Tag: Baseball

The 300s Reviews: Guaranteed Rate Field, Home of the Chicago White Sox

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My quest to see all 30 MLB parks has brought me to Chicago this week. To be honest, I’ve been putting off this park for a while, and like my 300s counterpart Big Z, I wasn’t jumping for joy at the chance to see what Guaranteed Rate Field had to offer.

Situated in South Chicago, I’ve pretty much only heard bad things when the White Sox stadium was brought up in conversation. But alas, I’m not in Chicago incredibly often and the quest is to see all 30, so it was time to bite the bullet and check this place out.

I’ve decided to do this review a bit different than my past reviews. Most of the time I’m writing these as a retrospective piece, trying to recall my favorite and least favorite parts of the experience. However, seeing as I was only at this field yesterday, I thought it would be a little fun to give you an exact play by play of how things went down. While I was there, I took brief notes on my iPhone to really capture the essence of what I was feeling in the moment. So I present to you, an unaltered account of my day yesterday at Guaranteed Rate Field.

12:35 pm: Just arrived at Guaranteed Rate Field. So far I feel like I am the only person at the stadium, it’s a ghost town. Checked out the team store, which has a good amount of Cubs gear for no good reason.

12:45 pm: Got a vodka lemonade souvenir cup for 10 bucks. Pretty god damn strong, good price.

12:56 pm: Apparently it’s the mascots birthday. Kind of a lame mascot. No spark, looks dead inside. Although he is named Southpaw, which I appreciate the lame pun for being on the south side of Chicago, and myself being a lefty.

1:07 pm: Decided to do the speed pitch machine. Arm is completely shot. In actual pain. Great form though and hit 60 mph.

1:08 pm: Fireworks mistaken for gunshots. South side Chicago problems.

1:10 pm: Made my way to the upper deck and we have closed concession stands! Supply and demand!

1:19 pm: First inning just ended. So far the best way to describe this place is lifeless. Guy in front of me has taken his shoes off and is reading a Chicago Tribune. I can’t tell exactly, but there also appears to be a 10 year old sleeping a few seats down from him. Beer guy came through and held up a beer, didn’t bark or try to make a sale, and then went back down the tunnel to the concourse.

1:30 pm: Mascot tricycle race. We’re getting desperate

1:38 pm: They’d like you to believe this is Frank Thomas’s number when in actuality it is today’s attendance.

1:48 pm: Apparently you can’t leave the 500s section if you have a 500 level ticket. Calling kangaroo court on this one. There’s no food open up here, so I will fight my way down to the main concourse.

1:53 pm: There are an excessive amount of people making balloon animals. Just had to mention that.

1:58 pm: Not sure if it’s the sweltering heat or last night’s hangover, but I’m starting to have an existential crisis about being at this game and killing another 7 hours til my flight home.

2:06 pm: Grabbing a vanilla cone to try and lift my spirits.

2:15 pm: Cone made things worse.

2:30 pm: Actually watching some of the game now. Moncada with a 3 run double! There’s audible cheering! We may just have life yet.

2:32 pm: And we’re back to deafening silence.

2:35 pm: Jose Abreu with one of the worst slides I’ve ever seen to kill a nice 2 out rally.

2:39 pm: Remember how I said it was the mascot’s birthday? They’re giving out fucking birthday cake. This place is so bizarre.

2:40 pm: “Overall moist and flavorful for a mass produced cake.” – Laurel B

2:44 pm: The cake has now led to heartburn. Luckily I always keep spare Tums on me.

3:16 pm: Just saw a grown-ass man spike his drink because he missed a foul ball. Hardest I’ve laughed all day.

3:18 pm: I think that’s all she wrote for my day in Chicago, overall just an incredibly strange place to watch baseball. Definitely not my least favorite stadium, but it’s probably bottom 3 for me. Crowd started coming alive as the runs were coming home, so this place has the potential to be fun when it wants to be. Time to catch a flight.

Official review: 6.4 out of 10

Jake Arrieta Rips His Teammates After Getting Swept aaaand I’m OK With It

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ESPN –  The Philadelphia Phillies have lost six of their past eight games. And after a sweep at the hands of the San Francisco Giants, pitcher Jake Arrieta has reached a boiling point. “Overall, it’s just a really horses— series,” Arrieta said after the Phillies’ 6-1 loss on Sunday. “Really bad. Really bad. We’ve had bad defensive shifts. We had a checked swing. [Shortstop Scott] Kingery should’ve gone to second on that play. And they got three hits in a row. The home run — credit [Andrew] McCutchen for putting a good swing on it, but did not expect a ball like that to get out,” Arrieta said in recounting how a five-run sixth inning for the Giants came together against him.

My fellow lumberjack beard sporting dude Jake Arrieta is having a damn good year for the Phillies (5-3 2.66 ERA) but he was NOT having a good time after getting shellacked and swept by the Giants this weekend. He basically had a meltdown after the game. My first reaction to reading those quotes was bro you cannot do that, especially after just losing 6-1 with the Phillies scoring all of 1 run in the entire series too…

“Sunday’s loss featured the team’s only run scored of the entire series, one driven in by Arrieta with a solo homer in the third inning.”

..which was scored by Arrieta himself…

Rip away, Jake.

If you weren’t dominating on the mound and then personally providing your own run support at the plate I’d tell you to STFU because you know players absolutely haaate when a pitcher calls out his team’s defense. But if you are doing those things then, well, then nobody can really say shit. This is a young team and Arrieta is a Cy Young winner and World Series champion so maybe a swift kick in the ass is just what his team needs.

Less Than a Week After Cutting Hanley Ramirez, Red Sox Place Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia on the DL

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Solid plan guys. I understand keeping Hanley Ramirez may have just been a fit issue with fellow 1B/DH Mitch Moreland absolutely crushing the ball lately (.305 and 10 HRs), but you couldn’t find a way to make it work?

As much as I don’t want to see JD Martinez in the outfield, you know he wants to play the field so rotate him out there and get Hanley at 1B or DH and just wait out his recent cold streak. He was only hitting .259 with 6 dingers, but he was still the Sox No. 3 hitter. The guy can rake like no one else when he gets going so to just dust him because the *Boston Red Sox* are worried about $22 Million next year is insane.

In a hilarious turn of events the move blows up in their faces not even a week later with both Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia going on the DL. So now we’re relying on Brock Holt and Blake Swihart. Oh and the Sox also called up Sam Travis who was hitting a cool .213 in Pawtucket. Forgive me if I’m not jumping at those options over Hanley.

The Sox also signed veteran 1B free agent Adam Lind too, which would have been awesome if it were 2009. He’ll be emergency depth as the Sox have stashed him at Pawtucket while paying him what I can only assume is the veteran minimum. So its peanuts for a guy, who in fairness, did hit .303 in 301 plate appearances for the Nationals last year. I guess if you’re the Sox you’d rather pay a guy $500,000 to hit just above the Mendoza line than risk locking yourself into $22 million next year.

But have the Sox been penny wise and pound foolish? I would expect Mookie to not miss much time, but its impossible to say what will happen with Pedroia. He’s coming off an invasive knee surgery and will soon be 35-years-old. When healthy he’s still very productive and a tough out, but he’s rarely been healthy recently. Pedroia has played in more than 105 games just once in the last 3 seasons so thats not exactly confidence inspiring. Ideally the Sox would have another bat that could play 2B to fill in for Pedroia rather than trying to mishmash Hanley into the lineup around two other guys that play the same position. However, the Sox don’t have that luxury this year as Eduardo Nunez has crashed back to Earth hitting .259 with just 17 extra base hits on the year.

So long story short? Don’t cut guys that can swing the stick for no other reason than to maybe save a few bucks next year. Not if you’re the Boston Red Sox. Unless of course John Henry and co. are stuffing cash under the mattress to go after a guy like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado this offseason. If thats the case then I’ll print this blog out and eat it with a nice lemon zest for flavor.

PS – Its possible the Sox got rid of Hanley because he was just a total cancer in the clubhouse. I don’t know whether thats true or not, but Ken Rosenthal strongly implies that was a big reason. If thats the case, then do what you gotta do.

“Some with the team believe the removal of Ramirez from the clubhouse will create more room for others to assert themselves and become leaders,” Rosenthal said in a video on FOXSports.com. “One player who is a top candidate to assume such a role? J.D. Martinez. Dustin Pedroia is the only other prominent veteran among the team’s position players and he is back on the DL.”

Red Sox vs Yankees I: A Beatdown in Boston

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The first of 19 matchups between the Red Sox and the Yankees kicked off last night and it was a coming out party for the Boston offense. The Sox dropped two touchdowns on the Yanks in their first meeting. Thats 14 runs for those that don’t partake in American football. Going into the game it seemed like it would be a pitchers duel between two guys in Chris Sale and Luis Severino who had allowed 3 runs combined and a total of 29 K’s between the two to start the year. Chris Sale continued his excellent start to the year going 6 innings, giving up 1 run and striking out 8 while FINALLY getting his first win of the year. We all know its an arbitrary stat, but I’d love to see Sale get the 20+ wins he deserves, assuming the bullpen and the offense does their job this year.

Meanwhile Severino got curb stomped for 5 runs in 5 innings and that was before the Red Sox *really* broke it open later in the game. How the hell did Severino get hit so hard? Well the ESPN broadcast booth noticed that he might have actually been tipping his pitches, showing replays with his hands being closer to his belt or farther away depending on if he was throwing a fastball or an offspeed pitch. So while I would love to dance on Severino’s grave, I’m sure that’ll be the first thing the Yankees fix and he’ll be spinning zeroes next time he takes the mound.

Giancarlo Stanton continued his historic strikeout pace with another pair of Ks courtesy of Chris Sale. This guy looks lost out there. He looks like he’s trying to crush everything out of the park so he’s swinging out of his shoes. I’m no hitting coach, but even I noticed last night how he looks halfway out of the box before he’s even through his swing like he’s goddamn Ichiro.

I must admit this is immensely gratifying to watch as a Sox fan who was pretty bullshit the Yankees swooped in and stole another megastar home run masher in his prime when the Sox could have [and should have] had him (i.e. A-Rod).

To make it even more satisfying, our statistically similar, for a third of the price, power hitter JD Martinez broke out in a big way with a towering double that if it was hit literally 2 feet to the right would have been a grand slam. Either way it broke the game open as the Sox piled it on, including an actual grand slam later on from Mookie Betts, who was rewarded for his efforts with an awkward interview with his best friend!

Farrell has been decent in the booth, but I have to give him credit for not losing his shit on Steve Levy last night.

After getting crushed all day on the radio, specifically by Tony Mazz who went out of his way to say the guy sucked defensively, the Brock Star was flashing the leather rather impressively last night.

The Sox were firing on all cylinders though with 8 different players crossing the plate, Mookie went 4-for-4, JD had a huge double, Sale was lights out, Hanley was even stealing bases like it was 2006 for christ’s sake.

Red Sox vs Yankees II is tonight and this one might be the pitching duel we had hoped for last night as Masahiro Tanaka comes in with a 1-1 record to go along with a 2.92 ERA and 15 K’s. He’s taking on a seemingly rejuvenated David Price who has yet to allow a run this season to go along with his 10 K’s and he looks to have really built on the momentum from his dominant run as the most expensive relief pitcher in MLB history during the playoffs.

The Continuing Quest to See All 30 Ballparks

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By now it’s no secret that i’ve been chipping away at my goal of seeing a game at every major league ballpark. Now that the 2018 season is upon us, I thought it would be the perfect time to update you on my quest and ask you the readers what I should tackle next?

Coming into this MLB season I’ve been to 12 ballparks all while experiencing some amazing highs (Pirates, Padres) and some spectacular lows (Yankee Stadium 2.0). My list is as follows, ranked according to my level of enjoyment:

  1. Pirates
  2. Padres
  3. Cubs
  4. Rockies
  5. Brewers
  6. Red Sox
  7. Mets
  8. Dodgers
  9. Orioles
  10. Twins
  11. Phillies
  12. Yankees

It’s kind of hard to do a ranking, especially when the middle of the list doesn’t really have any faults, it’s just that it didn’t have any memorable moments. I rank the Pirates so high because of the views from PNC. Situated perfectly on the river, it’s an incredible sight with the skyline and bridges in the distance. I also managed to snag a beautiful Pirates cowboy hat from the gift shop and free beer from a broken keg, dumping gallons of free suds into the concourse (and into my cup).

Wrigley was a bachelor party so good times were had, Petco Park was a beautiful summer night the weekend of 4th of July, and Citi Field is the home of my team the Mets, so I have a bit of a bias there.

Yankee Stadium did absolutely nothing for me. It felt like a place you’d go watch gladiators fight lions, let alone a game of baseball. It was too sterile, too corporate, all things that have been said time and time again.

2018 will bring my total to 15, as I will be adding the White Sox, Nationals, and Angels to the list.

Is there anything else I should hit? Would you guys like to see some video reviews of some of these places? Let us know in the comments and we will bring you the A+ content.

Dustin Pedroia Says John Farrell Wore Down Red Sox Last Season

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NESN – “There certainly seemed to be something of a leadership void, and Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia admitted Monday that former Boston manager John Farrell was part of the reason the club didn’t seem to enjoy itself in 2017. “The overall approach, every day, would wear on guys. It wasn’t people not liking each other. We all love each other. Trust me,” Pedroia said Monday morning on WEEI’s “OMF.” “There’s the mindset of, ‘You show up to the yard, you put your work in, you have your approach that day, and you try to execute it. If you don’t, guess what? You’re going to show up tomorrow and still be in the lineup. We’re all going to have confidence in you. We’re all going to show up and try to win and accomplish the same thing.’ That’s what wore on guys and made the season that much more grueling — when everything that day was more magnified. It put a lot of pressure on our young guys, it put a lot of pressure on our veteran guys. That’s the part, when you hear Mookie (Betts) or (Xander Bogaerts) say they weren’t having much fun, you don’t ever have a chance to enjoy yourself if you don’t go 4-for-4, throw a complete game shutout, or we don’t win by 10. You don’t look ahead to the end of what we were trying to build for.”

Color me shocked. Dustin Pedroia came out and admitted on WEEI that last year sucked because John Farrell just beat guys down. It seems like his approach was just a grind on guys mentally. As much as we like to rail on players for whining and complaining, Boston may be the toughest city to play in the entire league so its important to manage that level of stress. This is where I’ve always been kind of disapointed though considering John Farrell came up in the Terry Francona school of management. Pedroia said guys were stressing because they were hyper focused on day to day success rather than building towards something bigger. If a guy didn’t hit the cover off the ball one day he’d be worried about getting moved down in the batting order or getting bumped from the lineup entirely. Farrell never really seemed as comfortable managing the Sox as we all thought he would be when Boston traded for him with Toronto.

Compare that to a manager like Francona who was infamous for sticking with his guys, almost to a fault. Anyone remember Mark Bellhorn? That guy was a goddamn enigma. In theory, a pretty solid player, but holy hell was he frustrating. Half the time he straight up SUCKED.  He was a disaster in 2004 with his double ear flapped softball batting helmet.

He hit .264 with 177 strikeouts, which was 1st in the American League and 2nd in all of baseball. He did have a .373 OBP though! But Francona knew the guy could hit so he kept going with him day in and day out. Guess what? In the long run it paid off as Bellhorn had a HUGE 3-run HR in Game 6 of the ALCS to force Game 7 against the Yankees. Don’t remember? It was the one that smoked a guy sitting front row in the chest, but he was wearing all black so Matsui and those dirty Yankees tried to play it off like it hit the wall.

So theres definitely something to be said for consistency.

Everybody remembers Game 6 of the 04 ALCS for the legend that was Schilling’s bloody sock, but people forget that was also this game:

But, I digress.

As a manager you could also go the other way and tell these professional athletes to sack up. I mean if I have a few non-productive shitty days at my job, my employer is most likely going to chew me out. If you’re not performing the manager is well within his rights to sit you down. But, and I think this is what John Farrell’s biggest weakness was, if you’re going to do that you have to communicate why to the player. Build them up. Co-mmu-ni-cate. And that is where Farrell dropped the ball. The guy just did not have the social skills or the management skills or whatever you want to call it to relate to his players on a day to day basis. Not to beat a dead horse, but again Francona could call Pedroia in to play a game of cribbage and while the two are having a friendly competition Tito could tell him that he has sucked lately and is giving him a day off. Whether that was good news or whether that was bad news, Tito could communicate.

One of my favorite stories about Francona was how he would go out during batting practice every day and if he had to have a talk with someone he would bring them behind the backstop to chat. It was in the middle of everyone and completely public, but nobody could hear what they were saying except Tito and the player. So he was a master class in dealing with the players and their fragile egos and getting the best out of guys. Hell Francona could call a guy into his office while he was taking a dump and have a chat. I don’t really see that kind of comfort level existing between John Farrell and any of these Red Sox players. So the hope here is that Alex Cora is able to bring back that warm and fuzzy feeling back to the players. Maybe Cora won’t be sitting on the porcelain throne when he’s calling in Rafael Devers, but hey its only his first year on the job.

The Bullpen Car is Returning to Major League Baseball!

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ESPN – The bullpen car is coming back after being gone for an entire generation of baseball fans. The Arizona Diamondbacks will use a helmet-clad golf cart for the first time since the vehicle left Major League Baseball more than two decades ago. “I think it wore out its welcome,” Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall said. “There were these new stadiums, and the focus shifted to the guys running through gates and onto the mound. We think the time is right to bring it back.” Hall said the Diamondbacks purchased two golf carts and had them retrofitted with big caps by SportsKartz, a company in Tampa, Florida. It’s not all for tradition. The Diamondbacks sold a sponsorship to OnTrac, a West Coast courier service, which will receive branding on the vehicles. “An ancillary benefit might be that it could speed up the game,” Hall said. “I expect a lot of teams to follow suit.”

Make Baseball Fun Again. One of the greatest idiosyncrasies of baseball was that the relief pitchers would get ferried from the bullpen to the goddamn mound like they were Xerxes invading Sparta.

I don’t want my Closer expending any energy at all commuting to work. Let the guy save his bullets for when the action really matters on the mound. It would seem the bullpen car was invented more out of necessity than entertainment.

“Nobody ran in from the bullpen,” said Dick Stigman, who pitched for the Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins and Boston Red Sox in the 1960s. “I don’t think we could’ve made it. We all smoked.”

Now its back and I could not be more excited. Of course we have to be careful of rogue mascots driving like total assholes:

Or the Marshawn Lynch’s of the world just running people down:

But aside from that I think we’re in for a renaissance. Will this speed up the game of baseball? Almost certainly not! What it will do though is encourage less and less conditioning among relief pitchers. Hopefully to the point that guys like El Guapo and Bartolo are a more common sight than a workout warrior like AJ Ramos.

Just like the good old days, when men smoked cigarettes in the dugout and drank whiskey in between at-bats. Health and well being be damned, Make Baseball Fun Again.

 

All 30 MLB Teams Will be Wearing Marjory Stoneman Douglas Hats This Weekend to Honor School Shooting Victims

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I read the other day that this was initially going to just be a Miami Marlins thing since Stoneman Douglas is right in their backyard. I also read that because of the MLB’s tone deaf rules the players would only be allowed to wear the hats in pre-game, but it looks like they’ve reversed course in a big way.

Now ALL 30 MLB teams will be wearing the high school’s hat with the option to wear it in-game. Thats awesome. Its small condolences to the kids who had to go through hell this week, but its a great way to show support and solidarity with the community.

If you remember both New York teams donned first responder caps in the wake of 9/11 as a way to show support. Its a small gesture, but sometimes those can go pretty far.

Chris Sale Working Out With Red Sox Top Prospect Jason Groome is Pure Porn

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There is nobody I would rather see the Red Sox top prospect working out with more than our absolutely psychotic, alpha dog ace, Chris Sale. You look at Sale and don’t necessarily see a guy thats shredded, but you gotta be strong as hell to pitch like he does (17-8 2.9o ERA) and to get that gigantic lanky 6’6″ frame following perfect mechanics. Definitely not a bad idea to pair that guy with the Red Sox’ 2016 1st round pick (12th overall) for a little offseason workout.

Just in case you need a refresher on who Jason Groome is, he’s the top pitching prospect in the Sox farm system. Here’s the scouting report on him from SoxProspects.com

“Has the potential to develop into one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Projects as a solid number two or high-end number three starter. Has the ceiling of a top of the rotation starter. Has the build of a workhorse starting pitcher and clean, repeatable mechanics to be able to sustain 200 plus innings a year. Early makings of a three-pitch mix with fastball and curveball both projecting to be at least plus offerings. Could stand to add a cutter to give hitters another look when he reaches the high minors.”

Earlier this year, MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo ranked Groome as the second best left handed pitching prospect in all of baseball, adding this:

“He still has perhaps the best combination of stuff, upside and command of any arm in his class.”

So, yea definitely a guy we want to follow closely and surround with the right influences. It would seem Beyond Motivation is a place that Sale has been working out at for at least a couple of years, so its not just bullshit P90X or some sketchy program in the Dominican that he’s been following.

And thats what makes Chris Sale the leader in this Red Sox clubhouse, bringing along the young guys even if they’re still only in A ball. Teaching them how to be do the little things to be one of the best in baseball and not how to bitch about the media and be a malcontent.