Morning Mound Visit: deGrom leaves start after just three innings
Also, cheating allegations galore
Chris McShane | Amazin’ Avenue: Just two days after Tyler Glasnow left a start early with an elbow injury, Jacob deGrom leaves his start after three with shoulder tightness.
Daniel Russel | DRaysBay: After coming out of his last start in which he threw only four innings and 53 pitches, Tampa Bay Rays’ Tyler Glasnow blamed the outright ban of foreign substances for his sudden injury, saying, ‘There is not a doubt that contributed’ to him getting hurt. Glasnow was diagnosed with a partial UCL tear.
Brian Cohn | Crawfish Boxes: By now, anyone who has casually followed baseball over the past few years has an opinion about the Houston Astros cheating scandal. As they have toured the league this season, fans have not been shy to let them know what they think, especially when it comes to the face of the team, Jose Altuve.
Quick Hits
Speaking of cheating, author and well known online baseball personality Ryan Spaeder threw out some hefty allegations on the following Twitter thread:
Everything that I am about to say was verified by more than one player. I do not mean to burn anyone, and I love baseball... I've just had enough of this bullshit.
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) June 16, 2021
To be fair, some of these accusations are reasonable, but some of them are anywhere from hard to verify at best to downright strange at worst:
From a player who asks to remain nameless:
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) June 16, 2021
“Don't forget the Twins at the Metrodome — would open right field doors creating suction when Twins batted then close them when opponents hit!”
I am no one to say that he is making this up or that his sources are not reputable, but “I do not have a time frame but I am confident it happened,” or citing a player’s home/road splits are just not enough substance for me to buy into these particular claims:
As insane as this sounds, I've heard this from multiple players, Adrian Beltre had a buddy with binoculars in dead center who would wave a beater (undershirt) if he was getting something off speed in 2017.
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) June 16, 2021
Beltre 2017 home - .362/.440/.586
Beltre 2017 away - .271/.333/.489
I do, however, believe this one a million percent:
Didn't want to do this, but a person very close to the Dodgers' organization told me every time an opposing batter hit a deep fly the bench players would all turn on vacuum cleaners for suction, then would switch them to blow for their own hitters.
— Razzball (@Razzball) June 16, 2021
Also, here is a really bad take from a current MLB player:
How does this sentence look? I got hurt because I was cheating, they can’t tell me not to cheat in the middle of the year, because then I might get hurt from cheating.
— Steven Souza (@SouzaJr) June 16, 2021
And finally, here is a better take from a former MLB player:
MLB Stick analogy:
— Richie Shaffer (@Rshaff8) June 15, 2021
All cars are going 60 MPH on a 55 MPH highway. They are all “speeding” yet nothing will be done bc the intention of the law is to deter egregious speeding, not all speeding.
Going 60 in a 55 is sunscreen and rosin. ✅
Going 100 in a 55 a spider tack.❌
♂️