MLB - NEWS & NOTES

yeah i don't see how a guy is paid on a stat aka saves. storen will get his money regardless.

 

Danny Valencia for some reason just got DFA along with Carrera. No way Valencia and possibly Carrera get through waivers. And to make it more puzzling they called up Kawasaki. Nobody hates Kawasaki. Everyone loves him but I don't see why we call him up and lose Valencia. Do the Jays want another IF over an OF that bad?

 

Apparently AA wanted Munenori Kawasaki up because they wanted to rest Tulo for the day game after the night game. So they needed a SS for the game and possibly a backup onwards.

 

I hear Travis is on the DL and Kawasaki can backup 2nd, SS and 3rd for the time being.

I like the Jays to catch the Yankees and take that division.

Nice comeback win against Cuato and the Royals the other night too.

 

This guy is nuts... 37 straight innings pitched with out a run being scored on him.

 

I get why Storen is pissed, you're an all-star closer and your team makes a trade for a closer. Anytime I guy trades for a guy to do your job its because they trust that guy more to do the job. So if I make an all-star game and 2 weeks later my team says I'm not doing my job well enough then I'd be pissed too.

 

2 fights in MLB, Sunday -- What do you guy's think?
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-Things get heated as Blue Jays down Royals-

TORONTO -- The first three games of a pivotal series between the Blue Jays and the American League-leading Royals had a playoff-like atmosphere. Sunday's finale, however, turned decidedly more intense.

Chin music was played, batters were hit and benches cleared in Toronto's 5-2 win at Rogers Centre that culminated with three ejections -- including Blue Jays manager John Gibbons -- and a heated exchange of words following the game.

The tensions had been building throughout the afternoon after Royals starter Edinson Volquez hit Josh Donaldson in the first inning and nearly plunked him again in the third with a pitch near his head.

Both dugouts received a warning from home-plate umpire Jim Wolf after Donaldson's hit-by-pitch in the first, which the Blue Jays' third baseman believes may have triggered the fireworks that later ensued.
"There was a warning given out after [Volquez] hit me in the first at-bat," Donaldson said. "Guys get hit all the time. You don't see warnings thrown out all the time, but the reason [Wolf] did it is because he knew just as well as I did, he hit me on purpose ... He could've thrown him out immediately right there, which I didn't want him to do. I thought he was pretty good hittin', so I don't want him out of there."
Matters escalated considerably a few innings later when Royals reliever Ryan Madson -- who was tagged for three runs in the Blue Jays' 7-6 win on Friday -- hit newly acquired All-Star Troy Tulowitzki in the arm with a 96-mph fastball. The next batter, Donaldson, was nearly hit again, prompting Gibbons' ejection after an animated discussion with Wolf.

"When you give a warning like that and you see balls continually thrown around the head area, and then a ball that hits Tulowitzki in the chest, pretty much, it's one of those things where you can't question intent anymore," Donaldson said. "There has to be repercussions for you giving a warning at the beginning, and I think that's where he went wrong at it."

Royals manager Ned Yost said his pitchers were simply trying a new approach after getting hit hard the first three games of the series.
"None of [the inside pitches] were intentional on our part," Yost said. "It's part of the game. [The Blue Jays] are as good an offensive team as you're going to face. They have tremendous power, but they all dive to the inside of the plate which makes them susceptible to inside pitches.

"If you continue to throw away, away, away, you're going to get hammered. You have to throw inside."

In the eighth inning, Blue Jays reliever Aaron Sanchez hit Alcides Escobar, the third batter in the frame. Sanchez was tossed, and so was bench coach DeMarlo Hale after arguing the rookie's ejection. Benches cleared during the incident, but both clubs retired to the dugout without further incident.

"Absolutely," Sanchez said when asked whether he was surprised to get ejected. "Go back and look at the at-bat. The first pitch was right down the middle and the next two got away from me. I'm not the guy out there that's got perfect command, and you guys know that."
Emotions were still running high in the Royals' clubhouse after losing three of four in the set.

"He was crying like a baby," Volquez said of Donaldson, who homered twice and doubled three times in the series. "He's not Barry Bonds. He's got three years in the league."

The Blue Jays responded emphatically to the eight-inning uprising when Jose Bautista drilled a ground-rule double over center fielder Lorenzo Cain's head to extend Toronto's lead to 3-0.

Donaldson, who said Madson should have been tossed for plunking Tulowitzki, said the intense atmosphere was simply a result of two playoff-aspiring teams battling for a win.
Blue Jays starter R.A. Dickey, meanwhile, said after a week that saw Toronto acquire Tulowitzki and ace David Price, among others, perhaps the Royals were envious of the new-look Blue Jays.

"I think they're used to pushing people around. So when they come onto the playground and there's a kid that's bigger than they are for a day, I think it probably [ticks] them off. And I can't blame 'em. That's part of their swagger. That's part of what makes them good, and they compete hard ... You just can't ever take a moment off against a playoff-caliber team, and they are a playoff-caliber team."

(MLB.com)

 

-Benches empty after Phillips gets hit by Watson-

CINCINNATI -- Tempers are never far below the surface when the Pirates, the Reds and the National League Central rivals' mutual philosophies of pitching inside clash. Those emotions boiled above the surface in the eighth inning of Sunday's game with the Reds.

Left-handed reliever Tony Watson's first pitch to Brandon Phillips hit the Reds' second baseman on the upper left arm. Maybe it was retaliation for Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen being plunked by Pedro Villarreal in the top of the eighth. Maybe it wasn't. For sure, however, it led to three separate on-field incidents that slowed down the Bucs' 3-0 victory, and drew ejections for Sean Rodriguez and Mark Melancon of the Pirates and Marlon Byrd and Joey Votto of the Reds.

While plate umpire D.J. Reyburn got between Phillips and Watson, Byrd led a charge out of the Reds' first-base dugout that was quickly met by a similar onrush of Pirates from the third base side.
"Old-school baseball stuff," Watson said. "I'm always pounding the fastball inside. I don't need to stand here and explain it."

If you want to consider the fracas a two-day affair, it might have begun with Joe Blanton hitting Byrd in the eighth inning of Saturday night's game.

"Last night they threw at my head, and they missed," Byrd said. "The line is whenever you go above somebody's shoulder, there it is. That's the line. I went out there because they hit one of our teammates."
It then might have picked up with McCutchen taking one in the small of the back from Villarreal, with two outs and Jaff Decker on second in the eighth.

"I was a bit surprised. If you want to retaliate, answer back, do it pretty early, join the game," McCutchen said. "Get it over with. Don't wait till the eighth inning and -- I'm not being cocky -- get the best player on the team. Unless Marlon Byrd is the best player for them ? I don't know.
"Good thing is, they're in our division, so I get to face that guy [Villarreal] again. I'm looking forward to it."

As both bullpens also emptied to join the scrum in the middle of the infield, Todd Frazier, Votto and Byrd of the Reds and Francisco Cervelli, Rodriguez and Blanton were the most heated participants.

"We are not trying to hit a guy down three in the eighth inning," Frazier said, "and they came back on a purpose pitch that hit Brandon. Basically just enough's enough, because it always seems like they always have the last laugh with hitting us last, so we got to pick each other up and help our teammates out."

"We were all out there. I was just there to support my teammates," said Blanton, one of the newest Pirates as a Trade Deadline acquisition.

"I got no comment," said Rodriguez who, as Pirates manager Clint Hurdle saw it, "I think, at one point, he was trying to break it up, and someone got his hands on him and pushed him."

"There was a lot going on out there," Hurdle added. "You can't see all around you. I just wanted to grab [Rodriguez], keep him in play. I wasn't able to do that."
At one point, the umpiring crew had almost successfully shepherded everyone back to their places. But as the jawing continued, the two groups again congregated in the middle of the field.

In particular, Rodriguez was livid and tried to get at Byrd, but teammates' barrel holds held him back.

When the umpires were able to clear the field and the game resumed, Rodriguez and two Reds were ejected -- Byrd and Votto, who was not in the game to begin with, having gotten a day of rest.

Melancon drew his ejection after he entered to save the game in the ninth. With a runner already on second base and one out, he clipped lefty-hitting Tucker Barnhart and got an automatic thumb from Reyburn. The normally reserved closer stormed off the mound, enraged.

"A feel for the game is necessary there. I'm not trying to bring the tying run to the plate," said Melancon, who said it was the first ejection of his career.
(MLB.com)

 

I think the Reds/Pirates scuffle is 2 teams that don't particularly like each other and both use the inside corner a lot. Don't like to see it often but I don't see a problem.

The Royals are a different story to me. This has happened multiple times this year. They pitcher hits the same dude a few times, one of their guys gets hit once and they start yelling and playing the victim card, then they do a bunch of whining to the media. Yordano Venture and Edison Volquez are both guys that have made public comments that sound exactly like a guy who never has to get into the box and hit. Volquez never pulled this crap in Cincy because he knew he'd have to go stand in that box too, now he's throw up and in on JD 4 times and calling him out on his toughness? Gimme a break....

 

The Royals have now brawled with a team from every AL division....

 

more hit batters, more inside pitching...more fisticuffs.

COME ON PLAYOFF BASEBALL!

 

The Pirates - Reds get into a fight every year. It all starts this year with hitting McCutchen after the Bucs hit a lower end batter for the Reds. The Pirates pitch inside as taught by their pitching coach. This is too keep the batters honest and now and again your going to hit a batter and they are going to react.....I believe in the philosophy to protect the pitchers outer side of the plate. When a guy hangs over the plate, you throw him a fastball inside! That will get to back off. It's an obvious technique for a pitcher......I posted quite awhile back that other teams were throwing at McCutcheon and he wasn't hitting the ball. Ever since, he's put some armor on, it seems to have disappeared......So yes, sometimes you have to throw at the other team, no question about it.......

 

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqt_iQggw-8[/video]

 

Good stuff, Joe and those guy's at 'Jays Central are right on.

 

Gregg Zaun is baseball's Don Cherry. It would be awesome to see him as a manager lol.

Also R.I.P. to the 9 yo ball boy that died at a collegiate summer league game. He wandered into the on deck circle when someone was practicing their swing and took a shot to the head and died. I feel for his family and especially for the batter. He is going to have to live with killing the kid when it wasn't his fault.

 

Thanks for bringing that to everyones attention... i stared at the pic of the kid sitting in the dugout... broke my heart.

 

the little boy was wearing a batting helmet too. very sad.

 

Hard to believe he died wearing a batting helmet. Thats too bad! The association to whatever that college belonged also eliminated ball and bat boys. Was that the NCAA?

 

no it was some summer league or something like that.

 

tigers release GM Dave Dombrowski of GM duties. Toronto hot on his heels.

Now to me this is where the Phils need to call him and get him ASAP. Great baseball mind and a good fit for the Phils if he wants it.