Here’s what’s making news around the MLB as we approach the 2nd half of the season:
Jacob deGrom isn’t human: After pitching another 3 shutout innings on Wednesday, the Mets ace lowered his 2021 ERA to an absurd 0.54 on the season. deGrom has currently given up only 4 runs on the year, while batting in 6 RBIs whilst at the plate. Jacob did however exit his last start with a right shoulder issue, however his MRI came back clean much to the relief of Mets fans around the country. deGrom currently has 111 K’s through 67 innings, and is the runaway favourite to win the NL Cy Young award.
Arizona sucks outside Arizona: It’s official folks, the Diamondbacks are the proud owners of a dubious record for futility on the road. With their recent loss to the Giants, the Diamondbacks dropped their 23rd straight game on the road to set the modern era record for losses away from home. The loss drops them to 20-50 on the season with an abysmal 9-31 road record. Making matters worse is that they’re only marginally better while at home, sporting an 11-19 mark at Chase Field. Don’t expect things to get much better in the second half of the year as Arizona will undoubtedly be sellers at the trade deadline and are as good a bet as any to be selecting 1st overall in next year’s draft.
MLB in a sticky situation: The only thing that’s clear in the MLB’s crackdown on “foreign substances” is that they aren’t doing a great job at making anyone happy. Keep in mind this is the same league that has repeatedly doctored balls in recent years to add pop (leading to a massive home run boon) and then nerf balls (leading to a no-hitter renaissance). Everyone from Gerrit Cole to Tyler Glasnow, who went as far as saying that the league’s crackdown on foreign substances led to his recent injury, have been vocal about the botched roll out of these new rules. With the MLB beginning to enforce its ban essentially mid way through a season is odd optically to fans, but down right infuriating to players. It remains to be seen what effect this may have on teams records in the second half of the season, but Rob Manfred certainly won’t be earning any brownie points from the player’s association with this recent vendetta.
The Mets can’t score runs: Despite their splashy off season moves, the New York Mets have scored fewer runs than every franchise except the Pittsburgh Pirates. Yet miraculously, the Mets find themselves in first place in the NL East. Not only that, they’ve also got a comfortable 5 game cushion over the 2nd place Phillies to boot. New York can thank their lucky stars that their pitching corps (still without Noah Syndergaard) leads the majors in ERA with a sparkling 3.11. How much longer can the Mets continue to grind out low scoring wins? Hard to say. But if deGrom continues his historic pace, and Marcus Stroman maintains his bounce back campaign then New York could very well go wire to wire in the NL East.
Blue Jays bullpen woes continue: Tell us if you’ve heard this story before: the Toronto Blue Jays jumped out to an early lead, only to see their bullpen let them down once more en route to a loss. The often soft spoken Charlie Montoyo appears to have reached the end of his rope telling Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi “It seems like every day I get a question: What’s wrong with [Anthony] Castro? What’s wrong with [Tyler] Chatwood? Or now it’s [Rafael] Dolis, what’s wrong with Dolis? Why are you pitching Dolis in that inning?” Montoyo said. “It’s been every [expletive] month, I mean the whole month, about the same thing.The guys, we’re going to give them a chance. Castro, we need Castro to pitch good. Chatwood was good today, Dolis we need him. Romano came in and gave up a double, he’s still going to pitch. This is who we’ve got, and we’re going to trust them; this is who we’ve got. And we’ve been in every game, as you know, the bullpen’s just not doing the job. But you know what, they’re going to get a chance again tomorrow.” Reporters can question Montoyo’s decisions all they want, however at a certain point the crosshair needs to be pointed at the front office who, thus far, has stood pat and not addressed the suddenly .500 club’s most glaring need.
MLB All-Star voting is now open: Get out there and support your favourite players and cast your votes for the 2021 All-Star game here.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner