Albert Pujols hit career home runs 499 and 500 in Washington last night against the Nationals. He became the first player to hit numbers 499 and 500 in the same game. He's off to a great start this year, so perhaps reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Fangraphs takes a look at the intelligent way the Indians lineups are constructed. The ability to field effective lineups against both LHP and RHP was in fact one of the great things about the 2013 season. As Brad Johnson (not the ex-QB, I assume) notes in the article, "The Indians may not have the sexiest lineup in baseball, but they have built one of the smartest. Not only does the typical lineup take advantage of league and division-wide handedness trends, it's also ideally suited for Progressive Field." Hopefully this continues in 2014, although so far the team is struggling against lefties.
Major League Baseball suspended Martin Maldonado, Carlos Gomez, Travis Snider and Russell Martin for their roles in a brawl. The suspensions are for 5, 3, 2 and 1 games, respectively.
The Marlins got another great start from Jose Fernandez, as he struck out 14 batters over 8 innings, while only allowing 3 hits. The Marlins beat Atlanta 1-0, as the Braves wasted a great start by Alex Wood.
The Arizona Diamondbacks lost again, this time to the Cubs, dropping their record to 5-18. Star Tweeter Brandon McCarthy gave up five runs, only one of which was earned. Indiansy.
Last night in the bottom of the ninth, Hammy said that this team was "gonna need more than a bugle." This would make for an exquisite site header, if that was still a thing.
And we'll end with a tweet:
Cliff Lee's 90-3 k-bb rate his last 10 starts is beyond fiction
— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) April 22, 2014