Rays Tank: Hellickson in the air; 3,000

Yesterday was the anniversary of this:

Apparently Steve Kinsella was there, and the ball sailed over his head. Can you find him in the crowd?

Something almost as rare as hitting a home run for your 3,000th hit happened two days ago. Jeremy Hellickson pitched a dominant game.

What you will notice from the highlights, is the same thing Craig Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus fantasy noticed ($). Small sample size, but Helly is getting even more fly balls than he did before. I think this is a fair trend to keep track of. Jake Odorizzi pitches with the fastball up, Drew Smyly pitches with the fastball up. Is Hellickson going to emphasize that as well? I'm not sure, but with an outfield consisting of Desmond Jennings AND Kevin Kiermaier, producing fly balls may not be a bad thing.

But there is one pitch (two pitches) in the Rays staff that's most definitely a ground ball creator. Eno Saris takes a look at Thing One and Thing Two, the splitters thrown the same way (but with different results) of Odorizzi and Alex Cobb. For a comparison to Odor's old changeup, check back to this from the beginning of the year.

Does creating a "super rotation," like the Detroit Tigers trading for David Price, actually help a team win in the playoffs? Ben Lindbergh investigates.

Other Links

How the new CBA is effecting prospect development.

Baseball at the end of World War II.

Soccer in World War I.