Pitchers continue to drop like flies as the 2026 MLB season is nearly 25% over - Ep. 707 5.7.26

It's been two weeks since we dropped an episode and today we're going to talk about the quarter poll in the Major League Baseball season as well as pitchers who are going down like flies. It's been unbelievable. It's not only this week in baseball is this quarter season in baseball.

So recording this here early for the Monday drop as we've been busy and didn't want to get an episode out there. ⁓ And the season has been so motoring along and what we find is the underlying thing here we talked about before this is that the pitchers out there, there isn't a day that goes by where a pitcher isn't going on the injured list with something bad. Right, we might have had another pitcher go down today as Tyler Glasnow leaves the Dodger game with, you know,

and our potential arm injury. We just so early yet we don't know what it is, seems like it's, you know, knowing him, it sounds like it's his yearly trip to the IL. And you know, the, the, the big being pitchers and I think, I guess the biggest pitcher injury, ⁓ probably would be Tarek Scoobel, who actually had been pitching extremely well. ⁓ and he, you know, had,

I guess they had noticed that he was having a little bit of difficulty. And then he woke up one day and said, I can't pitch, let's go look at this. And now he's got the same kind of loose bodies in his elbow that Edwin Diaz had, which has you out two to three months is basically what the prognosis is. And before you think that means Garrett Kirche is about to run away with the AL Cy Young, he's on the 15 day IL himself. Right. two of the, it's no...

Coincidence I think that these are two of the hardest throwers in baseball and you start looking down in the line of okay Well, who throws the hardest well, I saw mizorowski of the brewers the young fireballer I saw he left the game the other I got all excited I thought oh no, you know Is that him too with an elbow actually turned up to be a hamstring? And and not a shoulder or an elbow and the other guy you wonder is, know Paul skeins looks great I hope it never happens. But man if you're throwing up there in that level Wow

Well, it's interesting because you see all these guys with these elbow and arm injuries, but Mizoreski wasn't the only pitcher to have a hamstring injury. And the fact he wasn't the only pitcher in the NL Central to have a hamstring injury because the Reds closer Amelia Pagan had to get carted off the field, three through one pitch in the ninth inning and came down to the hamstring injury yesterday. So it is really interesting that we're not just seeing arm injuries and now we're starting to see it trickle down into leg injuries as well.

That happened to Ranger Suarez of the Red Sox on Sunday, basically a week ago when he left the game after four no runnings versus the Astros and had a hamstring. So that's just kind of weird because I don't know about you. I don't remember hamstring issues being something for pitchers. No, that's probably coincidence more than anything else, but it is interesting. But I mean, even then, know, Scherzer's back to the IL, Justin Seale's separate setback.

So it's just like, feels like pitchers, even then, Herman Marquez is now on the 15 dial with a nerve issue. It's just like all of these big name pitchers, Joe Ryan left a game after two batters. So it's just like, feels like pitching this year is going to be at such a premium that health more than normal, I think is going to be a big part of who ends up making the postseason for a lot of teams. And just having a healthy major league quality staff for a full season, even if they're not great, as long as they're major league average.

might be a huge advantage this year. Yeah, the Tigers who, know, it was it was bad enough that before Scoobl went down, Casey Mize went on the the aisle with an abductor's drain. So hopefully he'll be able to come back. But, know, the Tigers are, you know, in a division that, you know, is, I guess, sort of up for grabs. You know, I mean, you know, you want to have a chance. And I thought the Tigers would win easily. And I'm not sure about that anymore, obviously. And not certainly not to be done in terms of, you know,

Getting injured position players weren't safe because we lost Jonathan India for the season. Metz lost another shortstop as Ronnie Mauricio goes down for a few weeks due to a broken thumb. I mean, does guy Ronald Acuna now has gone down to the hamstring and shoe himself. And that's with his sprint speed already looking noticeably less than it had been previously. And and the Astros were leading the league when we we were started taking notes for this with 14 players on the injured list. I think they were tied.

with my might be the Orioles. I'm not sure until yesterday when Carlos Correa, I guess during batting practice, you know, destroyed his ankle and it looks it looks bad. He out for the season out for the season. That's bad. He's out for the season toward pendant in his ankle. He's undergoing surgery at six to eight months. He might be done. Well, I don't know about that. He's only I think he's only 32.

But people, the reason why he couldn't get a contract before was because of all of the concerns about his ankle. And now he just destroyed it in batting practice. Well, and any, I guess any chance that he's got for the Hall of Fame will be, know, contingent on what he can do because he doesn't have enough, obviously, you know, at this point. Or even worse for him, the only team that might have enough love for him as a player to think about, yeah, you know what, maybe we keep him around as a DH.

Then there's kind of a problem. They already have one and his name is your Dan Alvarez and I don't think no matter how much you love Carla Correa, you want him as your DH over your day. No, no doubt about that, but the Astros, you know they were struggling on the pitching side already and now lose, you know guys like that in the lineup. I think they're in deep, deep trouble and that's not really going on the limb.

We didn't, know, since we recorded this, the Red Sox, obviously almost two weeks ago or a week and a half ago, got rid of Alex Cora in a very kind of bizarre way of breaking with the manager. And Craig Breslau is gonna wear this now because it's his team now. And the Red Sox, if they don't turn it around, I think they're gonna begin to lay it in his lap. Well, the worst part, I think, I think the biggest mistake Breslau has made here is that...

What does turning it around in this context mean? mean, there's six and four over their last 10, except there's still six games under 500 and 10 games at a first place, nine games at a second. So even if you play really solid baseball the rest of the year, what are you gonna do? Climb back to 500? Like you have to play a considerably good brand of baseball to make any kind of actual run at the top of this division. And it's hard to expect that.

Well, and let's talk about that division, if you will, because I think the landscape and the Yankees are out in front and looking very strong. mean, best record in baseball kind of strong. And they're still waiting for, know, Garrett Cold to really come back and bolster that rotation and Rodin as well. But the Tampa Bay Rays are tearing it up. What's that? They're right there with them. They're right there with them. They tearing it up at the trop.

So remember they played at the Steinbrenner Field where the Yankees minor league team plays last year and the spring training team as well. And now they're at home and I guess home cooking was more important to the Rays than I ever thought. They're playing great at home and they're playing really well overall. Now they don't have a great run differential, but it's hard to get on a team too much when they're 24 and 12. They're nine and one in their last 10. I think it's going to be, can they keep it up over the full course of the season?

And I think that's what the Yankees would probably bet on in this situation that you know what, as long as we just kind of hold serve here, the Rays should sort of naturally fall away. And then we got to just get a walk the division because it's hard for me to expect any of the Orioles Rays, Orioles Blue Jays or Red Sox to suddenly start like snap to attention and play at a clip or flyer because the Blue Jays are hurt. Boston can't hit and the Orioles just now look like the same team they've been for three seasons.

Yeah, I do. Yeah, I kind of feel that way too, but there is, I guess every year I scratch my head and and I'll say it's something I just feels like they made some change. They brought in some players. They've done some things and they still play like that. Much like much like we would talk about with our Mets, the young players that we wanted to come up and be the saviors of the franchise just weren't. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And I still think they'll.

I still think of all the teams. Orioles young players are way better than the Mets ones. And they will, they will run. They have a better chance of running down however to get second place in that division at least, you know, then certainly I think. Mets are basically dead in the water already. So in the AL century, you've essentially said, I said it's a dog fight because the guardians are, I guess, playing the best of all the teams that aren't playing that. Every team in the division is below 500 as of today. So, so, you know,

It's kind of hard to say, who's going to emerge? Do you still believe in the Royals of all the teams now given what's happened to the Tigers? Where would you go if you weren't picking the the Guardians? I think that division is really hard to get on a read right now because it's a division of teams that with with the Tigers best pitchers being hurt. Is there a single team in that division that you would pick to win a playoff series against any other team from outside of that division that would be in the playoffs?

At this point, you know, I can't do that with confidence. I'd love to pick the Royals, but I can't. I'd love to pick the Guardians and think that they could rise, but I'm not sure I would. Right. The biggest advantage for them is that, you know, the AL West kind of equally sucks as much. it's like you've got, I mean, in the AL, it's basically the Yankees and the Rays are the only two good teams. Everybody else is 500 or worse for the most part. That'll change, obviously, but

What's happened is some of the lower, you know, bottom feeding type teams, the White Sox have been better with Murakami then, you know, and boy, everybody whiffed on Murakami who said, yeah, let's, let's just go in the direction. Like the Mets going They looked like they missed on that one. Yeah, they really whiffed on that one. And so, you know, you, you, you've got these teams that are, supposed to be really bad. The athletics are playing well in the West. you know, you've, you've, you've got teams that are excelling in a way that's a real pain in the neck for those teams that thought, well, yeah, we got wins against those guys.

It's not working out. Well, think it's even more so that the overall league is just kind of so average when there's so much parity that like the best teams in the leagues have 25 wins. The worst team, the Mets have 13 wins. It's only 12 wins between the bottoms and the top teams where previously you would have like last season, it would have been the top team has like 28 wins and the Rockies have four. So like, that's true.

That has a big impact because the worst teams are not like, and when you're looking at a team, like if you're saying the Mets are the worst team in baseball, they're not that bad in comparison to the worst teams in baseball of 2025 and 2024 and 2023. So I think the worst teams are better this year and the, and your classes, the class of each division, you know, generally looks great with the exception of the central and the west and the AL, the Yankees, the Braves, the Dodgers.

I mean, the Dodgers have not been amazing recently, but that's really for them. so like, I think that even the Cubs, the Cubs have been hotter than hell recently. So when you look at the best teams in baseball, I think it's more that the middle teams are all just, there's not like a lot of, okay, you know, good teams. There's just the great teams and then everybody else right now and then the Mets. And your division matters, right? If you've got a bunch of decent teams in your division right now.

You know the the the the NL Central you were talking about the Cubs. You know you've got the Reds that you know even though they're on a losing streak as we go in here Wednesday, you know they they played better. They lost their closer last night. Obviously you mentioned Emilio Pagan and you know the Brewers are the Brewers that keep playing the Pirates man. The Pirates have scored some runs this year, so I wanted to ask you about the Pirates in that division. How do feel about Brandon low now? I'm great signing there. I mean it's tough to be like man.

I love what the pirates are doing. I think they're doing a great job and they're in last place in their division, technically at 19 and 17. So I think that's going to be. Well, that's being, that's a little harsh at that point. But I think it's important to look at that division and say, that's a division where whoever blinks and goes on a losing streak first could be in a lot of trouble. Cause you might all of a sudden put yourself in a hole you can't get out of, especially if everybody else keeps playing well in the interim. And you know, they have the parts of Braxton Ashcroft who, Ashcraft,

who has looked a little like paul skeens out there and i think we thought about the guys that were going to be paul skeens is you know running mates as starting pitchers there you were not thinking it was going to be him you were hoping it might be jara jones who's still not back in to contributing yet and that or miss keller who's actually pretty well but the parts have been a certainly have the pitching we said that for a while we're getting the hitting and that's the big deal

Yeah, and being in the division you're in this year makes such a difference. you Mets and the Angels basically have the same record and they probably feel wildly different about their seasons right now because the Mets are basically looking at their division and going, oh, playoffs are in trouble. The Angels are looking at their division one game out of the Mets and going, oh, we're four games out of first place. Cool. So that's a huge difference just based on what division you're in, even though they the same record.

The angels, know, I'm talking to somebody about the answer. It's just so hard, you know, when you think about the fact that this is just a typical angel season when you really think about it with where their record is, what their prospects are. And Mike Trout is having the best season he's had in a long time and everybody's excited about it, except as usual, he doesn't really have much else there to round him. I don't know what the angels are doing there for the meat. think even the fans have acknowledged of the franchise. just like it doesn't seem like they really have a direction.

or a goal. feels like they've at least finally committed to let's play young guys and not sign random overpaid veterans for no reason, just so that we can have an off season signing to talk about. But it's tough to sell your fans on this is the year the rebuild is going to work because as a MetFan that has now watched two different cycles of young players come through and one of them at least achieve some level of greatness. And then the next really not do anything close to that.

It's tough to keep being like, okay, you know what here? It's okay. We'll reset for the next crop of rookies. And it's like, okay, well I have to wait like another four seasons then for them to get good. I'm like, I don't know how much like, and especially when you watch other teams bring up guys and it's like, oh cool, they brought up some dude and he's just immediately a good major league hitter. And how many seasons do we need to watch this guy before he gets good? This is tough. Yeah. And, you know, the, the teams that are, you know, that ran it back

you know and when we were critical i i i was i was critical of you know the yankies running it back is that going to work yes it appears to be working the phillies mostly read it back and they got up to a terrible start which has been turned around since they made the change from rob thompson has done madly as of here was i think they're nine and one

Since they've been real hot since they swapped over to, you know, don't matter. They're certainly better and then they, you know, they're, moving up and I expect them to, do better. So the teams that have run it back like that and the teams that made wholesale changes and say, we're going to do it differently. ⁓ you know, the Orioles do, that, the giants did that, the Mets did that. ⁓ we're to try to, you know, shake it up and make it different. hasn't been working out so good for those teams and doing that. I think that's just more coincidence than anything else because it's hard to

be like, okay. Yeah. Clearly the mistake is to sign free agents. Well, obviously that's not a takeaway. I think it's just, you're looking at a bunch, you know, maybe what we saw is what we were evaluating, evaluating in players, maybe wasn't necessarily the best thing is to be valuing. And at least in the case of the Mets, there was, there was a lot more hopes and dreams that were powering this team than I think everybody was willing to admit. You know, there, was a lot more like, yeah, no.

This is the year Bainie Vientos and Francisco Alvarez all actually put together full productive major league seasons. And it's just like, okay, well, wait a second. That's a bit much to expect. For all of them to do it. know, if you're a Cardinals fan, I think you got to be delighted at how well they've done so far this year, in part due to the resurgence of Jordan Walker, who was the prospect who was always going to do it this year. Well, actually he is doing it this year.

Right, right. And you know what? It's been a great first month of the season. But like we've said, we talked about previously, we've sat here with the Pirates being like 20 and eight. Like we talked about being like, wow, I don't know if we believe in them. So we can't be pronouncing players and teams. yeah, they finally fully arrived just after a month of the season. Because even then, if we if you had gotten to the All-Star break last year and you told Cub fans.

Will PCA replicate his first half in the second half? Every single one of them would have told me, yeah, he's going to be amazing. Now I don't think there's a Cub fan on earth that would have taken his second half of the season if that was what he normally did. He'd be far less valuable player. He's a, he's, what was that Blue Jays center fielder that was a really good fielder, but he couldn't hit a leg. Was it Golar? Yeah. Or no, Keirmeyer.

Kevin Keir Meyer, right. If he's Kevin Keir Meyer, he's not nearly as exciting a player. No offense to Kevin Keir Meyer, but PCA as a hater does things he can't. He's retired now, Keir Meyer doesn't care. He's happy to get a mention. ⁓ You know, we didn't talk about the Rockies and they came into New York a couple of weeks ago and swept the Mets, which was sort of like the nadir of the Mets. Here it is, the final indignation of being swept by the Rockies. But the Rockies have played

respectable baseball they're not a winning team but they've got some players that got under goodman and they've got mickey moniac who ⁓ don't know how mickey moniac became a home run hitter all the sudden he's having the season of his life right now where i would see guys do this word is from one year it all comes together and he just they just hit everything and they're just you know they have that magical year and moniac is having an amazing season so far i'd be stunned if you can keep it up all the way but it'd be awesome if we did because the guy would hit

you know, 80 something homers in bat 330. Another guy who I just love saying his name, Ildemar Vargas of the Diamondbacks. And I heard his name, but I honestly didn't really know much about the player other than he had a weird first name that made me remember him. He's 34 and he's been obviously been around for a bunch of years in major leagues.

He had a 27 game hitting screep snap and I think he's near the top, if not at the top of the National League in batting. And again, another guy is like, is this the season of his life that can be sustained or is this a good six weeks? Sometimes it's really tough to tell. We've seen it with, we would say the Mets as an organization got the Jose Iglesias call right in terms of he had the season of his life and then it was probably time to move on purely from a player production standpoint.

Then they got it wrong because I'll go back and know, count my, you know, pull up, you know, put on my hat and be like, yeah, I was saying do not sign Sean Manayo. We got the season of his life from him and he's never going to be that good again. And my God, he has not been good since that, since that. And we've spent a lot of money on him to be kind of very bad. And that's the tough call. Was the uptick in performance something we can rely on this guy consistently doing or was it an aberration? And

Sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong on it as an organization. And I think the teams that are more consistently right when they make those calls, those are the best franchises. And the Dodgers are really good at that. They're really good at being like, we got the season from that guy, it's time to move on. And they're very good at being like, no, we need to keep this guy, he's gonna keep producing. That's true. as well as they played despite losing Tyler Glaston, like you said, as a...

Wednesday this week, Ohtani hadn't hit a home run in nearly a month, I guess, or at least, you three and a It's interesting. He's been amazing on the Hill, except when he pitches against the Astros. was the highlight of the month in April, March, April. He's been unbelievable. It feels like he's like, OK, this year I'm going to win the Cy Young. It feels like almost like he's got little goals for himself each year. Like, OK, I've won a couple of MVPs in a row. Now I'm going to win the Cy Young this year, just so that I can really shut everybody up. Because he's probably thinking,

I don't even have to hit that great as long as I hit OK this year and I'm a Cy Young pitcher, they'll probably give me the MVP. But I'll keep saying this about the Dodgers as I did last year going.

All of this is window dressing right now. The Dodgers are like, let's just strum the old guitar and get to October and then we'll figure it out. Right, right. think the best chance somebody has potentially of beating the Dodgers in the postseason is whoever gets them in the first round can ambush them a little bit and like get a game or two off of them early in that series before they think about like food poisoning or something like that. What do mean? You catch them before they fully kicked into postseason.

Right, right. You know what I mean? You get them in that first round because once you've gotten them into rounds two and three and they fully work woken up and turned into that Dodger team, I it's going to be really hard to beat them. I think a couple of more notes that and that is that the it made me think about this. John Sterling, who was a first Braves guy, actually a reporter and and writer, became the Yankees radio announcer.

And I think he did something like he 5060 consecutive Yankee games without missing a game. So an amazing career, ⁓ a polarizing guy. certainly listen to the guy in New York all the time, ⁓ hearing his calls on the radio and not being a Yankee fan. ⁓ I have to admit that I cringed quite frequently, but I respected the guy's professionalism. He had his shtick and if you're a Yankee fan, you love it, I'm sure, or mostly love it.

and and maybe think that radio announcers because the message of the lose howie rose after this year he's retiring this is the soundtrack of your life as you as you go when you're a kid you remember the people we are in particular radio announcers and tv announcers and as you get older and these guys have been these guys have been there sterling and rose for appeal thirty more than thirty years so i think you know it'll be hard for somebody to be that until thirty years from now in new york at least

I think unfortunately it is the sound, they are the soundtrack of baseball for a certain generation. I don't think millennials and Gen Z have near the attachment to their radio announcers that older baseball fans have to their radio announcers because they're just not in a position to listen to the radio nearly as often.

The radio is pretty much something I imagine most people under the age of 35 listen to when they're in the car with their parents, unfortunately. just, know, yes, overall, yes, I can see your point. But remember, if you're going to listen to or you're going to use the MLB app, you can get an audio feed if you can't, if you're not in a place where you can.

watch the game and you might well listen to the radio feed when you do that. I'm not, I'm not saying that nobody's listening to them. That's young. I'm more just saying, I think it's just going to be interesting because the relationship and having the radio announcer almost in some ways be more the voice of the team than the TV announcer for the team. don't think you're going to have that kind of relationship where the radio announcer is seen as the more premier position because the majority of fans are watching it on TV now if they're watching. Well,

and that's that's true ⁓ at the same time because baseball is so many games you know this you know football announcers are not in your living room every night you know you're not listening to them even basketball there's not games every single day so baseball will always be different and that sound and and listening i think is is different for that sport ⁓ watching it as well it's hard to watch a hundred sixty two games by the way ⁓ so i think it's it's different and guys like sterling and you're right and rose sort of

Harken back to a different time. Right, right. And it's sad because you're seeing sort of what is this last generation of great radio announcers. There might not be another John Sterling. There might not ever be another Howie Rose, who was this guy that does it for years and years and years and is this voice of the team in a way that amplifies who the team is through the way they call the game. I don't know if you're going to have that as much going forward.

I hate that that point is probably right, it really bothers me. And is something that you're going to lose that relationship, but I think you're going to have it replaced with other things. Because I think the way we engage with, I think what you're going to see, I really do think you're going to see the rise of the fan-tots. You're going, that eventually Major League Baseball is going to make it so that people like you and me could...

Talk over the game and have people listen to it and have us call your game rather than listen to their TV audience. I think you're going to get there. It might already happening in some cases. You can do it. You already can do it in 20 years from now. You might be there and who knows how we're going to be watching the game. We might all be strapping a VR headset and watching it like we're in the stadium by that. I actually I thought about that and wouldn't wouldn't mind that at all. It sounds very cool. Couple more news notes. ⁓

I don't know if you're familiar with the White Sox pitcher Davis Martin, ⁓ but he is having a great season and he's a guy that I was barely familiar with before, you know, this season. ⁓ kind of shout out to a guy who I don't think most people know and his stats look fantastic. Another guy whose stats aren't looking quite as fantastic and who did what he has done before is our own favorite guy to talk about. That's Framber Valdez.

yeah, he throws his first four-seam fastball of the year to drill Trevor's story last night. And then I'm shocked that everybody's upset about it. That was the part to me that was like, he was like, why is everybody mad at me? Like I'm only hitting guys because I'm not pitching very well tonight. It's like an NBA player, like, you know, when he fouls somebody and he goes, what? I didn't touch

It was exactly like the play from the Knicks Magic game earlier this year when Desmond Bain threw the ball at OG when he was on the floor. And then Desmond Bain was like, why is OG mad at me? I don't understand. Right, right. And even his manager, know, Hinch didn't go, yeah, you know, he really couldn't support him because, you know, it's like, he doesn't know who, who Framber is. He's dealt with him before. Everybody knows, you know, everybody saw us.

⁓ And and we don't talk about the Braves We talked about a little bit being one of the best teams in baseball and if you checked out Matt Olson ⁓ He's like having an MVP type season. He leads all of baseball and be more even here for Matt Olson Yeah, true so, you know a shout out to him and they certainly need him with a Cunha junior not quite being You know yet back and now all the way and on the injured list. So ⁓ Difficult difficult thing for him there

The best thing for the Braves is that they need to now have a mess like collapse from last year in order to take themselves out of a playoff point. They're almost at the point where it's just like, wow, yeah, it would take a collapse of historic proportions for you to not make the playoffs. And guess what? Those don't happen too often. No, and they don't happen to the Braves and they just got Spencer Strider back. So and they'll get swelling back, you know, back on the Hill. I think the Braves and we knew they were well positioned before the season.

Right, was like the, anybody that was like, oh, the Braves are a dark horse this year in the National League is somebody that doesn't quite understand the definition of a dark horse. Exactly. So, and, you so you wonder about, you know, the teams, can they, can they hang in there? Can the, the Rays, like you said, hang in there? We'll see. You know, there's, there's basically three quarters of the season to go. I can't really believe that a quarter of the season is, because it feels as a MetFan, like the season's already over.

I mean, it's like, certainly my interest is dwindled. Like it's already over. Like, you know, it's because it's just like as a met fan, you're now looking at it like, OK, they kind of need to win like 10 in a row for before I'm starting to be like, hey, now it's interesting to watch baseball again. Well, they've gone from being horribly awful to just being ⁓ OK, not as bad as they were. They got along. Right. They're scoring some runs, which at least makes the games watchable. Definitely. So we'll be back with another podcast in a week.

We're going to have an author, a book about Japanese baseball and the Japanese leagues and the different aspects of Japanese baseball. It was a terrific book and we look forward to having the author join us. Thank you.