Here’s ‘The Starting 9’ for today’s show …
1. Best-by-Position (AL) – C – Sal. Perez, 1B – Vlad, Jr., 2B – Semien, 3B – Devers, SS – Bichette, OF – Ad. Garcia, JD Martinez, Meadows, UTIL – Ohtani, SP – Cole, Lynn, Rodon, RP – Chapman, Hendriks
2. Best-by-Position (NL) – C – Posey, 1B – Muncy, 2B – C. Taylor, 3B – Bryant, SS – Tatis, Jr., OF – Acuna, Castellanos, Winker, UTIL – T. Turner, SP – Gausman, deGrom, Woodruff, RP – Hader, Reyes
3. Will Pitching Start to slow down? – MLB cracking down on the ‘stick’/general wear down/weather heating up/pure odds
4. Player Profile – Marcus Stroman
5. MLB News/Notes – No timetable on Trout (calf)/Buxton (hammy) set to start rehab assignment this week/Baez dealing with wrist or hand contusion/A. Mondesi (hammy) back on the IL/Jackson Kowar called up to make a start for KC/ATL recalls S. Greene/Longoria (shoulder) expected to miss 6-to-8 weeks
6. Winning Waiver Bids (SXM Host League) – M. Andujar ($29), Renfroe ($45), H. Ramirez ($3), T. Trammell ($13), E. Hasse ($8)
7. Weekly Planner Highlights – Does Bieber get 2 starts in a 5-game week/Stanton with 2 interleague games … Ohtani with 3/BOS, KC, MIA with 7 game weeks/9 teams with 5 games this week
8. ‘Random Reference’ – September 11th, 1996, Marlins vs. Mets
9. ‘Stamp of Approval’ – soccer balls, oven lights.
*** It wasn’t Carl Everett but Milton Bradley who got hurt while arguing with an umpire.
*** It was Jason Isringhausen who fell off a balcony.
“It is either just past twilight or well past curfew at the New York Mets’ Port St. Lucie, Fla., spring training complex — depending on whom you ask — and Jason Isringhausen, 20 years old and more than “a little inebriated,” as he puts it with a chuckle, is dangling from a third-floor balcony of a local hotel. He may or may not be, depending on whom you ask, calling on a young lady. But that is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that the kid with an arm that most everyone suspects could soon be worth millions of dollars is hanging from a third-story balcony railing, sloshed out of his mind. It’s also fairly relevant that the railing soon breaks, sending the kid with the million-dollar arm plunging three stories, head first. When the paramedics arrive, they find him lying on the ground with his head bloodied, his sternum cracked, and a few of his toes broken. They tell him that if he hadn’t been so, heh, inebriated — and therefore, so relaxed — he’d be dead.”
