Joakim Soria suffered a mild right groin strain during the Brewers’ ninth-inning meltdown against the Padres today. Soria walked off the mound with an apparent injury after allowing a go-ahead grand slam to Hunter Renfroe. According to Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, the malady was later described as a mild right groin strain. There’s no official word on the severity of the injury yet, so it’s not known at this time whether Soria will need to miss any games. The right-hander came over from the White Sox just prior to the trade deadline in exchange for a pair of minor leaguers: left-hander Kodi Medeiros and right-hander Wilber Perez.
Here are a few other small items from around the league this evening…
- Speaking of Renfroe, the Padres outfielder has been on a tear of late. Including tonight’s grand slam off Soria, Renfroe’s slugged four homers in his past four games. Kevin Acee of the San Diego Tribune suggests that Renfroe’s performance could solidify an everyday spot in the lineup even after Wil Myers returns from the disabled list. That’s good news for the 26-year-old in the wake of today’s news that some of the young Padres outfielders are being intensely evaluated, but it’s also worth noting that Franmil Reyes also homered tonight; his third in his past four games. It will be interesting to see how the Padres address their corner outfield logjam this offseason, or if they choose to at all (Reyes and Renfroe both have minor league options remaining and can be stashed at Triple-A).
- The Mariners moved Dee Gordon all the way down to ninth in the batting order in tonight’s game. That’s largely due to the speedster’s incredibly pedestrian offensive performance on the season. He’s hitting .280, but with just a .300 on-base and .343 slugging percentage. The biggest culprit to his lackluster showing is a paltry 1.5% walk rate that’s by far the lowest in the majors and approximately half the size of the next player on that list (Salvador Perez of the Royals). Though the plan right now seems to be for Robinson Cano to usurp some playing time from Ryon Healy when he returns from his suspension, it’s fair to wonder whether Gordon could rest in favor of Cano on occasion down the stretch, if he can’t figure out how to show more patience.
- With his 121.7 MPH homer tonight off Rangers starter Ariel Jurado, Giancarlo Stanton broke a Statcast record. The Yankees’ headline offseason acquisition drilled the ball at a launch angle of 17 degrees, propelling it an estimated 449 feet. It’s officially the hardest-hit homer that Statcast has ever tracked. It’s part of a larger trend for Stanton, who has heated up after a somewhat average start to the season. The right-hander’s .308/.363/.561 batting line since the start of June is much more in line with what the Bombers had imagined when they took on the lion’s share of his contract from the Marlins this offseason.
Juggy
Giancarlo is a beast wow
Phanatic 2022
I thought his contract would look like a bargain after this offseason. Not so sure Harper will get what he thinks anymore. However, much better since the break.
Begamin
whatever contract machado and kershaw get might be the one that makes stantons look like peanuts. that may be only if machado is willing to move back to 3B where he is better and if Kershaw tests the market
thegreatcerealfamine
What is going on with your boy?
kidaplus
Anyone giving Kershaw a long-term mega contract will be crippling their franchise.
He’s never gonna be healthy with that back… too much toll on velocity… down 4mph and it puts too much strain on other areas that have to compensate for the stress the back used to take and ultimately can’t handle it.
Anyone who has money to for Kershaw would be fools to not wait a year for sale.
xabial
First grand slam of his Yankee career.
Cat Mando
Unless I am looking at the wrong box score it was a solo shot.
xabial
Sorry, I was thinking of the HR he hit before that one. It was literally a game before today. HR 3 straight games
Here’s the video: youtube.com/watch?v=f42NuGXzGU8
Joe Kerr
Grand slam was yesterday, not tonight.
Begamin
I like how you let him know the grandslam was the day before after Xabial himself acknowledged that the grandslam was the day before
xabial
Thanks for the courteous correction, guys. Guess I’m living in the past. I really wanted the grannie to be Statcast record holder. My apologies, misread
thegreatcerealfamine
The Pope told you not to get the app.
Dodgethis
The pope.. hasn’t been relevant in hundreds of years…
PopeMarley
Tell that to the 1.2 BILLION Catholics around the World blasphemer. Have a blessed day bruh
PopeMarley
You’re absolved my son.
bbatardo
About time the Padres give Renroe regular playing time.
Old User Name
Stanton should continue to bat 2nd after Judge comes back.
thegreatcerealfamine
No he shouldn’t…
pinstripes17
Why shouldn’t he? He has been killing the ball and he walks a lot too.
thegreatcerealfamine
He doesn’t have a walk rate close to Judge..that’s one.
Old User Name
Judge is not going to be awesome the minute he gets back. It’s going to take some time and he has an injury that may have lingering effects for the rest of the year.
thegreatcerealfamine
That has nothing to do with plate discipline…
Old User Name
Has everything to do with production.
geg42
Did I miss the Fernando Rodney to the A’s post?
anthonyd4412
A 375 foot HR provides the same result as a 450 foot HR… just saying
Ruben_Tomorrow 2
Exactly, who cares how far and how fast it went out. As long as it goes over the wall (in some cases it doesn’t even have to leave the park to be a HR), the only factor that affects the value of the HR is how many runners were on base when it was hit. Statcast is the lamest attempt from MLB to try to get the audience into the game. As if th re weren’t enough useless stats in the game, MLB thought it would be a genius move to bring in even more. Sooner or later, every player will be setting a new record simply because they’ve created a stat for everything.
Begamin
You do realize that the harder and farther you can hit the ball can illustrate how good of a hitter you are right? Like how likely you are to get HRs and XHBs are tied to how hard you can hit the ball. You could even get a lot more singles if you hit the ball harder because balls that the fielder would normally get to cant anymore because it was scorched past them. I mean, should we stop caring how hard a pitcher throws? How much a pitchers curve breaks? How quickly someone can get down the line?
Theres more to baseball than the box score. At least statcast tries to illustrate that.
Ruben_Tomorrow 2
They are complicating a simple game by incorporating more and more numbers, and it’s all due to trying to invigorate an audience. Teams are not going to throw more money at someone for hitting a ball over 120 MPH. Whether or not he hits the ball out of the park, gets on base, drives in runs, etc. will determine their worth.
Begamin
If you think baseball is a simple game then you are out of the loop. No wonder you are annoying by seeing how hard a ball is hit. You know, people put numbers to everything so that they can better conceptualize and understand the things in front of them. So now instead of answering “How hard did he hit that?” with “Idk pretty hard dude” you can say “So-n-so MPH”. You are witnessing a never ending space race for who can build the perfect team. Um, teams will throw money at someone for hitting 120mph. How do you think Stanton hits so many HRs? Because he hits the ball softly? How do you think Nolan Ryan racked up all those strikeouts? By lobbing it? Have you ever wondered how a player drives in runs? Sure, theres more to it than how hard you can hit it (having a good eye, bat control, etc. helps) but if you think how hard someone can hit the ball isnt a factor into the things you listed as worth determining then you are wrong.
Just for you, everyone will stop doing 40 yard dashes, stop clocking pitchers, and just give vague adjectives for how good a player is. How does that sound to you?
Ruben_Tomorrow 2
It’s a very flawed way of looking at hitting. Look at the top 12 Statcast lists at average exit velocity. You have the likes of Gallo, Iannetta, Pham, Trumbo, and Olson. If you want to look at top five for speed this year, you have Gary Sanchez, Cargo, and Palka. It’s a way of measuring hitting that ultimately accomplished nothing with the exception of creating new large numbers that get an audience to “Wow” about for a minute.
pinstripes17
Sure, and if it was a 375 foot homer you Sox fans would be crying short porch.
lasershow45
375 isn’t a short porch at any stadium.
justreading
Stanton is hitting rockets!
he better not hit anyone with those shots
tonights homer was the hardest hit ball of the
year in major league baseball
also, the Yankees have the top 10 hardest hit
balls in the major leagues this year with Stanton
having eight and judge and sanchez one each
Dodgethis
Based on what? Each park, broadcast company and team have their own equipment. Not everyone uses the same things. So the Yankees can make dubious claims all they want but they hold no water.
Begamin
based on MPH?
not sure how each team having their own broadcast booth changes the claim he was making (that isnt to say that he claim is 100% truth, just that the counter argument you presented doesnt really counter anything)
justreading
what?
justreading
dodgethis – you could not be further from the truth
exit velocity is measured by major league baseball
which installed a doppler radar behind home plate
in all 30 parks in 2015 as part of the statcast system
lowtalker1
I don’t think so franchy Cordero has the hardest hit ball and the further hit ball of 2018
southbeachbully
Simply going by what stacast says, Cordero isn’t even in the top 10. The only one they one they had registered for Cordero ranked 28th overall at 116.9 mph. He did however have the furthest distance at 489 ft.
justreading was correct in that the Yanks have the top 10 highest exit velocity with Stanton have 8 top 10 rankings and Judge and Sanchez having one each in the top 10. Stanton also has 19 rankings among the top 50.
He’s got what’s called “strenff”.
justreading
thank you
rolafaive
C.C’s miscue at end of Brewers/Padres game and the lack of quality warm up time was the reason for the groin strain, with the inconsistancies from Knebel for closing games after the 1st walk he should have had someone warming up, not wait till he loads the bases and miscues a bunt that he had plenty of time to throw home for a force out.
El Duderino
Who cued him?
lowtalker1
Excuses trying to save face against the padres