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- Yesterday was a tough loss, but good news on this day off: Steven Souza JR leads the MLB in WPA (Win Probability Added) at 1.02 (#2 is George Springer at 0.81) and Chris Archer is 2nd in the MLB in fWAR at 0.6 (#1 is Noah Syndergaard at 0.8).
- Mallex Smith wants to “get on base, and run like the wind”. How he gets on base, with line drives or infield bunt singles, doesn’t really matter. David Lauria at Fangraphs believes Mallex certainly is primed to be Bunt Machine in the Making.
- Bill Chastain on MLB.com also writes about “The Mallex Effect”.
- Alex Cobb pitched well yesterday, even though he pretty much stuck with just his Fastball and Curveball. Marc Topkin notes that Cobb is still adjusting to not having his signature plus Change-up back. Cobb has already put in two very encouraging starts coming back after surgery. Adding more to his arsenal, giving him more options to his superior pitch sequencing, will only mean good things.
- Last week the Rays played a couple of 3 plus hour games, and Jeff Sullivan notes that so far in 2017 baseball is getting slower again!
- In case you missed it, the Seattle Mariners blew a 9-3 lead in the 9th. Grant Brisbee has a breakdown of exactly how that happened.
- I’m still fascinated by Christian Bethancourt, the Catcher/CF/Relief Pitcher for the San Diego Padres. Our first look at Bethancourt the major league pitcher did not go all that great.
- Speaking of those Padres, ex-Ray Wil Myers hit for the first cycle of the 2017 season last night. It is the 2nd time a San Diego Padres player has hit for the cycle, and both times have been in Coors Field.
- And on the subject of ex-Rays, Matt Moore cleared the bases with a little league double:
Matt Moore swinging bunt = 3 runs pic.twitter.com/q7mO6oBAFc
— KNBR (@KNBR) April 10, 2017
- Mary Craig at The Hardball Times tells the tale of the hilarious disaster that was the first Congressional baseball game.