Perfect Game: Baseball 2024
Hedgehog
Shipmate
in The Circus
Teams are reporting to Spring Training this week. There is no World Baseball Classic this year, which means less disruption to the normal Spring Training...with the exception that the LA Dodgers and SD Padres will break Spring Training early to go to Seoul, North Korea to play the first two official games of the season on March 20 & 21. They will then return to the US and resume Spring Training until the rest of the season resumes on March 28 (with the Dodgers playing St. Louis and the Padres playing SF Giants).Dan: Eleven years ago Orlando Rojas pitched a perfect game.
Rebecca: And a perfect game is good?
Dan: Look, I know there's a lot of jargon but some of these really are self-explanatory.
--"Sports Night" Season 1, Episode 18 (March 23, 1999)
And that isn't the only foreign tour this year! The Houston Astros and Colorado Rockies will play two games in Mexico City on April 27 & 28. And then the Philadelphia Phillies & NY Mets head to London for two games on June 8 & 9.
Let's hope the weather stays good for all those games. It is bad enough to travel internationally for two games...but traveling that far for a couple of rain-outs would be very annoying.
Anyway, just to remind you: the defending World Series Champions are the Texas Rangers.
By my calculation, entering 2024, here is a listing of the number of years since the listed teams last won the World Series (teams marked by * have never won the World Series and the count starts with the team’s formation):
Cleveland Guardians (75 seasons)
Milwaukee Brewers (55 seasons)*
San Diego Padres (55 seasons)*
Seattle Mariners (47 seasons)*
Pittsburgh Pirates (44 seasons)
Baltimore Orioles (40 seasons)
Detroit Tigers (39 seasons)
NY Mets (37 seasons)
Oakland A's (34 seasons)
Cincinnati Reds (33 seasons)
Minnesota Twins (32 seasons)
Colorado Rockies (31 seasons)*
Toronto Blue Jays (30 seasons)
Tampa Bay Rays (26 seasons)*
Arizona Diamondbacks (22 seasons)
LA Angels (21 seasons)
Miami Marlins (20 seasons)
Chicago White Sox (18 seasons)
Philadelphia Phillies (15 seasons)
NY Yankees (14 seasons)
St. Louis Cardinals (12 seasons)
SF Giants (9 seasons)
Kansas City Royals (8 seasons)
Chicago Cubs (7 seasons)
Boston Red Sox (5 season)
Washington Nationals (4 seasons)
LA Dodgers (3 seasons)
Atlanta Braves (2 seasons)
Houston Astros (1 seasons)
Texas Rangers (0 seasons)
**************************************************
And here is the list of how long it has been since a team last competed in the World Series (whether they won it or not):
Seattle Mariners (Never)(Team formed 1977)
Pittsburgh Pirates (1979)
Milwaukee Brewers (1982)
Baltimore Orioles (1983)
Oakland A’s (1990)
Cincinnati Reds (1990)
Minnesota Twins (1991)
Toronto Blue Jays (1993)
San Diego Padres (1998)
LA Angels (2002)
Miami Marlins (2003)
Chicago White Sox (2005)
Colorado Rockies (2007)
NY Yankees (2009)
Detroit Tigers (2012)
St. Louis Cardinals (2013)
SF Giants (2014)
NY Mets (2015)
Kansas City Royals (2015)
Cleveland Guardians (2016)
Chicago Cubs (2016)
Boston Red Sox (2018)
Washington Nationals (2019)
Tampa Bay Rays (2020)
LA Dodgers (2020)
Atlanta Braves (2021)
Philadelphia Phillies (2022)
Houston Astros (2022)
Arizona Diamondbacks (2023)
Texas Rangers (2023)
Comments
Good heavens - has it moved?
(Off topic: it reminds me of the classic film that was released under the name Krakatoa: East of Java (1968) Maximilian Schell, Diane Baker. Slight technical problem: Krakatoa is west of Java.)
One baseball podcaster I listen to, Paul Sullivan on Locked on MLB, has a fan base suffering index that he recalculates every year that takes a bunch of things into account:
Guardians fans have the highest suffering score, followed by Pirates fans, neither of which is shocking. Dodgers fans have the second lowest, which I feel underestimates the misery engendered by our team winning just one postseason game in two years. But nobody feels bad for Dodgers fans these days. 😈
Still, it amuses me. Currently, two teams (Yankees & Pirates) are 4-0 and two (Tigers & Brewers) are 3-0. On the loser side, Astros and Marlins are 0-4; White Sox and Mets are 0-3.
On the Winless side, it is down to the Mets (0-4) and the Marlins (0-6).
There is also one winless team left. The Marlins are 0-7. And they are currently losing 8-5 in the 8th. Not A Good Start.
I'll also be honest and confess that while I'd heard of Babe Ruth (mostly via Peanuts cartoons), for some reason I'd always imagined he was Black (and it wouldn't have occurred to me that that would have meant he had to play in, literally, a different league).
https://tinyurl.com/ms9d8urt
[Edit: Have shortened very long URL by using tinyurl - other providers available. - Wesley J, Circus Host]
But your post reminded me that, as we are at the All-Star Break, now would be a good time to update the season. Roughly speaking, we are midway through the season.
[Technically, halfway would be when each team has played game #81 of the 162-game season. In fact, most teams have played 95 or 96 games at this point.]
AL East
Baltimore Orioles lead the division by one game over the NY Yankees. Further back are the Red Sox (4.5 games back), Tampa Bay Rays (10) and Toronto Blue Jays (14--sorry @Caissa and @sharkshooter ).
AL Central
Cleveland Guardians lead by 4.5 games over the Minnesota Twins. Further back are the KC Royals (7), Detroit Tigers (12) and Chicago White Sox (32.5 games--OUCH!) The White Sox have the worst record in the league at 27-71 (.276)
AL West
Seattle Mariners lead by one game over the Houston Astros. Further back are the defending champion Texas Rangers (5) LA Angels (10) and Oakland Athletics (15).
NL East
Philadelphia Phillies, with the best record in the league at 62-34 (.646), lead the Atlanta Braves by 8.5 games, followed by the NY Mets (12.5), Washington national (18.5) and Miami Marlins (29).
NL Central
Milwaukee Brewers lead by 4.5 games over the St. Louis Cardinals, followed by the Pittsburgh Pirates (6.5), Cincinnati Reds (8) and Chicago Cubs (8.5). Yes, Chicago has two major league teams and they are both in last place. It is a rough summer to be a Chicago fan.
NL West
LA Dodgers lead both the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres by 7 games. Following them are the SF Giants (9) and Colorado Rockies (22).
The White Sox are currently at a 27-87 record. There are 48 games left in the regular season. Even if they win ALL 48 GAMES remaining, they will still end the season with a losing record (75-87)! And if they happen to lose all 48 games, they will end up with 135 losses, eclipsing the 134-loss mark of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
Incidentally, they did fire their manager earlier in August. It has not changed their fortunes. Managing was not the reason they lose so often.
He was with Toronto on June 26 when the game started. Rain caused a suspension, so they are now finishing that game today--and in the meantime he was traded to Boston, so he can now play for Boston for the conclusion of the suspended game.
Wasn't he at bat when the game was suspended?
May 5, Houston Astros playing at the Washington Nationals. The teams remained tied through the top of the 11th inning (this was before the new rule concerning extra innings), when the weather ceased to tolerate the game anymore. It got suspended.
But apparently that was the only time Houston was coming to Washington for the season, so the game resumed in Houston on July 9, with Washington scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 11th. Because they were still the "home" team even though playing in Houston. Making Houston the first team to lose a game on a "walkoff" hit in their own ballpark since the Yankees-Twins did the same trick in 1975.
Washington had 8 players who were no longer on the team when the game finally finished. Including the guy who became the winning pitcher--he had been traded to the Pirates and was taking a nap in Philadelphia when he "won" the game.
And, because of a quirk in baseball stats, everything that happened in the game on July 9 is officially treated as if it happened on May 5. Which created two oddities: First, the guy who scored the winning run had been playing for the Pirates back in May--so "officially" the record books show him getting a hit for the Pirates on the same day that he scored the winning run for Washington. Second, in July Washington was in the midst of a losing streak. While they won this game in July, the losing streak remained intact because the win was attributed to May 5....so Washington pulled off the rare stunt of winning a game in the midst of a losing streak!
The Washington Nationals are likely the next to fall.
Washington has been eliminated from winning the division, but they are still mathematically alive for making the playoffs.
Right now, it is a competition between Washington and Oakland as to which will be the next to be eliminated from the playoffs.
Hopefully, the former. I'd hate to have to conclude that he can't perform under pressure.
Oakland has now been eliminated from playoff contention.
The competition for who will fall next is pretty fierce. It could be Pittsburgh, Texas, San Francisco, Toronto (sorry), or even potentially Cincinnati or Tampa Bay!
It is kind of weird that 7 teams have now been eliminated from playoff contention but, as far as I can tell, no team has actually clinched a playoff spot yet.
The Phillies could clinch today. I think. Math is hard! [/Barbie]
But there is not much of a chance for the Brewers to celebrate right away, because they still have a game to play tonight against the Phillies!
And Cincinnati has been eliminated from playoff contention.
Playoff updates: SF Giants have been eliminated. LA Dodgers and Cleveland Guardindians have clinched a playoff spot. So 4 out of the 12 playoff teams have now been identified.
And 51/51. He'll set records for the rest of the season. He went 6 for 6 - a single, two doubles, and three home runs. He had 10 RBIs, 2 stolen bases, 17 total bases. Also, hats off to Marlins manager Skip Schumaker for not having his pitchers intentionally walk Ohtani. He apparently said "fuck that" when it was suggested.
The Dodgers are once again headed for post-season play, where I think they will once again wash out quickly because the pitching is in tatters. The rotation is Jack Flaherty (fine), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (coming off an injury, not stretched out yet), Walker Buehler (coming back from a second TJ surgery, getting better but not the pitcher he used to be), and Landon Knack (a rookie). The bullpen has been heavily taxed of late, and it's showing wear and tear.