By Hal McCoy
UNSOLICITED OBSERVATIONS from The Man Cave, watching the maturation of Elly De La Cruz over the last month. Instead of attemption to drown baseballs in the Ohio River, he has become a magician, using a bat as his wand to spray singles and doubles up the middle and the opposite way. He should come to the plate wearing a top hat.
—OUT OF POSITION: Enough is enough and more than enough.
It is beyond time for MLB to prohibit position players from pitching unless your name is Shohei Ohtani and you really are a pitcher.
It is a farce that turns a baseball game into a not-so-funny joke. A position player can enter a game when his team is down eight or more runs.
When a manager inserts a position player, it is a white flag of surrender. It is about the same as pulling your team off the field and saying, “We know we can’t win and we forfeit.”
For the second time this season, Cincinnati Reds manager Tito Francona placed catcher Jose Trevino on the mound Tiuesday in the eighth inning with the Reds trailing Miami, 10-1.
Using a 55 miles an hour knuckleball, Trevino entered in the eighth with the bases loaded and no outs. He gave up a sacrifice fly and a single.
It became a not-so-funny comedy act in the ninth when he lobbed nothing but 32 and 33 miles an hour blooper/ephus pitches.He gave up a run and three hits in the ninth.
It turns out Trevino was trying to set a dubious record — slowest pitch ever recorded in an MLB team. The slowest was 30.1 miles an hour thrown by Brock Holt of the Texas Rangers in 2021. And guess who the catcher was? Yep, Jose Trevino.
After the game Trevino sent a text to Holt asking, “Did you see it?” Holt texted back, “Did you break it?”
Trevino replied, “No, but I tried.” His slowest pitch was 31.1 miles an hour.
Through it all, the Reds dugout was full of laughter and mirth. The team was dowb 10 runs. It wasn’t a good look.
All position player pitchers do is extend an already awfully played game and skewers statistics with batters fattening up their batting averages and RBI totals.
Trevino doesn’t even resemble a pitcher when he stands on the mound. . .more like Snidely Whiplash pitching to Dudley Do-Right.
Line me up behind Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, who said about position players pitching, “It’s the most embarrassing thing of anything you can do in sports. We have more position players pitching in baseball than ever before.
“What does that tell you? It’s the most embarrassing thing there is,” he added. “Baseball needs to do something about it.”
Commissioner Rob Manfred could finally do something good for the game and banish the farce.
—CATCHING ON: Only one time in MLB history has a player making his first career at bat reached first base on catcher’s interference. It happened to Chicago White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery in 2021.
When that happens, the batter is awarded first base with no time at bat and the catcher is charged with an error.
Pete Rose was a master at it and for a long time he had the most for a career with 19. But Boston’s Jacob Ellsbury broke it with 21.
—WHEN THEY’RE LOADED: Speaking of obscure baseball statistics, Milwaukee’s Joey Ortiz leads the majors so far this year with plate appearances with the bases loaded.
Ortiz has come to bat 20 times this season with the bases full and has been pretty successful. He hit a grand slam last week against the New York Mets and has two doubles.
He came to bat on Wednesday in the second inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers with two outs in a 0-0 situation with the bases loaded.
Tyler Glasnow struck him out. Well, one can’t win ‘em all. Sometimes you get the pitcher and sometimes the pitcher gets you.
—The ‘SK’ GUYS: Over their last 13 starts these two pitchers should have the same record, but they are far from it.
Detroit’s Tarik Skubal is 8-0 with a 1.75 earned run average. Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes is 1-5 with a 1.72 ERA.
The difference? It’s the old real estate axiom, “Location, location, location. Skubal pitches for the first-place Tigers and Skenes pitches for the last-place Pirates.
And isn’t it interesting that both their last names begin with ‘Sk?’
—BOOK REPORT: John W. Miller’s book, ‘The Last Manager,’ is a fascinating volume about Baltimore manager Earl Weaver.
He recounts what Reggie Jackson said about Weaver during the one season Jackson played for the O’s: “Earl Weaver smokes too much and drinks too much. He has a voice that sounds like broken glass.
“He is short, feisty, has a ferocious temper, especially with umpires, and doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. He has never been accused of being a diplomat and never set out to win a popularity contest with his players. He is also one of the fewest baseball geniuses I ever met.”
—WHAT’S THE CALL?: There is no argument that umpiring is baseball’s toughest job. Try standing behind home plate, encased in protective gear, for a full nine innings. In addition, they take a lot of guff.
—An umpire once called Ted Williams out on strikes and as The Thumper left the batter’s box he said, “I expect more out of the second best umpire in the league.”
When Williams arrived for his next at bat, the umpire said, “That was very nice of you to call me the second best umpire in the league. Who’s No. 1?” Said Williams, “All the rest of the umpires in the league are tied for first.”
—When asked about umpires, former manager Leo Durocher said, “I’ve never questioned their integrity. Their eyesight, yes.”
—At one point, umpire Eric Gregg challenged scales with 300 portly pounds. On a close play at third base, Clincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose challenged Gregg’s call by saying, “If it had been a hamburger you wouldn’t have missed it.”
—With replay/review in vogue, umpire Tom Gorman couldn’t do this in today’s game; “Any time I got a bang-bang play at first base,I called them out. It made the game shorter.”
—The harshest quote of all about umpires came from Hall of Fame infielder Johnny Evers, part of the famous double play combination of Tinkers to Evers to Chance: “My favorite umpire is a dead umpire.”
—TRIVIA TIME: Obscure and fun stuff.
—Only one player in MLB history has played every game of his team’s season and not made an error. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Danny Litwhiler did it in 1942.
Litwhiler later coached baseball at Michigan State University and borrowed a radar gun from the East Lansing police department and was the first to use it to clock the speed of pitches.
—When San Francisco’s Patrick Bailey hit a ninth-inning walkoff three-run inside-the-park home run this week to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, he became just the third catcher in MLB history to hit an inside-the-park walkoff homer.
And the last time a catcher did it was 99 years ago — Washinton’s Bennie Tate on August 11, 1926.
Who says catchers can’t run, even after catching nine inning wearing all that protective armour?
—These days, if a pitcher goes beyond 100 pitches they pin a medal of honor on his chest. This one goes under the category of ‘Remember When.’ During a game in 2002, Randy Johnson, ‘The Big Unit,’ pitched a game where he threw 100 strikes. That’s 100 strikes, not pitches. No pitcher has done that since and none ever will.
Speaking of Randy Johnson, former Toronto Blue Jays GM Pat Gillick appeared on Jon Morosi’s ‘Road To Cooperstown’ podcast and said he had a chance to acquire Johnson from Seattle in a trade, but was unwilling to deal the player the Mariners wanted.
“One of the biggest mistakes I made because Randy Johnson would have put us over the top,” he said.
For Randy Johnson he should have been willing to trade Toronto’s 1,815-foot CN Tower.
—QUOTE MACHINE: Baseball people say the darndest things:
—From Baltimore manager Earl Weaver during a visit to the mound when pitcher Ross Grimsley, a former Reds pitcher whose wife claimed to be a witch, was struggling: “If you know how to cheat, start now.”
—From Baltimore manager Earl Weaver (redux) when one of his players, Pat Kelly, told him he should walk with the Lord: “I’d rather you walk with the bases loaded.”
—PLAYLIST NUMBER 187: As xxxxx put it, “
—Little Lies (Fleetwood Mac), Shooting Star (Bad Company), I’m Still Standing (Elton John), Hello, I Love You (The Doors), You Really Got Me (The Kinks), I’ll Never Love This Way Again (Dione Warwick), Are You Lonesome Tonight? (Elvis Presley), Without You (Mariah Carey), Heart of Gold (Neil Young).
—Seasons In The Sun (Terry Jacks), Fast Car (Tracy Chapman), It’s My Life (The Animals), Infinity (AJR), Every Day People (Sly & The Family Stone), Band Of Gold (Freda Payne), Cherish (The Asssociation), Baby Love (The Supremes), Angel (The Rolling Stones),