Now I’m sure that Major League Baseball believes they’re not doing anything wrong and let’s face it they’re never going to admit to anything and why would they since this worked for them once before, but it’s clear there’s something going on with the baseball this season.
Some people used the termed juiced other say the baseball is wound tighter this season. I even heard someone say that with the increase in pitching velocity the number of home runs was bound to go up, but I think even the average baseball fan realizes that it’s the baseball.
Let’s go back to 1998 when baseball was coming off a strike and there was quite a bit of backlash from the fans. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had an epic home run battle that helped bring fans back to the game.
McGwire win the battle with Sosa as he hit a single season record at that time of 70 home runs. Sosa ended up with 66 home runs and won the NL MVP in 1998.
Of course Barry Bonds went on to break the single season home run record with 73 home runs in 2001 and he also has hit the most home runs by a player n baseball history with 762 for his career. Of course all three of these big time home run hitters have come under scrutiny for the use of performance enhancing drugs to help them reach those home run totals.
This season it doesn’t appear that any player is getting help hitting home runs from any other substance but a supped up baseball.
We’ve played about 1/3rd of the season and right now there are six players with 20 home runs or more. That would mean if these numbers held up all six of these players would reach the 60 home run mark for a season. Eight times in Major League Baseball a player has hit 60 or more home runs in a season; so just imagine if this season there are six guys who reach that number.
I’m sure with the short attention span society we live in today Major League Baseball probably thought it would be the right thing to do to add some excitement to the game and what better way to do that than make home run numbers go up. To be honest it just makes the game boring and hard to watch. You get one moment of a baseball flying into the stands in between a large amount of strikeouts and the baseball not being out in play. It’s bad enough that every single major league ballpark is designed to have regular flyballs land in the bleachers. Now with the baseball the way it is even pop flies are turning into home runs. How is this good for the game?
On Monday we had a firestorm of sabermetrics, analytics and a juiced up baseball put on a sad display of power at Citizens Bank Park as the Philadelphia Phillies hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Phillies and the Diamondbacks combined for a Major League record 13 home runs in a game. Now you would think with 13 home runs being hit in a game we’d see one of the higher scoring games in baseball history as well, but we didn’t. Some how with these two teams combining to hit 13 home runs they only managed to score 21 runs combined.
This is where the sabermetrics and analytics come into play. Since players no seem no long interested in doing anything but hitting home runs there just weren’t any runners on base when all of these home runs where hit.
I’m sure the sabermetric/analytic community has an excuse for this, but we all know that would be just complete garbage. There where runs scored in every inning of this game except the 7th. There where 27 hits in this game and 13 of them where home runs and the teams combined to leave 15 runners on base.
I’m kind of at my wits end when it comes to baseball. This is the game that I’ve been interested in the longest out of the four major sports. Now I’ve given up on the new style of play in the NBA and slowly but surly it’s staring the look like baseball might be next.
The Golden State Warriors kept their NBA title hopes alive with a 106-105 victory over the Toronto Raptors in Game 5 on Monday night.
There where quite a few interesting storylines to come out of this game, but let’s go with the most obvious of them all the Kevin Durant injury.
I find it very hard to believe how many people who watch the NBA game much, much closely than I do think that Durant was some how forced or conned into playing by the Warriors. Just think about that statement for a minute; then try to figure out how they’d be able to do that.
Durant was about to be the biggest free agent on the NBA market where there is a lot of money out there with the television deal they have. Why would he risk that? Do people honestly believe that Durant and his team of people only took the word of the Golden State team doctors before agreeing to play on Game 5? There is no chance at all that Durant didn’t consult his own physician before playing in Game 5.
Durant looked really good for a guy who hadn’t played in a month. He played 12 minutes and scored 11 points. He was 3 of 5 from the field, but he went 3 of 3 from behind the 3-point line. He also made all both free throws he attempted, grabbed 2 rebounds and blocked a shot before going down with a torn achilles.
It looks as thought this injury may keep Durant out all of next season, but there’s really no telling how long he’ll be out until surgery is performed.
After his injury again there where a lot of people saying that he wouldn’t be able to come back as the player he is now because big men have a difficult time coming back from this injury. The first question that popped into my mind was; since when is Durant anything like a normal big man in the NBA?
I actually don’t care how this affects the NBA Finals at all. I’m more interested to see how this affects the off season. There where quite a few teams that where making salary cap room to try to add Durant. Which direction will those teams go now?
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