PHILADELPHIA — Outfielder Michael Harris II or starting pitcher Spencer Strider? Nobody on the Braves can figure out how they’d vote in the two-man National League Rookie of the Year race between Atlanta teammates. “It’s incredibly difficult,” Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson said, standing just outside the visiting clubhouse in Philadelphia ahead of batting practice last […]
St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt is no stranger to the Most Valuable Player discussion. Now in his 12th season, he’s been a top-three vote getter in three different years (albeit all with his former team, the Arizona Diamondbacks). But this year is different. Goldschmidt isn’t just among the game’s top performers; statistically, he […]
It was less a baseball game, by the sixth and seventh and eighth innings, than a conference-room presentation, with the pitches as bullet points and the batters walking to the plate and jogging back to the dugout, screen-left, like slideshow graphics. “Taking It For A Spin: The Outsized Efficacy of the Breaking Ball in the […]
As on 25 or so other occasions this season, Aaron Judge had himself a week. Sunday afternoon, in the first inning of a series-capper against the Tampa Bay Rays, Judge saw a fastball — in but not in enough — and swept his bat through the zone, buzzing the left foul pole with a leadoff […]
Some MLB pitchers have fastballs that can reach triple digits, pushing the limits of what is possible for the human body. Others have breaking balls that disappear, making hitters look like Little Leaguers at the plate. A select few can do both, and within that group, only the most elite can keep it up for […]