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MLB News & Moments You Should Know – May 6

Lots of wins from Thursday. Well, for one side of things, at least.

Asher Dratel
MLB Morning News 5/6/2022

Stay updated on everything baseball with our morning MLB News & Moments articles. We’ve got you covered to keep you in the know.

 

Today’s Headlines

 

Kwantinuing Success

The legend of Steven Kwan added another chapter today as he hit a two-run dinger for the first of his big league career:

It’s been…a strange start to the season for fly balls, to say the least, so to see notoriously light-hitting Kwan pull this one over the fence on a cold, wet day in Cleveland sure is something. The Guardians would go on to win 6-5 over the Blue Jays, so that’s a pretty big homer for more than one reason, folks.

 

The Hits Keep Coming

Miguel Cabrera got to the mythical 3,000 hit mark two weeks ago, but it wasn’t until yesterday that he passed a record that’s a little closer to home, getting up to 3,008 hits and passing Al Kaline to move into second on the Tigers all-time hits leaderboard:

While it’s unfortunate that Al isn’t with us to see the torch be passed himself, it’s always nice that there’s this kind of continuity in baseball history, and being called the “greatest hitter he’d ever seen” by a first ballot Hall of Famer is no small feat. While Miggy will have a well, hard time catching the franchise hit king Ty Cobb (4,189 total hits, 3,900 as a Tiger) I look forward to watching him add to his total and set a new high-water mark for Detroit in the modern era.

 

Make that 1-330

Presented with no context, a note:

Between the wording of the tweet and the headline here, you can probably guess what happened in the Mets vs Phillies game last night, but lets run it back anyway.

It was a pretty uneventful Mets blowout loss for eight innings, with Taijuan Walker giving up seven runs (six earned) over four innings of work, but things went off the rails pretty quickly in the top of the 9th. James Norwood came on (replacing Jeurys Familia, just for a little extra bit of ridiculousness here) and gave up a Starling Marte single, Francisco Lindor home run, and Pete Alonso double before recording the first out on an Eduardo Escobar line drive. He couldn’t build on that good outcome though, following the lineout up with a single to Jeff McNeil, putting Mets on the corners with one out in what was suddenly a 4-run game.

Joe Girardi went to his closer and it was time for Corey Knebel to end this charade so everybody could get on with their lives. Except he immediately gave up a single to Mark Canha which scored another run, 7-4 Phillies. Knebel got Dom Smith to go down swinging, and there was light at the end of the tunnel. But what was it that Robert Lowell said?

“The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.”

Toot toot, J.D. Davis train leaving the station!

Travis Jankowski came in to pinch run for Davis, and both he and Canha scored on a single by Brandon Nimmo. Tie game.

And then…

Lindor grounded out to mercifully end the inning, but Edwin Díaz was able to work a 1-2-3 bottom of the inning with two strikeouts to complete the utterly improbable comeback and bring the collective vibe of the entire city of Philadelphia down quite a bit. Sorry, Phillies fans, that was a rough scene.

 

Best Moments From Yesterday

 

Oh, That’s Just Shohei

I wasn’t sure if this belonged in the Headline section, because it does feel like some kind of milestone, but it’s also just kind of what Shohei Ohtani does every time he’s on the mound these days, right? First off, he did that fun StatCast thing he likes to do (although this time Brandon Marsh beat him to the top spot on distance):

But let’s break it down a little, from left to right. This isn’t the 109.2mph EV hit (just a casual 103.7 off the bat,) but Shohei launched one into the side of the Green Monster so hard it knocked his own number out of the display:

I can’t say I’ve ever seen that one happen before. He went 2-for-4 at the plate with one run and one RBI, but it was on the mound where he really turned it up, throwing seven innings of shutout baseball, giving up six hits but striking out 11 batters. Ohtani threw a total of 99 pitches over the course of the afternoon, with 81 of them being strikes. As you can see from the 29 swings & misses, his stuff was working, to the tune of a 46% CSW percentage for the start.

And on top of all that, unlike the ol’ Tungsten Arm O’Doyle meme goes, the Angels trounced the Red Sox 8-0, so he got a nice shiny W to go with the rest. I guess the theme for today is wishing continued success, so here’s to that.

 

Crosstown Bromance

While the Yankees certainly have designs on the postseason this year, the New York Rangers are already there, taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. And what better way to make sure you’re still familiar with the playoff vibes than taking some in in-person?

I may quibble with how much “chugging” they’re really doing here, but I respect giving the people what they want here, and the Rangers did go on to win 5-2 to even the series at 1-1, so clearly more pinstriped drinking is called for here.

 

 

Injuries

 

 

 

Articles You Should Read

 

Swinging less could be the answer to MLB’s offensive woes. But is it bad for the sport? – Eno Sarris, The Athletic (Sub req’d, although at the least check out his Twitter thread with some good player quotes)

 

Fantasy Baseball Coverage

 

Starting Pitcher Roundup

Hitter Performances

Reliever Ranks (Closers) (Holds)

Starting Pitcher Streamers

 

Featured image by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns on Twitter)

Asher Dratel

Asher hails from Brooklyn, wears a 2008 Joba Chamberlain jersey to every Yankees game he attends, and pronounces BABIP funny. Appreciator of Beefy Lad dingers and beers. @asherd.bsky.social on Bluesky.

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