FRIDAY FUN FROM THE FILES
FROM THE BILL CHUCK FILES
THE TOOTHLESS TIGERS
The Tigers lost to the Guardians again last night. The Guardians swept the four-game series as the Tigers lost their season-high sixth straight. The Tigers have dropped 14 of 16 games since Tarik Skubal went on the IL on May 4, and I just don’t understand it. It makes no sense to me. If you can explain the correlation, drop me a note.
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
The Angels are 6-24 (.200) over their last 30 games. Mike Trout has played in all of them and hit .231, but led the team with 5 homers and an .803 OPS. No one else on the team hit over .269 or had over a .715 OPS. Over the 30 games, the Angels as a team drew 84 walks. Trout had 26 of them. Arte Moreno, who must be the worst owner in baseball, should simply release Trout and let Mike choose a team that he wants to play for. Baseball deserves to see him in the postseason. Moreno will be on the hook for his unmovable salary, no matter what, so a mercy-DFA would be an incredibly classy gesture.
THEY JUST DON’T HIT
In May, the Red Sox have played the Astros, Tigers, Rays, Phillies, Braves, and Royals. Their staff has a 2.56 ERA this month and a .215 BAA. Their starters have a 3.09 ERA this month and a .228 BAA. Even though three of the teams are sub-.500, these are really good numbers. But the Sox are 10-8 this month, having gone 2-4 in series. Understandably, they lost series to the above .500 teams (Braves, Rays, and Phillies) as those teams are better than the Sox. But they also lost to the Astros. All this because in these 18 games, the Sox scored 58 runs, 27th in the majors. Two of their opponents (the Astros and the Tigers) scored even fewer runs than they did. The Sox are tied for 24th in homers (with 15) and are hitting .191 with RISP, 28th in the majors. Their 43 Ks with RISP are tied for 25th-28th with three other teams. They don’t hit, and when they need to, they don’t even make contact.
HE DOESN’T HIT
The Giants are simply awful and appear beyond repair, in part because of the large contracts tied to underperforming players. Yes, I’m referring to you: Rafael Devers, Matt Chapman, Logan Webb, Robby Ray, Jung Hoo Lee, and Willy Adames. Adames is hitting .235 overall, and the right-handed hitter is hitting .140 against lefties. He’s hit all five of his homers this season off righties. This is a guy who hit over 30 homers, three of the last four seasons. I’m at the point with this team where I start to look for anything interesting to pay attention to. For example, this weekend the Giants play the White Sox. Adames has hit 185 homers in his career and spread them out, hitting at least two against 29 different teams. The only team that he has not homered against is, you guessed it, the White Sox. Now, you can join me in rooting for an Adames homer this weekend.
A GREAT SERIES THIS WEEKEND
The first-place Dodgers face off against the first-place Brewers. And yes, this is definitely a matchup you could see in the postseason. Here’s a fun stat to get your juices flowing. The Dodgers have hit 66 homers, the fourth most in the majors. The Brewers have hit the fewest homers in the majors. They’ve hit 33 dingers, exactly half as many as LA.
