After a rough first inning, Kodai Senga struck out 8 for his first MLB win, using a “ghost forkball” (cool nickname). Tommy Pham stepped up offensively for NY.
So good start to the season, took 3 out of 4 from the Marlins.
The Mariners were not as successful. Lost in 10 innings.
I subscribed to both teams YouTube channels, so I’m watching highlights and interviews. It’s been rather fun getting familiar with the game and the players again (even though MLB streaming stuff is insane, expensive, and not at all new fan/returning fan friendly… Seems counterproductive - “we changed the game, please watch us” - Okay, I will, except, “d’oh”, this is a pain… think I’ll just do the Tube and save a buck and the headache)
This is how long ago it was that I was really watching the game, but I liked those World Series Twins teams, liked the players, Viola (in one of them), Puckett, Hrbek.
Cool to see they are doing well early.
But yeah, The Mets in '86, the Twins in 87 and 91, the Blue Jays in 92 and 93, those were the World Series I watched where the teams I was rooting for, won. And then after that, I wandered away and lost interest in the game. I’d keep an eye on NY and Sea, but wasn’t watching like I had.
But all this reminiscing makes me want to search through my closest, pull-out boxes and search for my old Baseball and Football cards, and the Daryl Strawberry autographed baseball I have stored somewhere. Just to look and remember.
I get why some people don’t like the pitch clock, I really do. But as a guy who no longer has the time to block out 4 hours to watch a full game even on the weekends, I love it.
The ghost runner in extras and the universal DH, however…terrible.
I don’t like the pitch clock but the games are way too long in the last decade. In the 70’s and 80’s with no clock the games averaged 2 hours 25 minutes. In recent years they averaged about 45 minutes longer. So it was possible to play faster without a clock.
The DH is garbage to me. Everyone on the field hits and if your pitchers can’t hit that’s on them.
Never heard of a ghost runner until today… I’m learning so much. As for length of games, aside from the extra inning game, the Mariners have been speed demons early on. 2 hrs. and 14 min, 2 hrs. and 10… now that I can handle.
Talking baseball and going beyond the MLB - when I was a tween/teen my dad took a job and moved us from Seattle to tiny Yakima… I remember in 1975 the local American Legion team, the Yakima Beetles winning their world series, and what excitement that generated (there wasn’t much to do there… I remember Evel Knievel coming to town and how that stirred us all up, so anything to shake loose the routine was welcome)
Of course, me being a fanatic for the Fab Four, I thought of them as the Yakima Beatles
I gather now-a-days they are the Yakima Pepsi Beetles, lol. I guess that’s better than being sponsored by Imodium-AD
You also saw a lot more complete games from starting pitchers back then. I have to wonder if the emphasis on velocity has anything to do with games being stretched out since the 90s. As guys started pitching harder, preserving their arms became all the more important. That, I think, led to more mound visits, more bullpen usage and more delays as pitchers took more time between pitches. It’d be interesting to see if pitch velocity declines overall as a function of the clock.
Baseball is the only thing that makes me care about math.
Phillies are off to a bad start. Swept by the Rangers to open the year…
Now they play the Yankees.
Weird start to the season playing 2 AL teams, quick look at the schedule and I don’t think the Phillies play anyone in their own division until the end of May.
Oh yeah the merging of the leagues did us no favors either.
Mets fans can recall the dread of having up to 6 games to play against the Yankees every year.
You’re speaking my language with that era. I started really paying attention to the game in '86 and was lucky enough to be at three games of the '87 Series. I never really stopped paying attention to the game, but I could talk more freely and easily about those years than, say, the last 10-15.
Some of the new rules are fine… so far the pitch clock is achieving its goal of making the game significantly faster, but it’s only a matter of time before a game of consequence is directly affected by an unthrown strike or ball. I’m less thrilled with the banning of shifts, seems like the professionals could learn to better take advantage of what shifted defenses give them. And the ghost runner can go straight to hell.
I won’t pay for the MLB app because of the insane blackout rule but do enjoy the occasional “Free Game of the Day”. Guess which one they picked today? Overlaps with the NCAA final game. Jerks
The free game of the day is a blackout, so I can’t see it, but can listen in - just got a stolen 3rd base for the M’s (wow ), but 2 batters couldn’t bring him in. Mariners have a 2-1 lead going into the top of the 4th.
I have the NCAA game on the TV with sound off… so I’m doing both, lol.
Isn’t sports talk doom and negativity anyway, regardless of how the team is doing? Carpino clearly has a different idea of sports talk radio than the rest of us!
I’ve somehow watched more Cardinals games since I left St. Louis than all the seven years my husband and I lived in St. Louis City. If it hadn’t been for the blackouts, I would have gotten MLB dot TV sooner.
