April Madness: Grapes of Wrath

OK, so I had my whole evening planned. I would put on some comfortable clothes, get a bowl of grapes, plop down in the busted recliner that I still love dearly, and settle in to watch Shohei Ohtani pitch. What a thrill!

Every time Ohtani pitches, we’re treated to something historic, something magnificent. People my age, well, our grandparents saw the Babe and Josh. Our parents saw Mays and Yaz and Koufax. We saw Reggie and Dr. K and Junior and Mad Dog and Pujols.

And now: It’s Shohei. It’s the classic cliché, but If I ever have grandchildren, I really will tell them about watching Shohei play.

I turned on the television with the grandest of expectations. Ohtani was pitching against the Nationals! The no-hitter watch would begin with the first pitch. Here we go!

And … no. Here we don’t go.

The game was blacked out in Charlotte. All Nationals games are blacked out in Charlotte.

So are Orioles games and Braves games and, most bizarrely, Reds games.

Why? Well, I did a deep dive on “why” not too long ago, so in the back of my mind, I was well aware of the blackout situation in Charlotte. But — and this is the insidiousness of the regional sports network blackouts — it is not something I ever think about until I want to watch a game and instead slam into a brick wall. And then I’m utterly infuriated all over again.

As I wrote in the linked piece, the fault here does not exactly fall on commissioner Rob Manfred and the MLB offices. No, the fault has more to do with individual teams chasing as much money as they can from the regional sports networks, and those regional sports networks basically saying, “The only way we could possibly recoup the money we’re paying you is to sell our sports packages to as many cable and satellite companies as possible.”

And in order to sell, say, the Reds’ network, Bally Sports Ohio, in big markets like Charlotte and Nashville and Louisville, well, you need to make sure that baseball fans in those cities cannot watch the Reds with the regular old MLB.TV subscription.

Of course, in practice, none of this works, which might be why Bally Sports is bankrupt and, at last check, wasn’t even paying some of the teams.

Anyway, the regional sports networks will come crashing down sooner rather than later … but not in time to let me watch Shohei pitch on MLB.TV on Tuesday. I stared at my grapes angrily.

Then, someone reached out to say: Hey, because Shohei is pitching, the game is actually streaming on ESPN. Whoa! Good news all, ESPN is one of the 583 streaming services I apparently pay for, so I popped on the ESPN app and tried to watch the game on the Angels network and … yeah, that was blacked out, too.

I tried to watch the game on the Nationals network, and that was also blacked out.

BUT then I saw a third option: The Angels’ Spanish broadcast. Could it be? Would it work? I closed my eyes and quietly wished and clicked on the feed. And, amazingly, absurdly, wonderfully, it worked. I’m sure it’s a loophole that some money-grubbing executive will close soon enough, but for one night, it worked, and I munched my grapes and watched Shohei Ohtani pitch seven innings of one-hit ball, even though his control and command was off all night — this reflects how bad the Nationals are.

All the while, I tried to glean what I could from the broadcasters based on my one year of high school Spanish, and I did pick up some stuff. I’m not going to lie; I enjoyed it more than a John Smoltz game.

A Koppelman

My friend Brian Koppelman, creator of the show “Billions” and writer of the awesome poker movie “Rounders”*, is a good guy, a fine tennis player and, frankly, a former baseball fan.

*If you ever see Brian, suggest to him that he write a Rounders sequel. He loves when people do that.

Brian’s break with baseball is multifaceted, I suppose, but the thing that infuriates him most, if I can try and explain it, is that in his view, so much of the romance of baseball is gone, replaced by a cold-as-steel hunger by teams to maximize their winning chances at the expense of everything else.

Here’s what I mean: A few years ago, I rage-typed a column after an 18-5 Cardinals victory over the Chicago Cubs. Looking back, I guess this was 2018. In that game, Matt Carpenter led off with a home run. He came up in the second inning and homered again. He led off the fourth with a double and came to bat again later in the inning — and doubled again. In the sixth, Carpenter homered for the third time.

Now, Matt Carpenter had a chance for the greatest offensive day any player has ever had in the long history of baseball.

But the Cardinals were up 15-1, the game was in hand, so St. Louis manager Mike Shildt pulled Carpenter from the game. If winning the game is ALL that matters, sure, it was the sensible move. I mean there was a .000004% or whatever chance that Carpenter could get hurt playing first base.

But Brian would argue — and I would concur — that winning the game is not ALL that matters in baseball. This isn’t the NFL, where there are only 17 games* and one win or loss can define a season. There are 162 games in baseball. The season is a 2,430-game tapestry, and how many of those game stand out? How many of those games will be remembered?

*It still hurts me to type “17 games” rather than “16 games.” Greedy NFL.

No, baseball isn’t JUST about winning. It can’t be. The game’s richness can be found in its history, in its breathtaking performances, in its moments! Yeah, baseball is about magical moments, that’s why I wrote a book called WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL and why it’s filled with more than 100 awesome moments, including perhaps my all-time favorite moment, when Satchel Paige intentionally walked two batters so that he could face Josh Gibson with the bases loaded in the Negro Leagues World Series.

“Do you hear what this fool wants to do?” Buck O’Neil said to Monarchs manager Frank Duncan when Satchel told him the plan.

“Buck, you see all these people here?” Duncan asked. “Why do you think they’re here? They’re here to see Satch pitch to Josh.”

That stuff used to matter, or anyway it seemed that way.

I bring this up because I’m now on the lookout for what I call “Koppelmans” — games that fit Brian’s description: “Like, OK, you won the game and in the process made baseball a little less magical, a little less special, a little more mechanized.”

And we had a Koppelman on Tuesday night in Arizona. The Brewers’ Corbin Burnes — who I still think is the best pitcher on the planet, even though he’s off to a rough start — threw eight magnificent innings. It was a work of art. He faced the minimum through seven innings (one ground ball single was erased by a double play) and he still had the shutout going in the eighth. He did run into a little trouble in the eighth inning — giving up back-to-back line drive hits to Jake McCarthy and Gabriel Moreno — but he got out of it, and the Brewers led 6-0 going into the ninth.

They scored a run in the top of the ninth to make it 7-0.

And here’s the thing: Burnes had thrown only 89 pitches. That’s how efficient he had been. He had a shutout going. Even more, he potentially had a Maddux going (a.k.a. a shutout with fewer than 100 pitches). Brewers manager Craig Counsell would say after the game that it might have been the best start of Burnes’ already substantial career.

And you know what? Counsell pulled him anyway.

And you know what else? I’m not even blaming the manager here. Considering what baseball has become, Counsell probably did the right thing. Burnes, who, remember, has won a Cy Young award, has NEVER thrown a complete game. Not even one. He admitted afterward that he was getting winded. Baseball has become so focused on limiting starting pitchers — and teams have such a bountiful selection of arms in the bullpen — that complete games are all but extinct. They don’t fit into the grand goal of maximizing your winning percentage at every turn.

And so, yes, this is today’s Koppelman — the Brewers won and Burnes was fantastic, but it was all just a little bit less magical than it could have been.

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Joe

Say Hey, Rays!

So, yeah, Tampa Bay had another laugher on Tuesday — they beat the Red Sox 7-2 behind four home runs — and they’re now 11-0 and have outscored their opponents 83-20. They are slugging .580 as a team. They have a 1.73 ERA as a team.

I predicted yesterday that the Rays would not finish the season undefeated.

I’m sticking with that prediction today, though I feel less sure about it.

Are the Dodgers in actual trouble?

One of my good friends, Jonathan, is a big Dodgers fan, which means for the last few years he has semi-jokingly been sending me “Fire Dave Roberts” texts every week or two. I say it was semi-joking because (1) He does know that things have been pretty good for the Dodgers the last few years; (2) He actually doesn’t like how Dave Roberts has managed the team, but it’s pretty hard to argue with a .631 career winning percentage, three pennants and a World Series title.

Anyway, the Dodgers are off to a sluggish 6-6 start and, after their 5-0 loss to the Giants on Tuesday, I sense that Jonathan’s whole fire Dave Roberts thing is about to become less semi and less jokey.

I can’t tell if we are seeing actual signs of weakness from the Dodgers or if it’s just a few early-season flutters. I would say that for the first time in a long time, the Dodgers do seem to be dealing with real flaws. I mean, we all like Chris Taylor as a super-utility player; he’s not as likeable as an every-day shortstop. Noah Syndergaard as the team’s fourth starter might not work. The bullpen is putting a whole lot of faith in Evan Phillips based on one excellent season and Shelby Miller based on the belief that he has found something.

I mean, look, the top-star quality is still there — Mookie, Freddie, Clayton, Julio, Will, etc. — and over the long season, I suspect things will even out and the Dodgers will be fine and the season, like all seasons, will come down to how they perform in October. But there are certainly holes in this Dodgers team, and that’s something new.

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

Shohei at Home

There is one other Shohei thing I wanted to mention — check out this little chart.

Lowest home ERAs over a career (30 or more starts):

1. José Fernández, 1.49

2. Shohei Ohtani, 1.95

3. Jacob deGrom, 2.17

4. Clayton Kershaw, 2.21

5. Bruce Howard, 2.30

A few others of note: Sandy Koufax (2.48); Don Drysdale (2.53); J.R. Richard (2.58); Whitey Ford (2.58); Jim Palmer (2.59); Catfish Hunter (2.70); Sandy Alcántara (2.73).

First thing: How about José Fernández’s home ERA? He was an absolutely incredible 29-2 with a 1.49 ERA at home … and went 9-15 with a 4.07 ERA on the road. I imagine some of you probably knew this already and are surprised that I was unaware … but I really was unaware of just how absurdly wonderful Fernández was when pitching in Miami. What a terrible, awful, painful loss that was.

Shohei is now 16-5 with a 1.94 ERA in Anaheim* and 14-9 with a 3.91 ERA away from home. Batters are hitting .190 off him at home. I mean, sure, Angel Stadium has historically been a good pitcher’s park, but if you look at the data, it has shifted more toward the hitter in recent years.

*Our friend Molly Knight went to the Shohei game last night … and it took her more than two hours to cover the 37 miles from her home in Los Angeles to the game in Anaheim. I’m sure she’ll go into more detail on her must-read Substack, but I’d just like to say that we have to stop calling them the Los Angeles Angels. They’re not in Los Angeles. They are not, practically speaking, anywhere close to Los Angeles.

I’m sorry, just because owner Arte Moreno wants to convince everybody that he owns a Los Angeles team doesn’t make it so. They are the Anaheim Angels or the California Angels or the Orange County Angels.

Ohtani is hard to beat anywhere, but particularly in Anaheim. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Franchy

Nope. I’m not emotionally equipped yet to write about what Franchy Cordero is doing for the Yankees. Franchy Cordero? Seriously?

Note the Notes

I mentioned this yesterday, but just in case you missed it — Substack has started a thing called Notes, which is kind of like Twitter. It’s a place where people can just scribble down thoughts, ideas, we can post photos, quotes, put little posts in there, etc. It’s so new that I don’t think anybody knows what it will become, if it even becomes anything. But for our purposes, it’s kind of a cool way for me to throw out something short without clogging up your email.

And you can throw your ideas up there, too.

Because you’re a subscriber here, you’re automatically signed up for Notes. All you have to do is go over to substack.com/notes or you should now see a little notes tab at the bottom of your Substack app.

WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL Update

I don’t have any of the details yet, but it has been relayed to me that there has been a pretty nice response from you in our effort to wrestle back the Rainy Day Books presale record from that guy Mike Schur. I can’t thank you enough; we’ve got to get that record. Just as a reminder, if you preorder the book from Rainy Day, I’ll sign it and write in it anything you want. You want to ask someone to marry you? Sure, I’ll write your proposal in the book. You want me to say something about your favorite player Steve Buechele? Sure, I’ll give you 130 characters worth of Buechele background. You want me to say that the intentional walk is actually a good thing?

No. I won’t do that. There are limits.

Anyway, you can preorder from Rainy Day here.

Also: Thank you to everybody who is writing to our beloved publicist, Jamie Knapp, asking for your hometown to be part of the WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL book tour. You all are the best. Jamie particularly appreciates all of you who have suggested an independent bookstore (or actually are an independent bookstore), and I appreciate that so many of you have offered to take me to dinner, play me in tennis, convince me to become a fan of your local NFL team or take me on a tour of your town and even your state. You all are the absolute best.