The Cycle, Issue 64: Back in Action

Catching up with the standings, Explanatory Wins, All-Star rosters, inside-the-park homers, the cycle (lowercase), Brett Phillips's pitching antics, injuries, transactions, Trevor Bauer, and more. . .

This is a free issue of The Cycle. Free issues will happen on occasion, but they won’t be regular, and they won’t be frequent. To read every issue of The Cycle, which publishes three days a week and contains all the news and analysis you need to keep up with the 2021 Major League Baseball season, use this button to upgrade to a paid subscription starting this Wednesday:

In this issue of The Cycle . . .

• A Note of Thanks

• Since I’ve Been Gone: How the standings have shifted in the last 18 days

• Did You See That?: Brett Phillips takes the mound, how to properly score an inside-the-park home run, and a wild 10th inning in Atlanta

• Explanatory Wins Standings

• On Deck: a viewer’s guide to this week’s action

• Newswire: All-Star rosters announced, on Trea Turner’s record-tying cycle, and Trevor Bauer and Jared Porter are put in their place

• Injured List

• Transaction Reactions

• Feedback

• Closing Credits

If someone forwarded this issue to you (Hey, Cyclists, forward this issue to someone!), please consider subscribing:

You can also help keep The Cycle viable with these:

A Note of Thanks

As always, I’m running long on today’s issue, but I wanted to drop a note of thanks to all of you for sticking with me through the brief semi-hiatus of the last two weeks. I’m back in action full-time now and will return to the regular Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule through the trading deadline at the end of the month. I will require another brief pause in August, but that will be the last until after the World Series.

I’ve decided to make today’s issue a free one for my full email list, so I’m keeping the subscriptions on pause until Wednesday’s issue. For those reading this who want to subscribe, you will be able to do so starting on Wednesday of this week. Thanks again!

Since I’ve Been Gone

The big changes over the last few weeks have taken place in the NL Central, AL West, and AL East. In the NL Central, the Brewers have won 13 of their last 15, including 11 straight, to break out of a tie with the Cubs and open up a seven-game lead, the largest lead of any of the six division leaders entering Monday’s action. It’s startling the degree to which the Willy Adames trade appears to have turned their season around. The Brewers were 21–23 and in third place on the day of the trade. Since adding Adames to the roster, they have gone 30–11 (.732), while Adames has hit .292/.374/.542 (147 OPS+) while playing an excellent shortstop and bringing his intensity and energy to the team. That’s not to discount the starting rotation, which is still the primary reason for the Brewers’ success this season, but the lineup had scored 3.66 runs per game prior to Adames’ arrival and has scored 5.35 runs per game since.

Aiding the Brewers ascension has been the Cubs collapse. They enter this week with an active nine-game losing streak having won just four of their last 20 games. A sweep at the hands of the Reds this weekend dropped them into third place. The Cardinals, meanwhile, are 11-20 since the start of June having scored just 3.3 runs per game over that stretch and are ten games out and below .500 in fourth place.

Back in the AL East, the Rays have won just five of their last 17 to fall out of first place, a skid that seems to have started immediately after Tyler Glasnow went down with a ulnar collateral ligament injury in mid-June. The Rays have allowed 5.5 runs per game during their skid, which has also seen Josh Fleming and reliever Ryan Thompson hit the IL.

The Red Sox have taken advantage of the Rays’ skid, winning nine of their last 10 to open up a 4 1/2-game lead in the division and claim the best record in the AL. The Blue Jays have similarly won 10 of their last 14, including two of three against Tampa Bay over the weekend, but they’re still a distant third and four games behind even the Rays. Then there’s the Yankees, who seem to follow every brief surge with a skid and are now just a game over .500 with a -11 run differential, 10 games out in fourth place in the East, and tied with the Angels for sixth place in the AL wild-card race.

Over in the AL West, the Astros won 11 in a row in late June to overtake the A’s and swept Cleveland in four games over the last four days to open up a 3 1/2-game lead in the division. The A’s are still tied with the Rays atop the wild-card standings, and they’ll get chance to take on the Astros head-to-head starting on Tuesday, but with Houston boasting by far the best run differential in the majors (+137, the Giants are second at +106), the A’s, who have won just five of their last 15, may not be up to the task.

Everything else is roughly where I left it. The NL East has tightened up a bit with the Nationals joining the Braves and Phillies in the sub-.500 battle for second place. The Dodgers and Giants are neck-and-neck in the West. The Mariners and Angels have gained some ground in the AL wild-card race, and the Tigers’ offense seems to be clicking in an unexpected way, while the White Sox hit a brief cold spell, but Cleveland, which has lost its only three reliable starting pitchers to injury, has been colder, and the Royals have been colder still.

On Wednesday, I’ll take a closer look at the standings to try to determine who might be buying and who might be selling as we head toward the trading deadline. In the meantime . . .

Did You See That?

Friday, July 4

There were plenty of great baseball plays on Friday night—few better than Dansby Swanson’s fake to first and back-pick of Miguel Rojas at third base for the final out of the seventh in a 1–0 Braves win over the Marlins, or Enrique Hernández’s combination of a go-ahead base hit in the top of the tenth and 9–2 assist to protect that lead in the bottom of the tenth of  3–2 Red Sox win in Oakland. However, the thing you absolutely have to see, if you somehow missed it Friday night, was Rays outfielder Brett Phillips’s goofball pitching performance in Tampa Bay’s 11–1 blowout loss to the Blue Jays in Buffalo.

Phillips’s goofball bona fides are well established. Not long after he was traded to the Brewers with Adrian Houser and Domingo Santana in the 2015 deadline deal that sent Mike Fiers and Carlos Gomez to the Astros, and more than a year before his major-league debut, he went viral for a Spring Training video in which lefty reliever Will Smith read him corny “mom jokes,” prompting Phillips’s singular laugh, which forces his right eye closed, locks his mouth open, and produces donkey-like hee-haw sounds.

Phillips’s status as a singular baseball goofball reached another level during the Rays’ pennant run last October, when he would have on-field dance-offs with Randy Arozarena, hold up a clipboard with inspirational messages in the dugout, and celebrated a pinch-hit walk-off single in Game 4 of the World Series by racing around the outfield with his arms spread wide like airplane wings.

That was all just a warmup for Friday night, however.

For those who are too callous to sit through that eight-minute video, it opens with Phillips signaling to someone through fence between the outfield and the bullpen that he is going to get to pitch, shows his sprinting in from the bullpen, the variety of comical windups he deployed while warming up in the ‘pen, and then includes his entire inning of work on the game mound, which was like watching Mark Fidrych throw 48-mile-per-hour lobs. Of course, Phillips being Phillips, a goofball who is also a world-class athlete, his first pitch was a 94 mph heater. At one point he also committed a balk by dropping the ball while goofing around on the rubber. Ultimately, Phillips allowed one run on a pair of walks (to Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) and a pair of singles, thanks to great plays by Wander Franco and Joey Wendle, but the most important thing he did was reminded everyone that baseball is a game, that it’s fun, and that when a position player is on the mound, nothing about the game should be taken seriously.

Saturday, July 5

Tigers catcher Eric Haase hit what was scored as an inside-the-park home run in the bottom of the fourth inning of Detroit’s 11–5 win over the White Sox Saturday afternoon, one of two three-run homers by Haase in that game. I say “scored as,” because I have a long-held theory that there is no such thing as a legitimate inside-the-park home run in the modern game with its compact outfields. To my mind, almost every inside-the-parker in the modern game involves at least one fielding error that the official scorer overlooks. Haase’s inside-the-parker is a perfect example of that.

With one out and runners on first and second, Haase hit a sinking liner directly at White Sox centerfielder Bill Hamilton. If Hamilton stays on his feet and fields the ball on a bounce, it’s a single that might not even score the runner from second. Instead, Hamilton dove for the ball, it skipped by him and rolled to the wall, and all three runners came around to score. I my book, that’s a single and a three-base error. It strikes me that, if Haase had stopped a third, it very likely would have been ruled a single and a two-base error, but because Haase made it all the way around the bases, it was ruled home run with no error. That’s an odd convention that is among my (rapidly increasing number of) baseball pet peeves.

There have been two other plays ruled inside-the-park home runs this season. One of them is another excellent example of this phenomenon.

On May 19, Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth pulled a Chi-Chi González pitch off the right-field wall in Petco Park. Rockies right fielder Charlie Blackmon tracked the ball to the wall, but did not reach up to catch it and did not fall back to play the carrom. Instead, he ran right to the wall, so that when the ball ricocheted back into the field of play, it zoomed past him. Despite the fact that it was a 1–0 game at the time (San Diego ultimately won 3–0), Blackman trotted after the ball, rather than chase it at full speed, and the combination of the misplay at the fence and the lukewarm pursuit allowed Cronenworth to circle the bases with what was scored as an inside-the-park home run. In my book, it should have been a double and a two-base error.

The third (but first, chronologically) inside-the-park home run of the season was a very different sort of thing. A very unusual play the likes of which we rarely see. Part of what made it unusual was that it was an inside-the-park home run on a ball the batter actually hit over the fence. Way back on April 3, the Dodgers and Rockies were knotted at 4–4 with two outs in the top of the eighth at Coors Field. Zack McKinstry, who had entered the game as part of a double-switch in the bottom of the seventh, went opposite field with a Mychal Givens fastball, sending it over the left-field wall, but left fielder Raimel Tapia brought it back. Tapai did not, however, make the catch. The impact against the wall jarred the ball loose, but in such a way that Tapia’s glove flung the ball back onto the field. That meant the ball was still in play, but Tapia was both shaken up by the collision and assumed that the ball had bounced out of his glove and into the stands, so he sat crumpled at the base of the wall for several seconds before realizing what was going on and scrambling to his feet to pursue the ball. McKinstry, however, saw it all and never stopped running, coming all the way around with a tie-breaking run in what proved to be a 6–5 Dodgers win.

If Tapia chases after the ball immediately, I’m still not sure he gets McKinstry at the plate, and since McKinstry really did hit the ball out, I have no issue with that one being ruled a home run. The question is, can you really consider it inside the park?

Sunday, July 6

Chad Green helped the Yankees salvage a double-header split against the Mets in the Bronx sixth six strikeouts in three perfect innings of relief, the last of which was the third immaculate inning of the year (three three-pitch strikeouts) and the second by a Yankee reliever against a rival team (Michael King did it against the Red Sox exactly a month ago on June 4, the Nationals’ Kyle Finnegan had the first immaculate inning of the year, almost a month before that on May 5).

The most compelling action on Sunday, however, came in the bottom of the tenth inning in Atlanta. The Marlins had held 4–2, 4–3, and 7–3 leads over the Braves in that game, but Atlanta tied it up with four runs in the bottom off the ninth off Miami closer Yimi García. Braves closer Will Smith (the same lefty from the Brett Phillips video above) stranded the Manfred Man in the top of the tenth. That meant that Austin Riley, as the automatic runner in the bottom of the tenth, represented a potential walk-off run for the Braves.

Marlins manager Don Mattingly responded by having righty Anthony Bass start the bottom of the tenth by intentionally walking Dansby Swanson to set up the force. Riley moved to third on a subsequent fly out to right by Guillermo Heredia, after which Bass intentionally walked Orlando Arcia to again set up the force, loading the bases in the process. Bass’s 1-1 pitch to the next hitter, catcher Kevan Smith, bounced past Marlins catcher Sandy León, and Riley scampered home and was called safe with the apparent winning run, but a replay revealed that, in his slide, Riley’s front foot sailed over the plate, giving Bass time to catch a shovel pass from León and apply the tag before Riley’s back knee reached the plate. Riley was instead the second out of the inning, but Swanson moved to third on the play.

Mattingly, sticking to the game plan, responded to the empty base behind Swanson by walking Smith both to set up the force and to bring up the pitcher’s spot.

That wasn’t a bad gamble. Will Smith was the next man due up, and the Braves bench was empty, so manager Brian Snitker sent up his best-hitting pitcher, the newly activated Max Fried, who was 5-for-19 (.263) coming into that at-bat and went 1-for-3 as a pinch-hitter in 2019 (Fried had also executed a sacrifice bunt as a pinch-hitter earlier this season). Fried worked the count to 3-1, then dropped a fastball in front of Starling Marte in center field for the walk-off hit, plating the first of Mattingly’s intentional walks and giving the Braves an 8–7 win in which they had a walk-off overturned then had a pitcher deliver a pinch-hit walk-off hit.

Explanatory Wins Standings

Teams presented in order of winning percentage (with ties broken by run differential). Leading totals in red.

Individual Explanatory Wins and Losses Leaders:

• 9–0: Zack Wheeler

• 9–1: Brandon Woodruff

• 7–0: Tyler Glasnow (AL leader); Jacob deGrom, Taijuan Walker, Yu Darvish

• 7–1: Nathan Eovaldi and Zack Greinke (AL co-leaders), Marcus Stroman, Walker Buehler, Anthony DeSclafani

• 2–5: Madison Bumgarner (NL loss leader)

• 1–5: Jorge López, J.A. Happ

• 0–5: Andrew Heaney

• 1–6: Matt Harvey

On Deck

Series to watch:

A’s @ Astros: From April 20 to June 20, the A’s spent all but one day in first place in the AL West. However, the Astros surpassed them on June 21 amid an 11-game winning streak, and the A’s have gone 5-10 since June 19. With a four-game sweep in Cleveland this weekend, the Astros have opened up a 3 1/2-game lead over the A’s. This three-game set, from Tuesday through Thursday, gives the A’s a chance to tighten things back up, but Houston is not only playing better, they have a commanding 7–3 lead in the season series having outscored Oakland 67–35 in those 10 games. The pitching matchups are compelling throughout, with Chris Bassitt and Framber Valdez facing off on Tuesday, and Sean Manaea and Luis Garcia toeing the rubber on Wednesday. Only Thursday’s finale is a bit lopsided, with Frankie Montas not quite up to the measure of Lance McCullers Jr.

Brewers @ Mets: The Mets may be the weakest division leader in the majors at the moment, but this is still a battle of two first-place teams. Tyler Anderson and the Pirates snapped the Brewers 11-game winning streak on Sunday, but the Brewers are still riding high, while the Mets have gone 8–12 over their last 20 games, most of which came against intradivision opponents. This series offers some of the top NL Cy Young contenders, but, sadly, none of them will face off. Brandon Woodruff will face rookie righty Tyler Megill, making his third career start, on Monday. Jacob deGrom will face veteran lefty Brett Anderson on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Corbin Burnes’s opponent for Wednesday’s finale has yet to be announced.

Dodgers @ Marlins: This may not seem like a particularly compelling series given that the Marlins are a last place team in a weak division, but the Marlins do have that division’s best run differential at +20. More importantly for our purposes here, this is a four-game set that features three excellent pitching matchups, two of which get my nod for Pitching Matchup of the Day below. The best is first, with NL Cy Young contenders Walker Buehler and Trevor Rogers facing off Monday evening. Tuesday offers Tony Gonzolin and Pablo López, both of whom will enter that evening’s contest with ERA’s south of 3.00, and Thursday’s finale pits Clayton Kershaw against another pitcher with a sub-3:00 ERA in Miami’s workhorse Sandy Alcantara.

Monday, July 7

Idle teams: Astros, A’s,Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Orioles, Rockies, Yankees

Pitching Matchup and Game of the Day:

• Walker Buehler vs. Trevor Rogers, Dodgers @ Marlins, 6:40 pm ET

In a world in which Jacob deGrom didn’t exist, these two would be serious contenders for this year’s NL Cy Young award. Rogers, who has a huge lead in the NL Rookie of the Year race, hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his 16 starts on the season, and has completed at least five innings in all but his first start of the year. He has also struck out 110 men in 92 1/3 innings while posting a 2.14 ERA (188 ERA+). Buehler had a couple of starts with higher run totals in late April and early May and was a little homer prone early in the season, but he has posted a 1.53 ERA in his last nine outings dating back to May 17 to bring his season mark down to 2.35 (159 ERA+). Just looking at his walk and home run totals, it seems Buehler was throwing too many strikes early in the year and made an adjustment after allowing three home runs on May 11. In his first seven starts, he walked just three but allowed eight home runs. In nine starts since, he has walked 19 but has allowed just five more home runs.

Tuesday, July 8

Idle teams: none

Pitching Matchup and Game of the Day:

• Chris Bassitt vs. Framber Valdez, A’s @ Astros, 8:10 pm ET

The 32-year-old Bassitt might be the most underrated pitcher in the American League. He was the best pitcher on a division-winning A’s team last year, he has a 129 ERA+ in 361 1/3 innings over the last four seasons, and this year he is quietly emerging as a Cy Young contender. Since April 18, 11 of his 14 starts have been quality, with a twelfth missing by just one out, and he has a 2.69 ERA over that span with 98 strikeouts in 90 1/3 innings (that’s 6.4 innings per start) and a 5.16 strikeout-to-walk ratio in those 14 outings. This will be his first start against Houston since Opening Day, when he allowed three runs in 5 1/3 innings in a lop-sided loss.

The 27-year-old Valdez is emerging as one of the best pitchers in the league, as well. Since returning from his finger injury at the end of May, he has posted a 2.18 ERA in seven starts. The last six of those starts have been quality, and Valdez has averaged 6.9 innings per game in those six, falling short of seven innings just once. He last faced the A’s in last year’s Division Series, holding them to two runs over seven innings in Oakland in a 5–2 Astros win.

Honorable mention:

• Nathan Eovaldi vs. Shohei Ohtani, Red Sox @ Angels, 9:38 pm ET

Bassitt vs. Valdez is clearly the best matchup of the day, but Eovaldi has a 2.27 ERA in his last eight starts, and Ohtani was dominant in his first four starts in June before a disaster outing against the Yankees his last time out in which he walked four, hit a batter, and failed to get out of the first inning. This game bears watching to see how Ohtani bounces back from that outing, whether or not Joe Maddon limits him to pitching duty alone in this game, and for the potential pitchers’ duel should he and Eovaldi both show the form they’ve shown for most of the last month.

Wednesday, July 9

Idle teams: none

Pitching Matchup and Game of the Day:

• Sean Manaea vs. Luis Garcia, A’s @ Astros, 8:10 pm ET

When I was making my 26-man American League All-Star roster last week, my last starting pitcher spot came down to these two. Bassitt has since surpassed them both, but this remains a very compelling matchup. Manaea has a 1.85 ERA in his last eight starts with 54 strikeouts in 48 2/3 innings. He’ll be making his fourth start of the year against the Astros in this game. The last two were both quality starts in A’s wins.

The 24-year-old Garcia is a contender for both Cy Young and Rookie of the Year, and has a 2.86 ERA in his last nine starts with 55 strikeouts in 50 1/3 innings. He has faced the A’s twice in his young career, both times in Oakland, holding them to two runs in 10 innings with 11 strikeouts against four walks.

Thursday, July 10

Idle teams: Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Giants, Rangers, Rays, Red Sox, White Sox

New series: Reds @ Brewers,Pirates @ Mets,Royals @ Cleveland, Tigers @ Twins

Pitching Matchup of the Day:

• Clayton Kershaw vs. Sandy Alcantara, Dodgers @ Marlins, 12:10 pm ET

Kershaw hit a rough patch in May with a 5.26 ERA across seven starts from May 4 to June 5, though that seems to be primarily the result of bad sequencing, as his peripherals and opponents’ averages were remained impressive throughout that stretch. In five starts since June 5, he has a 2.70 ERA including a vintage outing against the Cubs two turns ago (8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 13 K), and, on the season, he has a 6.68 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 127 strikeouts in 106 1/3 innings on the season.

The 25-year-old Alcantara is another emerging star. A team-requirement All-Star in 2019, he was better in the abbreviated 2020 season, and has been better still this year. He had a disaster outing against the Dodgers on May 14 (1 1/3 IP, 8 R), but has posted a 2.04 ERA in nine starts since, and this will be his first start against L.A. since then.

Game of the Day:

• A’s @ Astros, Frankie Montas vs. Lance McCullers Jr., 2:10 pm ET

Even and A’s sweep wouldn’t be enough for Oakland to knock Houston from their perch atop the division, but this game will still count for a full-game swing in the standings with these two teams not scheduled to meet again until the penultimate weekend of the season (six of their final nine games are head-to-head), and there is no other contest on Thursday’s 11-game slate that carries more importance in terms of the standings.

Newswire

Full All-Star rosters announced

The full, 34-man All-Star rosters were announced for both the American and National Leagues Sunday evening. You can find the full rosters here. Last Wednesday, I compiled my ideal 26-man rosters, setting the bar a bit higher. Here is the full list of players in each league who made my 26-man team but not the actual 34-man roster:

American League:

C – Yasmani Grandal, White Sox

OF – Ramón Laureano, A’s

RHP – Sean Manaea, A’s

RHP – Scott Barlow, Royals

RHP – Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland

RHP – Jordan Romano, Blue Jays

RHP – Jonathan Loaisiga, Yankees

The four relievers were all small sample candidates. Established stars Liam Hendriks and Aroldis Chapman, Red Sox closer Matt Barnes, and requisite Tigers representative Gregory Soto take their places. Manaea was borderline call for my last starting pitcher and has been squeezed out not by Luis Garcia or Chris Bassitt, but by Boston’s Nathan Eovaldi and Seattle’s Yusei Kikuchi, the latter the Mariners’ lone representative. Laureano was my biggest reach among the position players, he’s effectively squeezed out here by the fan vote’s biggest misfire, selecting Teoscar Hernández as one of the AL’s starting outfielders. Hernández’s election also likely contributed to Soto being selected over Akil Baddoo as the Tigers’ rep. Worth noting: injury replacements have not yet been named, and the AL will have to replace outfield starter Mike Trout and defending AL Cy Young award winner Shane Bieber, so there may yet be some hope for one of the starters or outfielders mentioned above.

As for Grandal, he was overlooked in favor of lone Rays representative Mike Zunino. Grandal has hit just .190 thus far this season, but his patience, power, and fielding make him All-Star worthy nonetheless, particularly give his track record. Zunino is hitting just .205 with more power but far fewer walks and arguably inferior play behind the plate (but only because Grandal is that good). So much for the idea of naming the injured Tyler Glasnow to satisfy the Rays requirement, then replacing him on the roster.

National League:

C – Will Smith, Dodgers

RHP – Freddy Peralta, Brewers

RHP – Giovanny Gallegos, Cardinals

RHP – Richard Rodríguez, Pirates

RHP – Kenley Jansen, Dodgers

Again, the bulk of these are relievers, though Gallegos, Rodríguez, and Jansen all have longer track records than my AL selections. They were overlooked in favor of closers Mark Melancon and Alex Reyes (which is some bird-on-bird crime re: Gallegos), and starting pitcher Germán Márquez, the lone Rockies representative. The NL roster has just four relievers and eight starters, which feels like an appropriate ratio to me. Among those eight starters, Peralta was omitted in favor of teammate Corbin Burnes and the Padres’ Yu Darvish, while Smith was passed over in favor of Phillies catcher J.D Realmuto. Other than Márquez, the only other token selection on the NL roster, which is a better representation of the leagues best players than the AL squad, is Eduardo Escobar of the Diamondbacks.

Trea Turner ties record for career cycles

Trea Turner hit for the cycle on Wednesday for the third time in his career, tying the career record set by John Reilly in 1890 and tied by Bob Meusel in 1928, Babe Herman in 1933, and Adrián Beltré in 2015. I mention this only because this newsletter is called The Cycle, and I feel as though it is expected of me. However, while the name of the newsletter is a reference to the act of collecting a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in a single game, the idea behind it has more to do with the way the baseball season reflects the cycle of the seasons, and, over a larger timespan, the cycle of life. The cycle, as a baseball feat, doesn’t move me all that much.

Sure, it’s fun to fill all four of those columns in one game, and the result is a great day at the plate no matter how you slice it, but a cycle is 10 total bases (Turner had exactly that many on Wednesday, going 4-for-4, though he also added a pair of stolen bases). There have been 17 occasions this season alone on which a player has collected more totals bases in a single game. Jesse Winker is responsible for two of those (12 total bases on June 6, and 13 on May 21, both three-homer games with a single in the mix on May 21), while Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon hit for 14 bases on April 6 (three homers and a double).

On a career basis, since 1901, 86 players have had more than three games with 11 or more total bases, and Lou Gehrig had 11 such games. Gehrig never hit for the cycle, but he had a four-homer game (16 total bases); a two-triple/two-homer game (14 total bases); a game in which he doubled, tripled, and homered twice but did not single (13 total bases); and eight other games in which he collected more total bases than a player accumulates when hitting for the cycle.

So, Turner’s three cycles are nifty, but I don’t find them particularly significant, historically or otherwise.

Trevor Bauer placed on administrative leave by MLB following abuse allegations

If you somehow missed it, on Tuesday, the Pasadena Police department confirmed a report it was investigated allegations that Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer had physically and sexually assaulted a woman who has since been granted a temporary restraining order against Bauer. On Wednesday, The Athletic published a detailed report by Brittany Ghiroli and Katie Strang about the allegations (warning: graphic details). On Thursday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts passed the buck to MLB with regard to Bauer’s scheduled start on Sunday, and, on Friday, Major League Baseball placed Bauer on a seven-day, paid administrative leave while MLB does its initial investigation into the allegations.

Based on the severity of the allegations and the precedents set by MLB, I do not expect Bauer to return to action any time soon and would not be shocked if his current administrative leave is extended and folded into a suspension which lasts beyond the end of this season. While the allegations against Bauer are shocking and awful, I cannot say that Bauer getting himself in some sort of serious legal trouble is terribly surprising. In fact, I wrote this about Bauer, who was unsigned at the time, in the very first issue of The Cycle back on January 25:

Bauer, a red-pilled, gamergate-type, is going to do or say something problematic, abusive, or possibly even illegal again sooner or later, and it’s going to cause a giant headache for whichever team signs him. His history of such behavior is already extensive enough that signing him would be an affront to a significant portion of any team’s fanbase. I don’t dispute his right to earn a living plying his talents, but I do think teams should think twice, then think again if they really want to spend the length of his contract apologizing for and attempting to spin his behavior; if they really want to get that on them.

I am far from the only person to issue similar warnings about Bauer, and I am not pleased to have been proven right in this way, but I am looking forward to the 2021 baseball season moving forward without him.

Former Mets GM Jared Porter placed on ineligible list

In unfortunately similar news, Major League Baseball placed former Mets General Manager Jared Porter, who was fired in January after a long pattern of sexual harassment on his part was made public, on the ineligible list Wednesday and will thus be unable to work in baseball at least through the end of the 2022 season, at which point he will have to apply for reinstatement if he wants the ban lifted. That Porter has been banned from the game is good news as it is further evidence that MLB is finally taking action against men like Porter and former Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway, who was issued an identical ban in late May. Here’s hoping we start to see similar action taken against players like Bauer.

Injured List

Activated:

• Braves LHP Max Fried

• White Sox RF Adam Eaton and RHP Michael Kopech

• Cleveland C Roberto Pérez and DH Franmil Reyes

• Mets CF Brandon Nimmo, IF Jonathan Villar, RHP Jeurys Famlia, and C Tomás Nido

• Phillies SS Didi Gregorius and RHP Brandon Kintzler

• Blue Jays C Danny Jansen, LHP Steven Matz, and RHP Rafael Dolis

• A’s RF Stephen Piscotty

• Cubs 2B Nico Hoerner

• Rays SS Taylor Walls

• Cardinals CF Harrison Bader

• Reds RHP Sonny Gray

• Rangers LF David Dahl

• Orioles RHP César Valdez

• Yankees LHPs Justin Wilson and Wandy Peralta

• Diamondbacks RHP J.B. Bukauskuas

• Tigers RHP Erasmo Ramírez

• Giants OF Jaylin Davis

Updates:

Mets RHP Dellin Betances: season-ending shoulder surgery

Betances hit the IL with shoulder issue after throwing one inning in the third game of the season. He started a rehab assignment on June 14, but the Mets announced on Sunday that he would have season-ending shoulder surgery, though they did not specify what the surgery would entail or how long his recovery is likely to take. Once one of the game’s dominant relievers, Betances made four straight All-Star games from 2014 to 2017 and struck out 607 batters in 373 1/3 innings from 2014 to 2018, but injuries have now limited him to 13 1/3 innings over the last three seasons. Betances will thus fail to trigger his 2022 player option and will become a free agent this fall. He will turn 34 in March.

Rays RHP Chaz Roe: season-ending shoulder surgery

Roe similarly made just one appearance this year, in the second game of the season, before hitting the IL with a shoulder issue. He, too, began a minor-league rehab assignment, on June 3, but that was cut short mid-month. He will have surgery to repair a posterior labrum tear in his pitching shoulder, will turn 35 in October, and will be a free agent in the fall having thrown just 10 big-league innings over the last two seasons.

Cleveland RF Josh Naylor: right fibula surgery

Naylor suffered a hideous ankle injury last Sunday when he collided with second baseman Ernie Clement on a blooper over second base. Naylor suffered multiple fractures to his right fibula as well as multiple ligament tears in that leg. It was nauseating to watch, and this is the beginning of what is likely to be a long recovery for the 24-year-old. The team hasn’t said that the surgery, or the injury, will be season-ending, but that seems safe to assume. I just hope Naylor is able to make a full recovery.

Placed on IL:

• Nationals LF Kyle Schwarber: right hamstring strain

• Nationals C Alex Avila: bilateral calf strains

• Nationals IF Jordy Mercer: right quad strain

• Nationals RHP Steven Fuentes: right shoulder strain (60-day)

• Brewers 2B Kolten Wong: left calf tightness

• Yankees LF Clint Frazier: vertigo

• Astros RHP Jose Urquidy: right shoulder discomfort

• Diamondbacks RHP Zac Gallen: right hamstring strain

• Mets LHP David Peterson: right side soreness

• Pirates LF Ka’ai Tom: lower back strain

• Pirates 1B Colin Moran: left wrist pisiform bone fracture

• Pirates IF Erik González: right oblique strain

• Rangers C José Trevino: right forearm contusion

• Giants LF Mike Tauchman: right knee sprain

• White Sox LHP Aaron Bummer: right hamstring strain

• White Sox RHP Evan Marshall: right flexor pronator strain

• Blue Jays RHP Tyler Chatwood: neck strain

• Orioles RHP Travis Lakins Sr.: right elbow pain

• Orioles RHP Hunter Harvey: right latissimus dorsi strain

• Rays RHP Ryan Thompson: right shoulder inflammation

• Cubs C José Lobaton: right shoulder sprain (60-day)

• Royals IF Emmanuel Rivera: left hamate fracture

Transaction Reactions

Yankees acquire OF Tim Locastro from Diamondbacks for RHP Keegan Curtis

Yankees acquire OF Aldenis Sánchez from Rays (PTBNL for Mike Ford)

According to Statcast’s Sprint Speed, the only man in the majors who is faster than Locastro is Padres utility man (and former Yankee prospect) Jorge Mateo (30.9 ft/sec), while the only other player as fast as Locastro is the Nationals’ Trea Turner (both are at 30.7 ft/s). With Clint Frazier on the injured list with a worrisome vertigo diagnosis (Frazier suffered a concussion in Spring Training in 2018 and was still battling symptoms during the 2019 season), Locastro becomes a capable defensive cady for left fielder Miguel Andújar, a potential short-side platoon partner for lefty Brett Gardner in center, a pinch-hitting weapon for late-game situations (I’ll be curious to see how long it takes manager Aaron Boone to put Locastro in for an automatic runner in extra innings).

Someone in the Yankees’ front office clearly likes Locastro, as the Yankees acquired him from the Dodgers after the 2018 season only to trade him to Arizona before the 2019 season began. Now he’s back, with three more team controlled years, but also a miserable 38 OPS+ in 133 plate appearances on the season.

Curtis is a 25-year-old righty reliever of little note who made his Double-A debut this year.

Sánchez, a speedy, slender, 22-year-old Dominican outfielder still in rookie ball, is the player to be named later for first baseman Mike Ford.

A’s purchase LHP Sam Moll from Diamondbacks

Moll’s only previous major league experience was 6 2/3 innings across 11 games with the A’s in 2017. He has passed through five other organizations since then without a return to the Show, but the A’s added him to their active roster on Saturday as a second lefty in the ‘pen behind Jake Diekman. Moll had a 5.82 ERA with 15 walks in 21 2/3 innings for Triple-A Reno before this transaction.

Nationals purchase IF Alcides Escobar from Royals

Escobar, the speedy, good-field/no-hit shortstop of the Royals’ pennant-winning teams from the middle of the last decade, hadn’t appeared in the majors since 2018 until the Nationals purchased him on Sunday and immediately added him to the active roster in place of fellow infielder Humberto Arteaga, himself a replacement for the injured Jordy Mercer.

Because Trea Turner jammed his left middle finger sliding into third to complete his cycle last Wednesday, Escobar, who is still somehow just 34, started at shortstop Saturday and Sunday and went 4-for-8. This after Escobar hit a respectable .274/.311/.452 in 133 plate appearances for Triple-A Omaha. I have no faith in Escobar’s ability to rejuvenate a career that was always of questionable value, but I applaud his determination to return to a league that had largely moved on without him.

Cardinals claim RHP Justin Miller off waivers from Nationals

The full-bearded Miller, who had a solid half-season for the Rockies in 2015 and a comparable full season for the Nationals in 2018, joins his eighth organization after a trio of garbage-time outings prompted the Nats to designate him for assignment. There’s nothing terribly compelling about this 34-year-old righty or his low-90s fastball/slider combination, but the Cardinals have placed him on the active roster, so he outranks the bullet-pointed players below.

Also:

• Orioles purchase 3B Kelvin Gutierrez from Royals (optioned to Triple-A)

• Pirates acquire 1B John Nogowski from Cardinals

• Orioles claim RHP Shaun Anderson off waivers from Rangers (optioned to Triple-A)

• Marlins acquire RHP David Hess from Rays for RHP Justin Sterner

• Mets acquire LHP Anthony Banda from Giants for IF Will Toffey

• Dodgers claim RHP Bobby Wahl off waivers from Brewers (optioned to Triple-A)

Twins designate RHP Matt Shoemaker for assignment

For their $2 million investment, the Twins got 60 1/3 innings of a 8.06 ERA across 11 starts and five relief appearances. Shoemaker was bounced from the rotation in early June after retiring just one of the 10 batters he faced in a start against the Royals. The final straw was an outing on June 30 in which he entered a game in which the Twins were trailing the White Sox 4–1 in the fourth inning, allowed an inherited runner to score, then gave up six runs in the fifth and two more in the sixth to make it 11–2, Chicago.

White Sox option DH Yermín Mercedes to Triple-A

Mercedes, a career .302/.366/.490 hitter in the minors, was an early-season sensation, hitting safely in his first eight plate appearances of the season to claim the White Sox’s vacant designated-hitter job and batting .364/.414/.557 as late as May 21 to put himself in the Rookie of the Year conversation. Unfortunately, he has hit just .140/.209/.190 in 110 plate appearances since then, and he has recently been eclipsed by former second-round pick Gavin Sheets, who is three years younger and has hit .318/.360/.682 through his first six major-league games.

Welington Castillo retires

The 34-year-old Castillo opted out of the 2020 season and was scuffling with the Nationals’ Triple-A team. The former Cubs, Diamondbacks, Orioles, and White Sox catcher (who also spent six games with the Mariners between trades in 2015) retires with a career .254/.313/.426 line, which is close to league average when adjusted for park and league, and thus above-average for a catcher. A good defender, he was worth 12.3 wins above replacement in his 10-year career, per Baseball-Reference’s figures, which means I shouldn’t have struggled so much to remember how many L’s he had in his first name.

Feedback

I want to hear from you. Got a question, a comment, a request? Reply to this issue. Want to participate in my reader survey (favorite team, place of residence, birth year)? Reply to this issue. Want to interview me on your podcast, send me your book, bake me some cookies? Reply to this issue. I will respond, and if I find your question particularly interesting, I’ll feature it in a future “Inbox.”

You can also write me at cyclenewsletter[at]substack[dot]com, or @ me on twitter @CliffCorcoran, and don’t forget about the reader survey.

Closing Credits

There’s a cliché about baseball writers loving Bruce Springsteen. Well, this is the 64th issue of The Cycle, and I have ended each of the first 63 with a song by a different artist (well, 62 musical artists plus one dance troupe), and none of them have been Bruce Springsteen.

Given that I’m a middle-aged man who grew up in New Jersey in the 1980s, and still lives there, I think I’m entitled to some level of Bruce fandom without it being lumped in with that sportswriter cliché. So, I’m finally playing my Bruce card, because I could have gone with Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle,” or Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack,” or any other back-in-action cliché, but I’d rather drop a particularly choice slice of early Springsteen on you with the 1973 track “Kitty’s Back” from Bruce’s second album, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle.

This is early E-Street band, before Max Weinberg replaced Vini Lopez on drums, before Roy Bitton replaced David Sancious on piano and organ, and before the Roy Orbison and Phil Spector influences on Born to Run tamed the band’s sweaty, bar-band soul ravers, of which this is a prime example.

There were only seven songs on E Street Shuffle, because four of them, this one included, were more than seven minutes long. One of those, “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is an inner-circle Springsteen classic. “Kitty’s Back” isn’t nearly as widely recognized, but I don’t think all that far removed.

Structurally, the song is all over the place, veering from a brooding opening guitar solo to quiet verses with Bruce’s early, rhyme-heavy hepcat vocals, then lurching into a racing shuffle beat, horn-driven rave-ups, organ solos, overlapping guitar solos, quiet, then loud, locked in the groove, then nearly chaotic, a call-and-response with Clarence’s sax and the horns, a vocal call-and-response with Bruce and the band, back and forth and all around delivering chops, hooks, stops, twists. Like much of the album, which I find to be Springsteen’s most audacious, it’s the band showing off what it can do. If Springsteen’s debut was more of a singer-songwriter album, and Born to Run was where his world-building achieved a cinematic scale, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle is the Springsteen album that is most about the band, which hadn’t yet taken on the E-Street moniker, and what it can do .

Lyrically, the song is some jive about alley cats and kittens in the heat of a New York City summer. Kitty is the object of desire who is running around on Cat, but, as the chorus says “Oooh, what can I do?” Cat still gets excited when Kitty’s back in town (“here she comes now . . . oh, oh, all right!”). It ain’t Shakespeare, but while Springsteen has plenty of songs in which the words are important, this ain’t one of ‘em. Just listen to that band play . . .

The Cycle will return on Wednesday with a look at some of the buyers and sellers leading up to this year’s trading deadline. In the meantime: