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The 4 Best MLB Moments from Monday

*Literally* everything fun that happened on Monday in four moments.

Wynn McDonald
Best MLB Moments 8/10/2021

Look, I get it. Travel is hard. Even in the fanciest of private team charters, flying across the country takes a lot out of you. And when you work your tail off playing baseball nearly every day, off days are important. If they have to travel to a new city, it’s only fair they get a day off for the commute.

But do they all gotta do it at the same time?

I mean, Mondays are hard enough as is. Throw in baseball withdrawal, and what are we as meager fans supposed to do? To borrow a phrase from Nick Pollock, HAISTFMFWT?! I need CONTENT!

Okay, enough bellyaching, let’s get to it. Despite the dearth of on-field action, Monday did give us another sick promo for the upcoming “Field of Dreams” game on Thursday:

 

 

The White Sox social media team is working to build the hype for the game as well, posting these rather ominous shots of Liam Hendriks and Eloy Jimenez in their specialty unis ready to kick ass, take names and possibly harvest some corn.

 

 

While we’re on the subject, I recommend taking a few minutes to indulge your nostalgia bone with Kevin Costner in this MLB Network promo with Bob Costas:

 

 

Okay, I’m ready. Corny or not, I can’t wait for this game. It’s IOWA!

Yesterday’s slate was scheduled to include five baseball games. However, some nasty-looking Chicago clouds forced the Cubs and Brewers to postpone, knocking that number down to four. So I’m going to go through each of them in turn, digging deep into my blogging bag to make each one as interesting as possible. Begin!

 

Sox Keep Swingin’

 

Perhaps invigorated by their big week and fancy new duds, the aforementioned White Sox had a wonderful day. They piled on against the poor last-place Twins, 11-1. Side note: Did you know that the Twins don’t even own the domain for Twins.com? I mean, come on. You were around 30 years before the internet was a thing, guys. You telling me nobody in Minneapolis saw this coming? It’s not like there are any other professional sports franchises named the Twins. All you had to do was sign up… but I digress.

This pretty much sums up the day for them:

 

 

Meanwhile across the diamond… hey, welcome back Luis Robert!

 

 

Robert 2-5 with a double in his first game since May 2. Credit for his swift recovery, it would seem, can be given to Domino’s. But nobody was happier about it than Tim Anderson:

 

 

Anderson was so excited to have his teammate back, he wasted no time putting them on the board (for the second day in a row!).

 

 

But the star of the day was, of course, Eloy Jiménez. Fresh off going deep twice on Sunday, he launched this ball that may or may not still be in orbit:

 

 

But he didn’t stop there—a second homer in the second inning officially repeated Sunday’s double-dip feat. Two days, four homers, 10 RBIs. What! How impressive is that?

 

 

Right, that’s how impressive it is. Smile if you’re having fun, Eloy!

 

 

The Man With No Luck

 

As luck would have it for this transition, both of the “Field of Dreams” teams were actually in action last night. The other is of course the Yankees, and they put on an absolute clinic in not wanting to win—but somehow, they still did. About time those poor fellas caught a break, am I right?

We’re not going to discuss everything that happened in this wild back-and-forth contest, because this is not a recap (I think it can be summed up by this meme). But we are going to talk about Giancarlo Stanton, who had an extremely strange evening. He came up in the first inning with a man already on base, and he proceeded to strike the hardest-hit ball in the history of Statcast… for a double play!

Here’s a weird animation of the hit to show you what that looked like from Whit Merrifield’s perspective:

 

 

Okay, now fast forward to the fourth inning. Stanton’s second at-bat. Exactly one pitch after hitting a ball 122 miles per hour, he didn’t even complete a swing, but somehow wound up with the same result:

 

 

He came up again in the eighth with two on and one out in a tie game, the highest-leverage situation in the game yet. Despite a common perception to the contrary, he’s actually been quite good in the clutch this year. So naturally, he looked completely incompetent swinging at this slider. SMH.

 

 

Stanton finished 0-5 with five runners left on base, but the Yanks pulled it out 8-6 in extra innings, with checks notes Wandy Peralta nailing down the save after four others failed. More importantly, Salvador Perez finished with his first two-walk game in more than four years.

What does it all mean? Nothing. Thanks for reading Pitcher List!

 

 

Padres Update: Still Cool

 

Game No. 3 from Monday featured the Padres and Marlins, with San Diego winning 8-3. Joe Musgrove was solid. But while the win was nice, the most significant take-away from this one for me was that the Padres are, in fact, still cool. I got a little worried there for a minute, what with the Giants opening up a 7.5 game lead, Fernando Tatis Jr. being injured, and the rumors of them shifting him to centerfield, which is slightly less cool of a position than shortstop. But then I saw this video, and it changed my mind.

 

 

“Hell yeah, let’s do this,” I thought. “That’s pretty cool, too.” Then I saw Manny Machado blowing a bubble whilst hitting a double…

 

 

…and I knew I was foolish for ever doubting. The San Diego Padres: still very much cool.

 

Guardians Hold Ohio Cup; America Next

 

“Oh, God. Oh, God, no. It’s all Ohio!”

-Last words overheard yesterday at the rain-makeup Cincinnati-Cleveland game, which was determined by previous season results to be the deciding factor in this year’s prestigious “Ohio Cup,” designating the superior club among the state of Ohio’s two MLB representatives. This in turn is determined, I can only assume, by the all-powerful Lords of Ohio. Trust me, you don’t want to cross them.

The soon-to-be Guardians took the drama out of this dubiously significant occasion rather quickly. They scored eight runs in the first four innings off Luis Castillo (who clearly was not properly motivated by the Ohio Cup) en route to a 9-3 win—their third of the year in this matchup, evening the final season tally at 3-3, thus allowing them to keep the cup since they won it last year. I, for one, was riveted. These fans, not so much…

 

 

Wilson Ramos was playing for Detroit when this game was originally scheduled to be played, back in May, so he is new to the Ohio Cup feud. But at least he came ready to contribute:

 

 

And finally, we got this titanic shot from Bradley Zimmer, the fourth-longest homer this year per Statcast:

 

 

Now that’s a man who’s willing to fight for the Ohio Cup. Hats off, sir.

And there you have it, everything that happened in baseball yesterday, compressed into four moments. They said it couldn’t be done, but here we are. See you folks tomorrow!

Photo by Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns of Twitter)

Wynn McDonald

Born a Kentuckian, much like Dan Uggla. Braves fan by choice, unlike Dan Uggla. I enjoy long walks on the Brandon Beachy. @twynstagram

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