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Diamondbacks News
He was left out of Arizona’s 60-player pool when Major League Baseball decided to soldier on in the midst of the pandemic, but the 24-year-old emerged from his own personal quarantine a changed player. Over the course of last summer, he embarked upon a self-directed mission to overhaul his swing in the search for more power. That fall, he reported to instructional league with all-new mechanics and a charge in his bat.
And... that’s pretty much all the news for the Diamondbacks. Lot more going on in the wider world of baseball though, as other teams move towards that mythical thing known as the Playoffs...
MLB News
(MLB.com) RANKING ALL 30 MLB TEAMS BY THEIR RELEVANCE IN THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER
Both sides of this coin make September MLB games a fascinating operation. Some teams are playing for everything; others are playing out the string. So with the summer heat starting to dissipate and Labor Day around the corner, let’s take a look at the most (and least) relevant MLB teams in the upcoming final month of the season, from 30 to 1.
(USA Today) Opinion: Dodgers finally playing like, well, the Dodgers. Heaven help rest of MLB.
This is a really great read if you want to read an article about how the Dodgers won the World Series that was written about two months early. Just as a reminder, there is at least a possibility that the Dodgers could be right back to a three game deficit by end of day Sunday. Might not be likely, but maybe let’s keep the champagne on ice until then?
Those serialized pratfalls and the appointment with #uglyhistory that was very nearly kept bring to mind the matter of records — the unfortunate kind of record of which you don’t want to be within hailing distance. Typically in sports we focus on records that signal rare achievement by design — the most home runs or most strikeouts by a pitcher, for instance. As the 2021 Orioles would hasten to remind us, there are also other pages of the record book, and those pages smell bad.
Thank god we as a species invented video conferencing. I mean, could you imagine a world where John Smotlz was taken off the air and couldn’t spew his hatred of baseball anymore? It would just be tragic. Thank God MLB Network is going out of their way to accommodate him, rather than taking this as a heaven-sent opportunity to fire that bag of hot air.
(MLB.com) The toughest schedules down the stretch
As much as the schedule makers try each winter, not all slates are created equal — and that’s never under the microscope more than in September. There are still 17 teams with postseason odds of at least 1% (per FanGraphs) fighting for 10 spots, and some have a more uphill climb than others, both in the standings and via the calendar.
(Crescent City Sports) Wade Miley enters season’s final month in contention for NL Cy Young Award
“Southeastern Louisiana University Athletics Hall of Famer Wade Miley enters the final month of the 2021 Major League Baseball regular season in contention for the National League Cy Young Award, handed out annually to the league’s top pitcher.
The Cincinnati Reds’ left-hander is one of seven pitchers in the running, according to a recent report at MLB.com, along with Walker Buehler (Los Angeles Dodgers), Corbin Burnes (Milwaukee Brewers), Kevin Gausman (San Francisco Giants), Max Scherzer (Los Angeles Dodgers), Zack Wheeler (Philadelphia Phillies) and Brandon Woodruff (Milwaukee Brewers).”
Good for him! Everyone declared his career dead and gone and now he’s a contender for the Cy Young award. It would be hard to root against him even if he wasn’t a former Diamondback, but throw that in the mix? It’s impossible for me.
Sterling was stuck on River Road in Edgewater, N.J., following the completion of the Yankees’ game against the Angels in Anaheim on Wednesday night. It wasn’t until Ricky Ricardo, the Yankees’ Spanish-language play-by-play announcer, answered his phone that Sterling was rescued and guided to safety.
(MLB.com) Jeter anticipates Hall day after long wait
More than 19 months after being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in a landslide — he received 396 votes on the 397 ballots cast, the second-highest percentage (99.7%) in history behind teammate Mariano Rivera (100%) — and 13-plus months since his induction ceremony was postponed because of a global pandemic, Jeter will finally have his day in the sun on Sept. 8.