The Week In Baseball: 6/2-6/7

Biogenesis: Okay a quick update on this story. There are up to 20 players that could possibly be suspended including Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. A couple of players could be suspended up to 100 games. The union has sent out a press release saying no one has been suspended yet. MLB right now is just going to talk to the owner of Biogenesis and see who visited his clinic and who didn't. Then maybe we'll receive word of actual suspensions and what the union plans on doing to fight back. Right now though we're just in the talking phase.

Tim Hudson is Mean: Baseball players are infamous for their lame jokes and terrible impressions. Especially pitchers who have way too much time on their hands to pull dumb stunts (remember the hot foot?). Well when Adam LaRoche was on the Braves he started a prank war with pitcher Tim Hudson. One of LaRoche's pranks lead to Hudson shitting in his glove. (Skip to the 3:10 part)



Angels Aren't Well: This past weekend the Angels were swept at home by the Houston Astros. You read that correctly. The Astros have now won 7 out of 10 games this season against the Angels. Out of the Astros 21 victories, almost half of them have came against the Angels. Needless to say the Los Angeles Angels of Orange County aren't going to compete this season by losing to the terrible Astros.


David Murphy, Pitching Scout Report: Tuesday night the Rangers were blown out in Boston. Not wanting to waste their bullpen, the Rangers sent outfielder David Murphy to the mound. A scout said that his presence and secondary pitches looked awesome but everything else was pretty subpar.

The Draft: Last night MLB held their annual first year player draft. Mark Appel of Stanford went first overall to the Houston Astros. Pick-by-pick analysis of the first round players can be found here. The winners and losers here. You can keep track of the rest of the draft here. Also Bud Selig had no clue where he was last night or what year it is.

Trout Is Floundering: Getting back to the Angels and bad headline puns for a moment, Mike Trout is having a terrible defensive year if you look at his numbers. In truth though, and this is why you can't completely trust defensive metrics, Trout has only made a handful of bad plays this year in the outfield and hasn't robbed any home runs like he did in Baltimore last season. The numbers don't reflect that though so you would assume he's have a bad year according to UZR.

They're Just Average: The Baseball Analytics people take a look at the players who are perfectly average so far. Hunter Pence and Jose Altuve are perfectly average at getting on base. Cole Hamels is perfectly average in the amount of walks he averages per 9 innings. Todd Frazier has a perfectly average BABIP. And on the list goes.

The Weekend's Best: A look at the best games and pitching matchups of the weekend.

Friday, Pittsburgh at Chicago, Liriano vs. Wood: This game interests me for a couple of reasons. First the Pirates are coming off a sweep at the hands of the Braves. Is this the moment when the Pirates crash back to Earth like they have in the past couple of years? Is their offense stalling again? The 2nd reason to watch this game is that the Cubs starting pitchers have actually been pretty exciting to watch this season.

Saturday, Cleveland at Detroit, Masterson vs. Porcello: Cleveland is also coming off a sweep against the Yankees. Is this the moment they crash back down to Earth like last season? They're still only 2.5 games behind the Tigers but they can't afford to be swept again.

Sunday, St. Louis at Cincinnati, Lynn vs. Arroyo: Always fun watching two teams that hate each other play.