Though the Rays are just 24-21 for the season and 5-5 over their last 10 games, they’ve vaulted into first place in the AL East as the division’s only winning team. The Yankees have lost 10 of their last 11 games to drop to an even 22-22 while the Red Sox (21-23), Orioles (19-22) and Blue Jays (20-26) are just struggling to get back to the .500 mark. Here’s the latest from the struggling division…
- Orioles reliever Brian Matusz was ejected from Saturday’s game with the Marlins for having a foreign substance on his arm, and now the southpaw has been suspended for eight games, Major League Baseball announced today. Matusz is appealing the suspension. As Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun notes, the suspension comes at an inopportune time for the O’s, as their pitching depth will already be tested due to a stretch of 14 games in 13 days (thanks to a double-header). Left-handed batters have only hit .185/.214/.296 this season against Matusz, who has a 3.18 ERA in 17 innings. The eight games matches the length of the suspension handed out to Brewers lefty Will Smith for a similar offense last week.
- Masahiro Tanaka told reporters (including Dan Martin of the New York Post) that he is “not gonna make a change” to his pitching style in the wake of forearm and wrist injuries, but admits that he is “going to have to oversee my body a little bit better.” Tanaka’s health has been of great concern since it was revealed that he had a partially-torn UCL last summer, and despite a couple of DL stints since, the Yankees still hope their ace can avoid a longer-term stay on the injured reserve. Tanaka will make his second minor league rehab start on Wednesday.
- J.P. Arencibia is trying to stay optimistic as the catcher continues his pro career for the Rays’ Triple-A team, he tells Sportsnet’s Greg Mercer. Arencibia goes into detail about how he felt he didn’t deal with the pressure of being an everyday player with the Blue Jays, and also about his surprise at being released by the Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate earlier this season.
Matusz should just do what I see dozens of other pitchers openly do, and that is bang the rosin bag on their sweaty forearm in front of the umpires, cameras, and tens of thousands of fans without any fear of reprisal. Also, batters should no longer be allowed to use pine tar or batting gloves to get a better grip on the bat.
seriously no pine tar on the bat? what POSSIBLE advantage is the batter gaining other than not losing his bat and clonking a fan or someone else in the head
What possible advantage is there to the pitcher losing his grip on the ball and clonking a fan or someone else in the head? Actually, it might make the games more entertaining, 🙂
You don’t think it’s an advantage to the batter to be able to grip a bat better without having to squeeze harder?
Can’t the league work on coming up with a neutral pine-tar like substance everyone is allowed to use already? It really doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to do so at all. Guys are using pine tar to get a better grip on the ball, not to alter the trajectory of their pitches as people using vasoline does. At least if it’s regulated, we know what it is the guy is using and why he’s using it, you could pair it with mandatory checks with the umpire before hitting the mound if you’d like if you don’t trust the players. Most batters would prefer the guy throwing to them to have a better grip on the ball as it lessens the likelihood of the pitch slipping and injuring them.
I heard a former catcher say that many pitchers actually do use something but arent obvious about it. Thats its almost an unwritten rule that is “OK” to do.
Oh, it absolutely happens, and it happens on every team. The problem with that is that we don’t know what it is they’re using, or what purpose it serves. Some guys absolutely use stuff that makes their stuff break better, and that’s a problem. That’s why having a mutually agreed upon substance for gripping purposes everybody is permitted to use would do nothing but good.
Yeah exactly , like the vasoline example. Makes you pitch like youre throwing a wiffle ball.
What’s the over/under on Tanaka’s innings pitched before he hits the DL again?
There is no over/under on that because putting odds on a guy’s health is immoral.
Isn’t that basically what betting on boxing is.
Got a chuckle out of that one, can’t lie. There’s definitely a fundamental difference between that and betting on baseball injuries though.
He wasn’t asking to bet, he was asking for speculation on how long Tanaka would last, which isn’t even in the same conversation as immorality, especially given his DL history.
I know he’s not putting together a pool with his friends or anything on it, but trying to put over/under odds on someones health isn’t exactly the most moral of things to do either(I agree that would be an entirely different level of immorality if it was the case). I’m not saying it’s unfair to question his health and how long it will last, but trying to put odds on it just gives a bad vibe and as a rule of thumb, probably not something to do.
Let’s not butcher and undermine words here. Stealing something or cheating on your wife is immoral, betting on when a dude will get injured again has nothing to do with morals or immorality; you could perhaps classify it as distasteful, nothing more.
If it means that much to you, I’ll use distasteful rather than immoral, as I’m really not trying to undermine anything or create controversy, but really they both could be applied. Morality simply suggests the principality of right and wrong, and putting numerical odds on something as touchy as the health of a player could easily be seen as immoral. And it’s not as if I’m saying the person who asked is immoral, just the act of doing so.
He is wondering about Tanaka’s health. The original poster of the comment does not have all of the information about Tanaka’s health and was hoping to find someone else to tell him how good Tanka’s arm is. No betting, and not even placing odds on it, just trying to understand the concept better.
Rays are getting nothing offensively from their catchers. I’m hoping Arencibia can replace Bobby Wilson so we can get at least make the 9th spot competitive.
Tanaka is going to wind up missing more time than he would have had they just gone with the surgery in the first place.