Larry Brown Sports

The Washington Nationals are struggling with depth right now as a result of several injuries. There is little that can be done to prevent players from suffering injuries in practice or during a game. However, self-inflicted injuries like the one Nationals reliever Ryan Mattheus suffered on Sunday can easily be avoided.

According to the Washington Post, the Nats’ setup man broke his hand when he punched a locker after giving up five earned runs in one inning against the San Diego Padres. Mattheus’ hand reportedly did not swell up initially so he did not reveal the injury to the team. On Monday, pain and swelling forced him to come clean.

“I was pretty upset, and I let my emotions get the best of me,” he said. “I hit my locker, and unfortunately I injured myself. It’s pretty embarrassing. It’s a tough one to swallow. I feel like I let the other 25 guys down on this team. I let the whole Washington Nationals organization down doing something stupid.”

Washington starting pitcher Ross Detwiler came out of the game with an injury on Monday, which forced manager Davey Johnson to use long relievers Zach Duke and Craig Stammen in his place. Since Mattheus kept his injury a secret until Monday, the team was unable to call someone up before the game to replace him, leaving them with a depleted bullpen.

“It was tough losing Mattheus,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t tell anybody that he broke his hand the night before. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to have anybody here to help us out. He felt real bad about it, but I wish he had said something about what he did.”

Mattheus is not the first nor the second ballplayer to injure himself by letting his frustrations boil over, and he now understands the type of embarrassment that comes along with it.

“That’s what’s so embarrassing about it,” he said. “It’s absolutely something I can control. It’s not like I hurt myself out on the field. I got to do a better job of that.”

Moral of the story: don’t hide your injuries. I’m sure Mattheus was hoping his hand was fine and he wouldn’t have to tell the team that he hurt it by punching a metal locker, but it ended up costing the team even more than it had to.

H/T SI Hot Clicks

Those of you who have been following the disaster that took place in Moore, Oklahoma on Monday have likely seen some of the heartbreaking images of the damage that was left behind by a massive tornado. The twister pulverized roughly 40 square miles and left a hospital, two elementary schools, and hundreds of homes and business in pieces. Dozens were killed and hundreds were injured.

Matt Kemp is planning to do what he can to help.

I’m giving $1000 for tonight’s HR and every HR until the All-Star break for the victims of my hometown in OKC. #PrayforOklahoma

— Matt Kemp (@TheRealMattKemp) May 21, 2013

Kemp, who grew up in Oklahoma and attended high school there, likely felt the sting from the disaster on a more personal level. We saw the Dodgers star’s generosity on full display earlier this month after a game in San Francisco, so his pledge isn’t a surprise. That doesn’t make it any less admirable.

Kemp has only two home runs this season, but history tells us he’s bound to heat up. The state of Oklahoma will need all the help it can get to get back on its feet.

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

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.

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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