Armadillo: Friday's six-pack
-- Phillies drafted a HS outfielder from California with the first pick in the baseball amateur draft Thursday.
-- Five of the first nine picks were high school players. Two of the first seven picks were high school pitchers who had committed to play for Vanderbilt next year, so rough day for the Commodores.
-- Three of the first 47 picks were Florida Gator pitchers, two of whom were taken by the A's. Now I need Florida to get KO'd from the college baseball tournament, so their coach can't abuse their arms the way college coaches do this time of year.
-- Ohio State is one of several bigtime football schools that will start to sell beer at their games this fall. Kind of hard to believe it has taken this long.
-- Virginia Tech was 10-8 in ACC basketball last winter, despite being favoried in only two of the 18 games-- Buzz Williams is doing a hell of a job there.
-- Sharks 4, Penguins 2-- Game 6 of Stanley Cup finals is Sunday in San Jose.
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Armadillo: Friday's List of 13: Random stuff with weekend here.......
13) Pirates got rained out Monday, played a doubleheader Tuesday, lost in 10 innings Wednesday, then got on a plane and flew to Denver for one make-up game against the Rockies, then flew back to Steel City last night for this weekend's series with the Cardinals. After this weekend, Pirates will have played 27 consecutive days.
12) Indians 5, Mariners 3-- Quietly, Cleveland is three games up in AL Central.
11) Which brings me to this: Why on God's green earth did the Red Sox fire Terry Francona? Francona went 744-552 in eight years managing Boston, winning a couple of World Series trophies, when the Red Sox hadn't won one in 80+ years. Instead of firing the guy, they should put a statue of him in front of Fenway Park.
Well, Francona is 290-253 in Cleveland and he has the Tribe in first place, and that is a harder job than managing the wealthy Red Sox. Francona is a future Hall of Famer.
10) And yes, I realize the Red Sox won a World Series with John Farrell in 2013, but breaking a losing culture is the hardest thing a coach has to do and Francona is the guy who did it in Boston. Still think they screwed up firing him.
9) Baltimore Orioles are 19-4 in games where the winning run scores after the sixth inning- Buck Showalter is also a really, really good manager. .
8) Kershaw-Cueto in San Francisco tonight. Don't see lot of totals at 5.5.
7) If you have Jose Altuve on your fantasy team and position eligibility is one game at that position, you can now use Altuve at shortstop- he played a few innings there in Thursday's loss in Arlington. First time Altuve has played short in the majors.
6) Yordano Ventura got a nine-game suspension, Manny Machado four games after a brawl in Baltimore Tuesday. Both appealed, which means they may not serve their penalties before the 4th of July-- justice moves slowly in baseball circles.
5) Madison Bumgarner is the best pitcher the Giants have, but he wants to be in the Home Run Derby in San Diego next month. He has 13 career homers and a .180 career batting average. If you were Bruce Bochy, would you let him try HR Derby?
Despite his .180 batting average, Bumgarner is 0-22 batting in the playoffs.
4) I watch a ton of latenight TV when I am up updating this space; luckily I do not watch a lot of commercials, because if I did, I'd feel like a bad person.
Commercials for preventing animal cruelty, preventing starvation in Africa, more for keeping rare species of animals from becoming extinct, or helping wounded warriors-- the magic number seems to be $18 a month for each one. Enough already.
I'm sure most of these are worthy causes, but it gets tiring constantly being hit up for money-- the government should be taking care of our veterans, by the way.
3) Miami Marlins are 31-29, despite being outscored by 27 runs from 7th inning on, even after they pounded Minnesota's bullpen in a 10-3 win Thursday. Marlins are +17 in runs scored in the first six innings of their games.
2) Pirates' 1B John Jaso is hitting .375 (15-40) in first inning of games, which is good for Pittsburgh, since he bats leadoff.
1) Obscure baseball rule I never heard until last night:
In games with a retractable dome, the roof is only allowed to move once during the game. Say the game starts with the roof open, if it closed during the game, it cannot be re-opened during the game. That is why roofs are rarely opened during the game, because once the roof opens, if it were to rain, by rule the roof couldn't be closed.
-- Phillies drafted a HS outfielder from California with the first pick in the baseball amateur draft Thursday.
-- Five of the first nine picks were high school players. Two of the first seven picks were high school pitchers who had committed to play for Vanderbilt next year, so rough day for the Commodores.
-- Three of the first 47 picks were Florida Gator pitchers, two of whom were taken by the A's. Now I need Florida to get KO'd from the college baseball tournament, so their coach can't abuse their arms the way college coaches do this time of year.
-- Ohio State is one of several bigtime football schools that will start to sell beer at their games this fall. Kind of hard to believe it has taken this long.
-- Virginia Tech was 10-8 in ACC basketball last winter, despite being favoried in only two of the 18 games-- Buzz Williams is doing a hell of a job there.
-- Sharks 4, Penguins 2-- Game 6 of Stanley Cup finals is Sunday in San Jose.
**********
Armadillo: Friday's List of 13: Random stuff with weekend here.......
13) Pirates got rained out Monday, played a doubleheader Tuesday, lost in 10 innings Wednesday, then got on a plane and flew to Denver for one make-up game against the Rockies, then flew back to Steel City last night for this weekend's series with the Cardinals. After this weekend, Pirates will have played 27 consecutive days.
12) Indians 5, Mariners 3-- Quietly, Cleveland is three games up in AL Central.
11) Which brings me to this: Why on God's green earth did the Red Sox fire Terry Francona? Francona went 744-552 in eight years managing Boston, winning a couple of World Series trophies, when the Red Sox hadn't won one in 80+ years. Instead of firing the guy, they should put a statue of him in front of Fenway Park.
Well, Francona is 290-253 in Cleveland and he has the Tribe in first place, and that is a harder job than managing the wealthy Red Sox. Francona is a future Hall of Famer.
10) And yes, I realize the Red Sox won a World Series with John Farrell in 2013, but breaking a losing culture is the hardest thing a coach has to do and Francona is the guy who did it in Boston. Still think they screwed up firing him.
9) Baltimore Orioles are 19-4 in games where the winning run scores after the sixth inning- Buck Showalter is also a really, really good manager. .
8) Kershaw-Cueto in San Francisco tonight. Don't see lot of totals at 5.5.
7) If you have Jose Altuve on your fantasy team and position eligibility is one game at that position, you can now use Altuve at shortstop- he played a few innings there in Thursday's loss in Arlington. First time Altuve has played short in the majors.
6) Yordano Ventura got a nine-game suspension, Manny Machado four games after a brawl in Baltimore Tuesday. Both appealed, which means they may not serve their penalties before the 4th of July-- justice moves slowly in baseball circles.
5) Madison Bumgarner is the best pitcher the Giants have, but he wants to be in the Home Run Derby in San Diego next month. He has 13 career homers and a .180 career batting average. If you were Bruce Bochy, would you let him try HR Derby?
Despite his .180 batting average, Bumgarner is 0-22 batting in the playoffs.
4) I watch a ton of latenight TV when I am up updating this space; luckily I do not watch a lot of commercials, because if I did, I'd feel like a bad person.
Commercials for preventing animal cruelty, preventing starvation in Africa, more for keeping rare species of animals from becoming extinct, or helping wounded warriors-- the magic number seems to be $18 a month for each one. Enough already.
I'm sure most of these are worthy causes, but it gets tiring constantly being hit up for money-- the government should be taking care of our veterans, by the way.
3) Miami Marlins are 31-29, despite being outscored by 27 runs from 7th inning on, even after they pounded Minnesota's bullpen in a 10-3 win Thursday. Marlins are +17 in runs scored in the first six innings of their games.
2) Pirates' 1B John Jaso is hitting .375 (15-40) in first inning of games, which is good for Pittsburgh, since he bats leadoff.
1) Obscure baseball rule I never heard until last night:
In games with a retractable dome, the roof is only allowed to move once during the game. Say the game starts with the roof open, if it closed during the game, it cannot be re-opened during the game. That is why roofs are rarely opened during the game, because once the roof opens, if it were to rain, by rule the roof couldn't be closed.
