1. Baseball's Newest Must-See Rivalry: Royals-Blue Jays
The Jays and Royals played absolutely phenomenal baseball over three games before Sunday's contest turned into something right up Ronda Rousey's alley. Newcomers Troy Tulowitzki and Mark Lowe (Toronto) and Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist (Kansas City) were involved immediately, with Tulo doing Tulo things at the plate and Lowe being tagged with the loss on Saturday when he served up Zobrist's second home run of the game.
It was crazy, watching all of these newcomers immediately step in and out of the spotlight, and in the aftermath, a few observations:
With David Price, who debuted Monday against the Twins, the Blue Jays are going to be extremely difficult to hold off in the wild-card chase, let alone the AL East title race. Especially for a New York Yankees club that failed to add to its rotation and lost Michael Pineda to the disabled list. That the Blue Jays started this week 32-21 at home and 22-31 on the road is a key indicator of what Toronto must do to charge into October for the first time since 1993.
That home/road split has again dredged up age-old speculation surrounding the Jays, that they swing at home like they know what pitches are coming because they do, stationing someone in Rogers Centre to tip them off. That's been the buzz around baseball for years, and whatever is or is not up with that, one thing is certain: To get this fearsome Jays lineup out, you have to pitch inside and move their hitters off the plate.
The Royals attempted to do that Sunday, but after a changeup got away up and in from Edinson Volquez, Toronto's Josh Donaldson was not happy. Then, when reliever Ryan Madson threw a 96 mph fastball up and in, Donaldson and the Jays were furious. Madson, by the way, blew a lead in Friday's game, surrendering three runs without recording an out. So he came inside on Sunday, as he should have.
Now, where the Royals still need work is in the fine art of not inciting things in other ways. Watching from the dugout, Volquez at one point rubbed his eyes with both hands, mocking Donaldson for crying.
"He's a little baby," Volquez said after the game. "He was crying like a baby."
Then, Yordano Ventura went ballistic on Twitter after the game, firing off three tweets in Spanish at Toronto's Jose Bautista before later deleting them. Among the translations of the Ventura tweets was this, per Pete Grathoff of the Kansas City Star: "I respected you but now to me you're nobody."
Earlier this season, Ventura got into it with the Angels' Mike Trout, the Athletics' Brett Lawrie and the White Sox's Adam Eaton within a 10-day span. When I wrote a long feature piece in June, "Inside a Beanball War," Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera told me that veterans Volquez and Jeremy Guthrie had spoken with the emotionally volatile Ventura, working with him to teach him to keep a leash on his emotions.
Ventura has had a disappointing season (6-7, 4.98 ERA) and was optioned to Triple-A Omaha 10 days ago. The only reason he's back so soon is because Jason Vargas suffered a season-ending arm injury.
The call here is that the Royals are still the best overall team in the American League. But with brawls with Oakland, Chicago and Toronto in their rearview mirror, the biggest obstacle to Kansas City might be the threat of self-destruction. The game is hardball, and good for the Royals for pitching inside and playing tough. But some of the extracurricular activity—mocking opponents from the dugout (including Herrera's pointing to his head from the mound while looking into Oakland's dugout in April) and the tweets—has got to stop.
2. Are the Mets, and Not the Nationals, Now NL East Favorites?
Tempting as it is to say yes coming off New York's weekend sweep, you've still got to go with the Nationals given their experience, better overall lineup and the (fading) prospect that they'll eventually move past injury issues in 2015.
Still, a Nats division crown is no longer a given. Forget footsteps; it's the roar of the Citi Field crowd that will be ringing in Washington's ears the rest of the summer.
With Yoenis Cespedes now in the middle of their order and Lucas Duda homering more often than Mr. Met poses for pictures, the Mets are making their move. And manager Terry Collins and pitching coach Dan Warthen still have many rabbits to yank from their caps in the days ahead, particularly as it pertains to starting pitching.
For all the talk this spring of a rotation that could be historically good in Washington, it is the Mets' Kiddie Corps that looks like the keeper. Especially once you work past Max Scherzer and Jordan Zimmermann in Washington, where Doug Fister (4-7, 4.60 ERA) is still finding his way after landing on the disabled list early and where the season is slipping away from a highly disappointing Stephen Strasburg.
Juggling the innings of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard is a work in progress. Steven Matz (partial lat tear) is limiting his own innings through injury, but when will he return and how effective will he be following a long layoff? The Mets twice this year have moved to a six-man rotation, determined not to ruin some of their young gems through overwork, and it's going to take more creativity to keep the chains moving.
But the chains are moving, steadily, and the weekend sweep of the Nationals was a statement that Washington winning the division is not the foregone conclusion many thought it was in March. Not when Bryce Harper is getting ejected from a key game and not with Cespedes' bat now in the New York lineup.
What a weekend it was, with Wilmer Flores receiving a standing ovation in his first at-bat Friday after dissolving into tears two nights earlier at shortstop when he thought he was going to be traded—and then delivering the walk-off hit to beat Washington to open the series. And then there's Duda:
Fun times ahead, too: These two teams play six more times. The first three games are in Washington, Sept. 7-9. Then—and what a blast this will be if the division title is up for grabs—the Nationals and Mets close the season with three more in Citi Field, Oct. 2-4.
3. Astros Before Angels in AL West
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Los Angeles Angels of Mike Trout finally caught Houston in the division July 12. And when they did, it lasted all of two blinks of an eye. The Astros answered by sweeping Los Angeles/Anaheim/Disneyland last week, sending the Angels into a spiral in which the Dodgers swept them, too.
Make no mistake, the Astros continue to serve notice that they are not intimidated or in over their heads. This is no fluke and they will not wilt. How many more ways can that all be said?
Adding lefty Scott Kazmir at the trade deadline already has paid dividends. Kazmir's first two starts, including the series finale against the Angels, were nails. Mike Fiers will add rotation depth, and scooping up Carlos Gomez from Milwaukee after the Mets backed out of a deal was clutch. With George Springer (wrist) out for an extended period of time, Gomez adds reinforcement and passion.
Plus, shortstop Carlos Correa, already a star, is only going to get better and better as he becomes more familiar with the league.
The Astros are having as much fun as anybody in the game right now, turning their clubhouse into "Club Astros" after each victory. The place comes complete with a fog machine and strobe lights, and as USA Today's Bob Nightengale revealed, reliever Pat Neshek ordered $1,000 worth of new gadgets to add to the special effects.
"I don't know how big league it is, but it's fun," Neshek said. "When the season is done, I'm going to use it for Halloween."
If, that is, the Astros don't happen to be playing that night. Game 4 of the World Series is expected to be played on Halloween night.
4. Dodgers Get Depth but No Ace
Maybe it will work. Lord knows, the Dodgers have more money than the U.S. Mint and more prospects than anybody this side of the Chicago Cubs.
But come October, with the team in another year of attempting to play in (let alone win) its first World Series since 1988, will Alex Wood and Mat Latos be enough following Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke in a seven-game series?
I wrote last week that the Dodgers needed to acquire David Price or Cole Hamels, and October will tell.
For now, they're happy with their three-team, 13-player blockbuster with the Braves and Marlins that also added veteran Jim Johnson to their bullpen. And they're comfortable with a roster-building strategy in which they're happy to suck up the bad contracts of rivals if it is an avenue to also acquire prospects without having to deal many of their own.
The Dodgers now are paying a staggering $86 million to players who are not playing for them this season, among them Matt Kemp, Dan Haren, Michael Morse, Bronson Arroyo, Ryan Webb and Hector Olivera, who was shipped to the Braves in the deal.
"I think [Los Angeles' financial resources] factors in just like players do in terms of everything is negotiated," Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers' president of baseball operations, said on a conference call last week. "There are times where we've given up players, there are times where we've taken on contracts.
"It's all part of negotiation, and we have that ability to do that and/or supplement with players. I think it increases the likelihood of getting a deal done. Trades are incredibly difficult to make by nature, and having added financial ability increases your ability to do so."
As for electing not to fork over a big package to acquire an ace like Hamels or Price when some of the Los Angeles fanbase would have preferred that, Friedman explained how the Dodgers are continuing to balance the present with the future.
"I get that and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the passion our fans have for our team," Friedman said. "We all share the exact same goal, which is to win the World Series. Everything we've done since the middle of October is with that goal in mind.
"It is not only about winning in '15, it is about creating something we can sustain for many years and put many championship banners up. We're perfectly aligned, and everything we're doing is working toward that."
That's all well and good, but maybe the Dodgers could start with putting up just one championship banner, no?
5. Tigers Do the Right Thing
Though they haven't been sellers for more than a decade, credit Detroit with following its head instead of its heart in deciding to deal David Price, Yoenis Cespedes and Joakim Soria.
GM Dave Dombrowski and his people agonized over the decision, wanting to believe that a second-half run was in the Tigers. After all, if, during spring training, you would have told them that come mid-July, Justin Verlander would have zero wins and Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez mostly would not have been healthy at the same time and that the Tigers would still be within three games of a wild-card slot, they would have taken it in a heartbeat.
Still, ultimately, the Tigers recognized fool's gold when they saw it. They still hope Verlander pulls it together this year, but by missing so much time early, it always was going to take time.
Meanwhile, aside from Price, Detroit's pitching has been awful this summer. There were no hints of the sustainability it would take to make a serious World Series run this year, so the Tigers wisely moved toward 2015 by acquiring young pitching.
6. Weekly Power Rankings
1. Jon Stewart: Comedy Central star and fervent Mets fan's final show is Thursday, leaving his autumn open to attend World Series games at Citi Field. Now, answer me this: Fake news or real news?
2. Wilmer Flores: Talk about a league of his own. Flores wins over baseball fans everywhere by showing there actually is crying in baseball. You just have to play for the Mets to do it.
3. Taylor Swift: Her Minute Maid Park concert was moved to Sept. 9 from Oct. 13 because of a potential conflict with Houston Astros playoff games. Hey, look: Swift is as bad as baseball writers at predictions!
4. A.J. Preller: From rock star GM to being unqualified to even carry Swift's bags, in the eyes of national media who were so sure the Padres would be sellers.
5. Larry Lucchino: Says he will step down as Red Sox president at season's end. I'm hearing he may have one more run left in him. Could a return to Baltimore, where he got Camden Yards built, be in store?
7. David Price's Travelogue
If you weren't following Price on Twitter as he attempted to drive from Detroit to Toronto to join the Blue Jays, you missed epic drama:
8. Medicine in Milwaukee
Carlos Gomez has a bad hip, the Mets say.
No he doesn't, say the Astros, who immediately acquired him after New York pulled the plug on the deal.
Understandably, Brewers GM Doug Melvin was miffed. So, too, was a certain agent who represents Gomez and got off the line of the week:
9. Rock 'n' Roll Lyric of the Week
The trade deadline has passed and football training camps are opening, which should serve as fair warning: Whatever you do, make sure to squeeze everything you can out of the few remaining weeks of summer. That said, some sage advice from the band playing Boston's Fenway Park this weekend:
"Wrote a note said 'Be back in a minute'
"Bought a boat and I sailed off in it
"Don't think anybody gonna miss me anyway
"Mind on a permanent vacation
"The ocean is my only medication
"Wishing my condition ain't ever gonna go away
"Cause now I'm knee deep in the water somewhere
"Got the blue sky breeze blowing wind through my hair
"Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair
"Sunrise there's a fire in the sky
"Never been so happy
"Never felt so high
"And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise"
—Zac Brown Band (feat. Jimmy Buffett), "Knee Deep"
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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