Snake Bytes 8/11: The Streak is Over

Diamondbacks News:

Pirates snap Diamondbacks’ 3 game win streak

The sparse crowd at Chase Field didn’t give Castro too much grief for the phone gaffe, though a couple of jeers could be heard during his first at-bat. Castro didn’t seem to mind, responding with a single. He added a triple in the sixth inning and scored on Greg Allen’s double to make it 5-2.

Bizarre double play, replay review costs Diamondbacks in loss to Pirates

Rivera didn’t really step on the gas, and Newman shared a lack of urgency in tracking down Rivera. The ball arrived late to second, where Rivera was safe. Well, if he had just stepped on the bag.

Bumgarner switches setup, but slips in key 6th

“I’m just trying to do what I can,” the 2014 World Series MVP with the Giants said. “I moved to the first-base side thinking that the angle would help give me a little more of an advantage. I’ve been over there before, and gone back and forth most of my career. But after the last game, I didn’t feel like I was getting the advantage I was looking for, so then I just went back to where I’ve been.”

Baseball News:

MLB investigating why Pirates’ Rodolfo Castro had cell phone in pocket during game, per report.

Here’s the play:

“I don’t think there’s any professional ballplayer that would ever go out there with any intentions of taking a cell phone,” Castro said, via ESPN. “It’s horrible it happened to me. Obviously, it was very unintentional.”

Baseball Gods owed Buck Showalter this charmed 2022 season

“I always say if you want to make the baseball gods laugh,” he said, “tell them about your plans.”

Showalter brought up those same baseball gods a short time later, unprompted, which inspired this one-on-one question to the Mets’ manager: Do you think they owe you one for the 1994 season in The Bronx, and is this charmed 2022 season in Queens their way of settling the debt?

“No, I owe them, I really do,” Showalter said. “I never had that feeling.”

Tigers fire general manager Al Avila

“Once I decided to make a change, I sat down with Al and thanked him for his nearly 22 years of service to our organization,” Ilitch says in the press release. “Al’s loyalty and dedication has served as an example to all during his time as a leader in our baseball operations department. I will oversee the search process for our next baseball operations leader, in collaboration with several members of our baseball and business operations executive teams.”

Verlander, Alcantara lead latest Cy Young poll

Once again, voters were asked to rank their top five Cy Young candidates in each league based on what has happened so far and what they expect will happen in the months to come. Pitchers received vote points on a 5-4-3-2-1 scale — five points for a first-place vote, four points for a second-place vote and so on, with 39 voters participating. Here are the results, with all stats entering Wednesday’s games.