The Mother-in-Law makes absolutely incredible chocolate cake from scratch. She came to visit this weekend when I was gone, and I’m very grateful that The Wife saved a piece for me. The only problem? The frosting is also homemade and kept separate, because my wife likes to apply it liberally on her own. … and she used it all up. So I’ve got the piece of cake, but no frosting. I still love everyone involved, but come on!
The college baseball season is at a close, with LSU closing out an impressive run to the title (though that Florida team was loaded, too):
The moment LSU baseball won their seventh National Championship…
The final two games of the College World Series featured fairly absurd scores: Florida 24, LSU 4; LSU 18, Florida 4. So it was the Game One 4-3 nail-biter that wound up being the difference.
Powerhouse conference:
Five of the last six Men's College World Series champions have come from the SEC.
◻️ LSU, 2023 ◻️ Ole Miss, 2022 ◻️ Mississippi State, 2021 ◻️ Vanderbilt, 2019 ◻️ Florida, 2017 pic.twitter.com/8lVKLioct9— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) June 27, 2023
Of course the Mets keep Mets’ing even when they play the Brewers, losing 2-1 in a game started by Colin Rea. Yes, that would be former Cubs pitcher Colin Rea, now starting for the Brewers. To that end, two-fifths of the Brewers rotation right now is Rea and Julio Teheran, the former of whom has been close to league average all year, and the latter of whom has been downright dominant somehow. Kudos to the Brewers for finding a way to weather their many rotation injuries, but … dang it. Still ticks me off.
By the way, with that win and the Reds’ loss, the Brewers moved back into first place. They were always the team to watch, especially because they will eventually get Brandon Woodruff back. And Corbin Burnes might not stay mediocre forever. That said, it’s not like these are a DOMINANT set of Brewers. The NL Central is still so very winnable for the Cubs.
As for the Mets, they have fallen to a season-high 8 games under .500, and are now 16.0(!!!) games back in the NL East. They are 8.5 games back of a Wild Card spot, and have the 4th worst record in the National League. Steven Cohen has to be apoplectic about how things have gone after shelling out well over $400 million on this year’s payroll, between player salaries and luxury taxes. I doubt it’s much solace to think about how it could’ve been even worse if the Carlos Correa deal had gone through. And it’s going to be a pricey club for a while – even if Max Scherzer opts out of the final year of his deal after this season, the Mets are already on the hook for about $240 million in luxury tax payroll for 2024.
Justin Verlander was one of the biggest signings, replacing Jacob deGrom in the rotation (which also maybe could’ve been worse for the Mets, given his Tommy John surgery). Verlander, whose performance this year has been exactly league average overall, told SNY after the game: “I don’t think anybody saw this coming, man. Disappointing. It’s disappointing for everyone in this room, I know. It’s disappointing for the fans. Just got to — just keep trying, you know? If there’s one thing that I know the guys in this room are doing is trying our ass off. Every day we come to the park, myself, it’s trying to get better and figure out what’s off. And I know that most of the guys in this room are the same way, and hopefully it clicks for everybody. But we’ve got to get going — soon.”
A reminder on how good Justin Steele has been, since Verlander came up:
Past calendar year, minimum 130 IP (82 pitchers)…
Justin Steele leads with a 2.16 ERA, 32 points ahead of Justin Verlander.
Marcus Stroman would've been second if yesterday didn't happen; instead tied for 3rd at 2.51. Drew Smyly 25th at 3.32. pic.twitter.com/CeplJvFEjf— Matt Clapp (@TheBlogfines) June 26, 2023
Elsewhere in the NL East, the story has been the total opposite for the Phillies, who’ve caught fire in June, winning 15 of their last 20. So that’s bad timing for the Cubs, who host the Phillies for three games, starting tonight.
We’ll see if the Cubs make any roster moves before tonight’s game aimed at shoring up their ability to play anyone other than Trey Mancini at first base when Cody Bellinger can’t go or isn’t preferred there. Based on Triple-A performance, like I said yesterday, you’d think that guy would be Jared Young – he’s just raaaaking, and at 27 you kinda need to know if he’s real or not – but he’s another lefty. Young would require a 40-man roster spot, by the way, though the Cubs have a free one to give now that Brandon Hughes has had knee surgery that’ll take him out for the rest of the year (he can be moved to the 60-day IL and come off the 40-man at any time).
Speaking of Hughes’ surgery, it turns out his bullpen-mate Michael Fulmer has had the same procedure done. It’s awful that it came to this – the procedure involves breaking the femur to try to get it so that you’re not experience so much bone-on-bone contact in the knee – but Fulmer told the Tribune that he feels like his 2019 surgery saved his career. Fulmer also had Tommy John surgery performed at the same time (he thinks trying to pitch through the knee problem actually wound up stressing his arm), so that must’ve been a helluva rehab process. When he returned as a starter in the pandemic season, he performed quite poorly. He was converted to relief in 2021, though, and his career took back off from there. Hopefully Hughes’ procedure and rehab goes well, and he can return refreshed for Spring Training 2024.
YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, DODGERS:
Pitching strikeouts since 1998 (when MLB went to 30 teams):
#1: Los Angeles Dodgers —–> 32,098 #2: Chicago Cubs ————> 32,097
446 feet and now Shohei Ohtani leads all of MLB in home runs (26), runs batted in (62), and OPS (1.010)! It's completely ridiculous.pic.twitter.com/kogFq8kI22— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) June 27, 2023
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