Weekend BP: MLB Round-Up

Good morning, baseball fans, and welcome to the weekend!

It’s a weekend of San Francisco Giants baseball in Cincinnati, which is not exactly the most exciting prospect, but it’ll be good to have on in the background if you’re spending time with family this weekend. Personally, I’m looking forward to watching games with my brother.

Since we’re switching the format of BPs back to having just one weekend post, I thought it would be a good time to share some baseball stories you might not have had the time to read during the week.

First up is Bradford William Davis’ article for Defector about the incident caused by Josh Donaldson of the New York Yankees recently against Tim Anderson (Chicago White Sox). I’m not going to waste your time explaining the situation when you could be reading Davis’ post (and also listen to our podcast episode where he was a guest because Brady and I had fun talking to him!)

Next up (if you’ve got a little more time, a subscription, and the emotional bandwidth for it) is this excellent piece from Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic that takes a deep dive into the loss of Logan Webb’s cousin, Kade Webb. Kade took what he thought was a pain killer, but was actually laced with a lethal amount of fentanyl, causing his death just 48 hours before Logan’s wedding day. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s been a heartbreaking week, so if you don’t have the bandwidth, I get it. But Logan is using his platform to try to stop this from happening to anyone else’s loved one, so I’m going to use mine to do the same in what tiny way I can.

Manager Gabe Kapler wrote about his reflections after the horrific mass murder that took place in Uvalde, TX this week, taking the lives of 19 young children and two beloved teachers. Before the “stick to sports” crowd starts weighing in, if people don’t want to hear from the manager of their favorite baseball team (who is also human, and hurting just like the rest of us) about the constant, yet preventable, mass-murder of children in schools, maybe we should collectively find a way to make sure children are not repeatedly getting murdered in their schools. Just a thought.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this profile of Luis González by Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle so that we don’t leave on the saddest possible note.

Also this video of Buster Posey holding puppies. We deserve this.

What times do the Giants play this weekend?

The Giants play the Cincinnati Reds today at 1:10 p.m PT, and will be treating you all to breakfast baseball on Sunday, with an 8:35 a.m. PT start time.