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Oh nothing, just Troy Tulowitzki grabbing teammate Rafael Betancourt in the nuts after the Colorado Rockies beat the San Francisco Giants 5-0 on Sunday. Tulo hit a two-run single in the sixth, while Betancourt pitched a scoreless ninth. Betancourt initially put up some resistance to Tulo, but the shortstop would not be denied.
Between Tulo and Jeff Francoeuer, this is turning into the year of the nut shot.
Forearm bash to Deadspin
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Aroldis Chapman uncharacteristically blew a save against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday by allowing two home runs in the ninth inning. The Cuban fireballer walked Delmon Young to start the inning, was gifted an out when Cliff Lee, who was pinch-running for Young, made a mistake on the bases, and then gave up back-to-back home runs to Erik Kratz and Freddy Galvis to lose the game 3-2.
Chapman is normally automatic as a closer, so seeing him allow two home runs in the same game was unusual considering he’d only allowed seven in his entire career prior to Sunday. But our friend Spike Eskin at CBS Philly shared a theory about what may have slowed down the Cuban Missile on Sunday.
Phillies Spanish language broadcaster Rickie Ricardo told Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show on Monday that Chapman may have been undone by an extra helping (or two, or three) of a special pastry he ate before the game.
Ricardo explained that there is a special Cuban bakery nearby where he lives in Union City, N.J., and that Cuban ballplayers will often ask him to bring them a special bakery item.
“They cook this little Cuban pastry, which is a flaky-crust pasty with cream cheese and guava and it’s baked, and it’s absolutely delicious,” Ricardo told WIP. “Now, if you eat more than two of these you’re clogging up your arteries—you’re a stroke waiting to happen!
“Well, Chapman asked me on Friday night after the game to stop by the bakery and pick up a box of 50. For example, Livan Hernandez, guys like that—even Chooch, guys on our team, they’ll put 10-15 of these things away with a couple of glasses of milk. It’s equivalent of the Krispy Kreme donuts when they come right out of the oven, it’s that kind of a thing.”
Ricardo told WIP that Chapman asked him for 100 of the pastelitos de guayaba — two boxes of 50 — and that the Reds closer was about five fist-fulls deep into the box before Sunday’s game.
“When I saw him on Sunday morning before the game, he was in the club house, he had just eaten about 18 of them. He couldn’t breathe! I looked at my partner, I said, ‘he’s ripe for the taking today.’”
Sure enough, Ricardo was right. Chapman has now blown back-to-back saves, giving him 10 blown saves for his career. Eskin says Chapman was mostly around 95 mph during the appearance. So, was he slowed by the pastries? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time someone was ruined by the food they ate before a game. You make the call.
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Miguel Cabrera continued his reign of dominance over MLB pitching with a 3-home-run game in an 11-8 loss to the Texas Rangers on Sunday night.
Cabrera went 4-for-4 with 3 runs scored and 5 RBIs in the game. He started off with a line-drive single in the top of the first for Detroit’s lone hit of the inning. Two innings later, he followed hits from Omar Infante and Torii Hunter with a prodigious 3-run home run to right-center off Derek Holland:
Clear your eyes for a second and comprehend what you just saw. Miggy took an 83-mph change-up from lefty Derek Holland and sent it 441 feet to the opposite field. A 441-foot opposite field home run off a change-up from a lefty. Seriously. Do you realize how insane that is? Not only is a pitch like that intended to keep a hitter off balance or induce them to ground out weakly to the right side, but it requires a lot of power from the batter to deposit an 83-mph pitch 441 feet.
After getting burned with a change-up to Cabrera, Holland figured he’d bring the heat in the next at-bat to see how it would go. He brought in a 94-mph fastball, and Cabrera sent out a line drive to straight away center that left the park in about half a second:
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The Bella Twins and Mick Foley hung out at Busch Stadium on Saturday as a cross-promotional weekend between the St. Louis Cardinals and WWE. The wrestling stars hung out on the field before the game and held an autograph session for fans. Foley aka Mankind also took some batting practice, though his swing certainly left a lot to be desired. As for The Bella Twins, well, there’s a lot to be desired between the two of them. Chris Jericho also showed up to the park on Sunday and threw out the first pitch.
Many more photos below.
This is the most alive Bob Uecker’s felt since Rick Vaughn dusted Clu Haywood on three pitches:
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The Houston Astros are the worst team in baseball, so the way they lost Friday night’s game in Pittsburgh was quite fitting.
Houston blew a 4-1 and lost 5-4 after two players collided when they were trying to catch a pop up to shallow right that allowed the winning run to score.
The Pirates loaded the bases and Russell Martin was facing Edgar Gonzalez with two outs. Martin had a full count and popped the ball up to shallow right. Second baseman Jake Elmore was calling it all the way, but right fielder Jimmy Paredes ran into him, knocking him to the ground. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Brian T. Smith, manager Bo Porter said the ball was Elmore’s, while Elmore said he couldn’t hear whether or not Paredes tried to call him off.
The ball hit the ground to give Martin a walk-off RBI single to win the game — much to his surprise. None of the Pirates players were running hard because they all thought it was going to be caught.
Now the best part is Eye on Baseball points out that another blooper from earlier in the game helped the Pirates make the comeback. This is another must-see GIF:
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Ian Kinsler is generally a master on the bases. 160 stolen bases in his career and only 33 caught stealing. He even has a +39.4 value as a baserunner throughout his career, according to Fangraphs. But this season his baserunning value is -0.9. I’m guessing all of the negative points came on the embarrassing slide seen above.
After singling to lead off the bottom of the first for the Rangers on Thursday against the Tigers, Kinsler went to third on a hit by Elvis Andrus. For some reason he totally screwed up on his head-first slide into third base and completely ate it. Nothing but dirt all in the face. His teammates in the dugout were laughing and loving it, and even Kinsler was smiling afterward and seemed to be a good sport.
Here are a few more awesome photos of it:
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Does anyone have a more wicked pitching arsenal than Yu Darvish? The Texas Rangers stud pitcher matched up with Justin Verlander on Thursday in a game that surprisingly turned into a slugfest. While Verlander was rocked and couldn’t make it through three innings, Darvish got through eight to pick up his seventh win of the season.
But there was one moment in particular that must be recognized: the time when Darvish made Miguel Cabrera look foolish.
Darvish was facing Cabrera in the top of the fifth with the Rangers up 8-4 and the count 0-1. Darvish threw Cabrera a 62 mph curveball, and Miggy took a vicious hack at it. He was so off balance after missing on the swing that he stumbled across the plate and was left to give a smile. Why? Because nobody makes him look foolish like that.
Cabrera is the reigning AL MVP and last year’s triple crown winner. He’s the best hitter in baseball. That doesn’t happen very often. But with Darvish pitching, anything is possible.
Also see: Amazing GIF shows all of Darvish’s pitches
GIF via Drew Sheppard
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