#1
The Indians played a wild and woolly one Friday night, walking off in 10 innings with a 7-6 victory clinched by Drew Stubbs' third double of the night.
Dennis Manoloff's recap from the Plain Dealer is here.
Zack Meisel's notes at MLB.com include word on Ryan Raburn winning over Terry Francona, a look at the (likely brief) return of Ezequiel Carrera, who laid down a successful bunt in the 10th inning last night, and this afternoon's probable return for Nick Swisher.
#2
Mike Newman at Fangraphs takes an early look at whom the #1 prospect for 2014 might be. Francisco Lindor doesn't nab the top spot, but he comes awfully close. Also, in case you weren't already aware, the Twins have some serious talent in the pipeline.
For more on the Tribe's top prospect, at Fox Sports, Tony Lastoria takes a look at Lindor's tremendous start to the season in Carolina.
#3
Last night the Rockies were leading the Rays 3-2 in the 4th inning. Matt Moore walked the #8 hitter to lead off the inning, then walked the pitcher on 4 pitches This brought Dexter Fowler to the plate. Fowler has been terrorizing the ball so far this season (.310/.420/.610), now he's facing a pitcher who seems to be having trouble... and Fowler is called on to bunt.
Fowler got the bunt down, but neither runner ended up scoring. Even better for Colorado, Fowler collided with Tampa Bay 1B Sean Rodriguez, and injured his hip on the play (no word yet on his status). Oh, and Colorado went on to lose the game. As Jonah Keri noted, this will go down as one of the stupidest bunts of the year.
The sacrifice bunt is one of the most overused plays in baseball. I'm delighted that Terry Francona isn't a big fan.
#4
This is from a few days ago, but I didn't see it until today: Ken Rosenthal takes a look at the Astros' somewhat unique approach with their minor league pitching. For each game, two different starters are assigned to each game, the first usually throwing 5 innings, the second, 3 or 4. They are using 8-man rotations, with no middle relief. They don't plan to do it all season, but for now they feel it's better to have the pitchers they're most interested in pitching most of the innings (rather than minor league relievers, who are rarely seen as future MLB contributors).
#5
One of Mickey Mantle's bats from 1964 is up for auction, x-rays have shown that the bat was corked. Yahoo's David Brown has a report on the story, with entertaining sidetracking into a classic 'Seinfeld' episode ("They're real, and they're spectacular."). I assume all the writers and Hall of Fame voters who are so strongly against any attempt to cheat will now call for Mantle's removal from Cooperstown.
#6
Iron Man 3 has hit theaters and is on its way to a massive opening weekend box office figure. I like to think I have fairly decent taste in movies, but I'm certainly not above excitement over big summer popcorn movies. Here are the summer movies of 2013 that I'm most looking forward to (click titles to view trailers):
6) Iron Man 3 (May 3) - I'd be more excited if I'd liked the second one or 'The Avengers' much, but I didn't particularly, and at this point I have a bit of Robert Downey fatigue. That said, the first big summer movie is always exciting to me.
5) World War Z (June 21) - I love the book, it's the zombie story, as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't easily lend itself to a movie though. It's too bad it couldn't have been a 10-part HBO mini-series, but I think 'Walking Dead' killed any chance of something like that.
4) The Wolverine (July 26) - The first Wolverine movie was awful, but I think this one could be a lot better. It's source material is a very well liked story line. If I'm wrong about it, well, fool me twice, shame on me.
3) Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17) - I'm not a big Star Trek fan, so I didn't have any skin in the game when the first entry in the rebooted series came out, but I enjoyed it a lot. This one looks good too.
2) Pacific Rim (July 12) - To go to the movies in the summer is to be spend your time at sequels, prequels, and reboots. I often find myself excited about the new properties. This is a monster vs. robot fight film, but directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who made 'Pan's Labyrinth,' and starring Stringer Bell Idris Elba.
1) Man of Steel (June 14) - Superman is not really my thing, a little too much power, a little too squeaky clean. But this looks different, the trailers for this look tremendous. Also, Kevin Costner plays his Earth dad, and along with Costner's mother, I remain one of Kevin Costner's biggest fans.