercials, but if you go through the streami...
Devil’s Advocate: Banning the shift shows that MLB is moving in the right direction
I’ve never had too strong an opinion on whether or not Major League Baseball should ban the shift....
Teenage pitcher becomes first female to play professionally in Australia
Remember that show Pitch that aired on Fox in 2016? That show revolved around the question: “What if there was a female pitcher in Major League Baseball?” The show was canceled after one season despite tremendous reviews from critics and audiences alike with the detractors calling the show “cliché”....
Will the knuckleball ever make a comeback?
The knuckleball might not be dead, but it’s certainly on life support. There are only two active players who’ve primarily used a knuckleball at the Major League level: Steven Wright, who is currently a free agent and hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2019 and Mickey Jannis, who is also a free agent...
So is Christian Yelich dead?
The Milwaukee Brewers, probably the playoff team that everyone thought about the least, bit the dust yesterday in a fashion befitting a team that most didn’t realize were even there. They scored six runs across four games, got shutout twice, and while maybe not quite a whimper thanks to the dramatic...
Look, I’m really trying to avoid wrestling company tribalism, but…
It would be healthier to not use WWE as a comparison point for AEW, or vice versa. One shouldn’t need the other to prove why it’s good and worthy of fanship. And you can enjoy both equally, which should make this time the best it’s ever been to be a fan (and it is!). These are the tenets I’m trying ...
This Juan Soto hot streak is way, way, <i>way</i> better than you realize
Shohei Ohtani is the best player in baseball. Mike Trout is the best pure position player in baseball. Juan Soto is the best hitter in baseball, and as much as I love Mike Trout… he’s not close. Juan Soto is doing something Trout has never done. In Juan Soto’s last 40 games, he has an OPS of 1.253 a...
Step into the batters’ box against this guy… if you dare!
Would you step up to the plate in a Major League game if you knew there was a 10 percent chance you were about to get hit by one of the pitches? Maybe you’d put a foot in the box and stand in the corner and hope the pitcher had enough control this time, but every time that pitcher started his windup...
The AL Cy Young race is kinda trash
Now that we have a full baseball season again, after 2020’s season-in-a-can, we can get to choosing our award winners on normal calibrations. Thankfully, Shohei Ohtani made the AL MVP choice academic by having the most unique and unmatched individual season in baseball history. Pretty easy to hand h...
Browns fold in fourth like a restaurant napkin as Patrick Mahomes rescues his JV-level defense
The Browns are one of the most talented teams in the NFL from top to bottom....
Good lord, Javy Báez!
If I didn’t love Javy Baez so much, I would say that this is the perfect encapsulation of what it means to be a Met and the Mets experience (my urge to laugh at the Mets never dies)....
No, you cannot hit a 100 mph fastball
The incredibly stupid debate over whether it’s harder to hit a 100 mph fastball or hit a half-court shot has been on the internet for a while, because if there’s a stupid debate to be had, it’ll happen online at some point....
The true price of camaraderie and competition
The concept of sports gambling has gotten skewed in the past year. Now that it’s becoming legal in more and more places, you see Allen Iverson or Paige Spiranac in a dress that very well might cause her to cough up her soul (now word on how AI would fit into it) telling you about all the things you ...
No, armchair Twitter goofs, you can’t hit top-tier pitching
I’m not a professional athlete. I’m not even an athlete. I used to be, back in my youth. You’ll hear a cornucopia of opinions on sports from me, from strategy to execution. When a player does something fantastic, I’ll say it. When a player does something awful, I’ll say it. What you will never hear ...
Gerrit Cole gives away the game
Were you in the mood for an extremely uncomfortable two minutes of media interaction to kick off your day? I bet you were. Who wouldn’t be? This will probably look like any meeting you’ve had with upper management. Step up, Gerrit Cole, and give the people what they want!...
Pitchers are even less afraid these days
We didn’t need Spencer Turnbull’s no-hitter last night to know that pitchers have smothered baseball these days (and that the Mariners have had all their bats replaced with Play-Doh). It’s the fifth no-hitter of the year, and we’re barely a quarter through the season....