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It's almost the weekend, and we get three days off! Let's all click on some links to celebrate.
Madison Bumgarner and a First for the Decade
Remember on Tuesday when Madison Bumgarner swung in a 3-0 count? He was the first pitcher to do that since Mike Hampton in 2009. Admittedly, Bumgarner is a good hitter for a pitcher, but it still seems like an iffy call to let him swing. The best evidence for this was Mike Krukow's reaction. Normally, when a pitcher is up, Krukow drops a "He's a threat" or "And he can swing the bat a little bit," but his Flummoxation Level on this let you know just how shocking it was.
Pinch-Blogging: Jalynne Crawford
Brandon Crawford's wife Jalynne posts on the Brandon blog to let everyone know about the charity auction happening this weekend at AT&T Park. The players' wives have donated baskets of cool items you can bid on, so check that out, but let's all take a moment to wrap our minds around Buster Posey's favorite movie being Dumb & Dumber. Dumb & Dumber! I mean, it's a great movie, but a slapstick comedy would not have been my first guess. It just goes to show that Buster's image is carefully guarded, which makes sense, since his PR team probably wants to keep his likability level at the high level of "Calling something beautiful in Spanish".
Potential replacements for Bud Selig include Disney’s Bob Iger and . . . Ruben Amaro?!
Yes, Page Six is less reputable than the Weekly World News guest edited by Roger Ailes, but there's still something intoxicating about the idea of Ruben Amaro running baseball. Who else within the game could inspire fond reminiscences about Bud Selig? Well, okay, Loria, but that's about it. Still, I would enjoy a Ruben Amaro administration. EVERY team would have to sign Michael Young!
Evaluating pitchers using Game Score
Beyond the Boxscore takes a look at evaluating pitchers' careers by looking at the cumulative Game Score of every start they've made. Pedro Martinez has the best average start of anyone who's made at least 400 starts, which only gets more impressive when adjusting for era. The best single Game Score since 2000 was, of course, Matt Cain's perfect game, while the worst was AJ Burnett in a game where he went less than three innings and gave up twelve runs. The lesson, as always, is that MATT CAIN RULZ AJ BURNETT DROOLZ PEDRO MARTINEZ ALSO PRETTY GOOD.
Demographic break down of recent Tommy John surgeries
We've heard a lot about the rise in the number of Tommy John surgeries, and its possible correlation to the increased workload of youth league pitchers, but this study shows that there's not a lot of evidence for that. Nope, the truth is that all the world's elbows got together and decided that they'd do ANYTHING to meet their hero, Dr Andrews. That's it, the truth is out there, and now let's not make any shoulder surgeon too famous or pitchers will REALLY be screwed.