Sports blogger - Poet - Author Mom to 3 teenage boys, freelance writer, editor, fantasy games legend, coffee & text addict
The final vote for the last two spots in the All Star Game are underway. There is one NL and one AL spot. The voting is about halfway through with the deadline being Thursday at 4pm ET. It’s time to vote for Larry.
Larry “Chipper” Jones is one of five candidates in the NL who can win that last spot based on the votes of fans. Right now, he leads in the voting, but there are a record number of votes coming in just as there were for the All-Star voting, so every vote counts.
Everybody loves a home run. The Home Run Derby has provided some fantastic ones over the years. The 2012 teams have been announced and will face off on July 9.
The NL Home Run Derby team is captained by the Dodgers Matt Kemp. He announced his team on Sunday night, which includes first time participant Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Gonzalez. Kemp has been out of the game since May 30 with a strained left hamstring but he intends to participate in the Derby. He has 12 homers on the year. Beltran is in second place in the NL with 20 homers on the year. Stanton has 19 and Gonzalez has 17. Kemp had wanted to have teammate Andre Ethier on the Derby team but a strain of his left oblique prevented that selection.
Following minor league action has always been part of my baseball watching and this year even more so. With the Braves drafting a player from the city where I live and having the Reds rookie team here in town, there’s a lot of minor league news to follow.
Former Billings legion player Justin Black, had his debut game yesterday with the Braves rookie team in the Gulf Coast League against the Yankees. He was batting 2nd in the lineup and playing centerfield. A very exciting day to be sure. His first at bat in a Braves game was a sacrifice fly with an RBI. It was a great way to start off his career with the Braves. His next three at bats in the game were strikeouts. In the field though, he made several plays for outs and got to show that trademark speed. A very exciting day for him and for his fans in Billings as well. The second game is today again against the Yankees.
The College World Series has had it’s share of Cinderella’s in the past and this year is no exception. Only this time, there have been two, so far.
The first Cinderella was Stony Brook who made it to their first College World Series and had fans everywhere rooting for them to win it all. Alas, that slipper did not fit completely and Stony Brook was sent home from the ball. Enter Kent State. The Golden Flashes, appropriately named for a Cinderella team indeed, have now begun to try the slipper on for size. So far, it seems to be going on but there’s still time on the clock before midnight strikes.
If it were not bad enough that the Braves are now 4.5 games out of first place in the NL East, the news on starter Brandon Beachy just got worse yesterday. If it weren’t for bad news the Braves wouldn’t have any news at all.
Beachy was placed on the 15 day DL this week with some elbow soreness that has been ongoing for about 2 to 3 weeks now, reportedly. After his MRI on Monday, it was reported that he has a partial tear of his ulnar collateral ligament. For those who don’t know what that is, it is the ligament that allows your elbow to function. Needless to say, you can’t pitch with a partial tear of one. Beachy is scheduled to see Dr. Andrews today and most likely the bad news will become worse news and Tommy John surgery will be the answer and out the rest of this year will be the result. Bad news.
I realize we are not even to the All-Star break but there are several teams that should already be thinking about next year. For these teams, this year is probably already lost not even halfway through the season.
In the American League, the season is probably all but lost for the Red Sox, the Twins and the Mariners. These teams are all more than 7 games out in the respective divisions. The Red Sox are 7.5 games back in the AL East. That might not seem like a lot but in that division it’s like an ocean of space. The top three teams in the AL East are separated by 3.5 games. They are all playing well. The Red Sox 7.5 games in this division look like some other teams 11 games back. They just don’t have the team to compete with the Rays or Yankees this year and they are not going to anytime this season most likely.
A minor league record is about to be broken. A record that has stood for many years. The man to do it, Billy Hamilton, of the Bakersfield Blaze a Pacific Coast League team of the Reds.
I saw Billy Hamilton play in many games with the Billings Mustangs, the Reds rookie league here in Billings. He was two things – laser fast and extremely likable. He won the Fan’s Choice award for his quick smile and rapport with the fans. He won a promotion to the next level with his speed. He was fast. Not just, oh he’s fast. But OH HE’S FAST! Other teams goal when playing him was just to try to keep him off the bases. If he was on the bases, he was running, end of story. It was not a question, it was a given. Billy Hamilton was always a blaze.
The Braves are in trouble and it’s coming from all sides.
Let’s start with the biggest trouble coming the Braves way this weekend and that’s Brandon Beachy to the DL. Beachy has been by far the Braves best pitcher this season. He is also at the top of the stats for the entire Major League. To lose him is a huge blow for the Braves especially now when they have not been playing their best baseball of the season.
Beachy started to experience some elbow soreness on June 7 against the Blue Jays. He was given three days rest before the latest start and starting the game everything seemed fine as he retired the first 11 batters he faced. However, when the fourth inning rolled around, he started to lose velocity and control. Beachy said he knew that his curveballs were not going to reach the plate and he said that this time it felt different and so he decided to stop pitching.
Today, interleague play gets into full swing with an entire slate opening today and tomorrow between the American and National league teams.
Some of the matchups are going to directly impact some division races and some of the matchups are just interesting on the basis of who is playing. Some of the more decisive matchups could come from the Yankees/Braves, Angels/Dodgers, Mets/Rays, White Sox/Cardinals. These matchups could directly affect division races as wins could put some teams in 1st and losses could drop them behind other teams within close proximity in their divisions. With the tightness of such divisions as the AL East and NL East, wins become very important even interleague wins.
The Braves did just about everything they could over the last 8 games to try and get into first place in the NL East. But just about everything wasn’t good enough.
The team was 8-2 over their last 10 games. They won six games in a row. They got to within one game of the Nationals in the NL East. But the Nationals swept the Red Sox and the Braves lost the last game in the series with the Blue Jays and they find themselves two games back, again, just like they were before the win streak started.
