relief Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Looks like Craig Kimbrel isn’t working out
LOS ANGELES — It’s time for Dave Roberts to make a call to the bullpen....
Who would win? Pitchers or position players?
Baseball is wacky nowadays. Just a few nights ago we watched Tampa Bay outfielder Brett Phillips pitch to reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani. The very next day, Ohtani was on the mound pitching to Phillips. When was the last time something like that happened? We’ve got a universal DH now. This stuff shou...
Dodgers need a closer, so they get a closer
The Los Angeles Dodgers don’t know when enough is enough, huh? No matter how much fire power they have, they can always have more. Earlier today, the Boys in Blue traded for Chicago White Sox All-Star reliever Craig Kimbrel, giving up outfielder A.J. Pollock in the process....
This Atlanta World Series team signals the end of starting pitching
With Huascar Ynoa on the IL with a shoulder injury and ace Charlie Morton out with a broken leg, the Braves are now looking at two back-to-back bullpen games as their starting pitchers rest up. The pen’s performance closing out for Morton in Game 1 and for Ian Anderson yesterday should give Atlanta ...
You always want a Laz Diaz show in a League Championship Series, amirite?
I’ll put it right here at the top when discussing the Astros 9-2 win in Game 4 over the Red Sox, because I’ve spent the latter half of my life having Red Sox fans yell at me in some sort of fashion anyway. The non-strike call Laz Diaz came up with on Jason Castro from Nathan Eovaldi’s curve in the n...
I’ve had it with relievers
Maybe I’ve rebelled against getting older as long as I can, and I’m coming to accept the hair growing out of my ears combined with the opinions that something in a modern sport isn’t as good as I remember. It’s weird, because I don’t remember having any attachment to relief pitchers of my youth. The...
32 teams need to hear this: There is no pitching formula for the playoffs
Many years ago now, baseball pundits and fans tried to come up with a “secret sauce” for success in the playoffs. It can be pretty infuriating to simply accept that the sport’s biggest prize is handed out at the conclusion of a tournament that is essentially random. There had to be a reason these th...
Devin Williams to miss postseason for dumbest of reasons
In the dumbest injury at the worst time department, we’d like to announce Brewers reliever Devin Williams as this year’s recipient....
ESPN’s ‘Cy Young Predictor’ is laughably on the fritz
Predicting who is going to win major awards across the Big 4 American sports is one of the nation’s most popular pastimes. Oftentimes, arguments can be made for several different players. That’s why several years ago, ESPN put out its Cy Young Predictor, an AI system that would take a pitcher’s stat...
Why does one inning make such a difference?
Unless you actually talk to a White Sox fan here in town, things are pretty serene for the Pale Hose. They still have a dominating lead in the AL Central with no one actually trying to catch them, and seem pretty certain to have a date with the Astros come the division series, with every chance of s...
Offense is way up since MLB’s ‘sticky stuff’ crackdown
It’s officially been one month since Major League Baseball implemented their guidelines forcing umpires to check starting pitchers for illegal foreign substances. Sure, the All-Star break cost us a few days worth of data points, but in general, we have seen more than enough games, analyzed the spin ...
SEE IT! First streaker of the season (could be solution to boring baseball)
Are we sure we want fans back?...
La Russa is still managing like it’s 1989
The Yankees and White Sox combined for 26 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. In 2012, that’s not so surprising. What is a bit of a stunner is that Aroldis Chapman didn’t get any of those K’s. Carlos Rodón fanned 13, Jordan Montgomery punched out 11, and Michael Kopech added two whiffs out of the Chic...
Please, for the love of all that is good, don’t let this DFA be the end of the ageless Óliver Pérez’s career
People have said, “Wow, I can’t believe Óliver Pérez is still pitching,” for what has felt like every year for the past decade. ...
Swing and a miss … and a welt … as Yanks’ Darren O’Day gets a K on a HBP
Darren O’Day has been in the major leagues since 2008, he was an All-Star in 2015, and he’s been to the postseason with Texas, Baltimore, and Atlanta. The well-traveled and well-decorated righty reliever signed with the Yankees this offseason, and his role in the New York bullpen is clear....
Well at least MLB and MLBPA can agree on something
Gonna be a bit of a smorgasbord today. That’s ok, not all of them are gross or a petri dish of foodborne illness. There’s a Polish buffet around here that would change your life. Anyway, to it…...
A week of simple joys continues
We’ve all gotten to breathe a bit this past weekend. It doesn’t mean the weight of the world isn’t still turning all of our postures into a question mark, but for a brief moment, it did feel like we were getting more oxygen into our lungs and standing up straight without shooting pain. It’ll be impo...
Put Steam In Your Nose
With pollen counts spiking, you may have found your nasal passages cemented shut this weekend. The finest way to spend a day in the park is with your head all heavy with snot and your mouth dry from all the (literal) mouth-breathing. A Kleenex is meaningless at that point—no amount of nose-blowing, ...
Chart: Relief Pitchers Earning The Most Postseason Decisions In 50 Years
This chart from yesterday by High Heat Stats MLB shows decisions are being earned by relievers in these playoffs at the highest rate since 1964. Since the playoff sample pool has grown over time (championship series started in 1969, division series started in 1995, and wild card started in 2012), th...
When Should Managers Pull Their Starting Pitchers?
"A Data-driven Method for In-game Decision Making in MLB" is easily the worst title of the eight Sloan paper finalists, which is a shame, given that it's actually an interesting application of machine learning that's directly related to one of the most important aspects of baseball game management. ...