Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today's games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Thanks for being here. Not all sluggers do it the same way. Some blast baseballs with brute force. Others just know exactly where to hit 'em. Take the Dodgers' Mookie Betts for example. He doesn't have your prototypical slugger size -- he's 5-foot-10, 180 pounds. Nor does he have top-notch bat speed. But he's an elite hitter all the same, one who puts the ball in the seats on a regular basis. How does he do it? As David Adler details, much of Betts' power production is derived not from how fast he swings or how hard he hits the ball, but from where he hits it. Specifically, the high volume of balls he hits in the air and to his pull side -- something that's reflected on Baseball Savant's new batted ball profile leaderboard, where you can track the tendencies of any hitter going back to the start of the Statcast era in 2015. Betts isn't alone. Across the Majors, you'll find a legion of smaller hitters generating big-time power with the same strategy, whether it's the Guardians' José Ramírez, the Red Sox's Alex Bregman, the Astros' Jose Altuve or the Mets' Francisco Lindor. None of these players look like Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani (If you're a visual learner, see Altuve standing next to Judge.) But all have had multiple 30-homer seasons. |
Statcast also now allows you to delve into the intricacies of every player's batting stance and contact point. (Definitely worth checking out. It's both highly informative and really cool.) One of the things this new data confirms is this: Hitters do the most damage, and hit the most home runs, when they contact the ball out in front of their bodies, which also happens to be the easiest way to pull the ball in the air. For smaller power hitters, this can be especially important. When any one of Betts, Bregman, Ramírez, Altuve or Lindor goes deep, in all likelihood, they caught the pitch out in front. With this approach, they're consistently proving that some sluggers are just built different. -- Thomas Harrigan |
BROTHERS AND SISTI'S (WE'LL EXPLAIN) |
It's National Siblings Day, the perfect time to call your brothers and sisters and apologize for that time you blamed them for something they most definitely did not do (if my brother is reading this, that's never happened). It's also the perfect time to remember some of baseball's best brother duos, which the great Sarah Langs ranked based on combined WAR, with a few stipulations. And if you're wondering which player named Brothers has the most career WAR, well I don't need Sarah for that. That'd be Rex Brothers, a reliever for nine seasons in the bigs. OK, you got me, he's the only big league player with the last name Brothers (apologies to Dan Brouthers). Special shoutout to Sibby Sisti, though, who debuted as an 18-year-old in 1939 for the Boston Bees and played a pivotal on-screen role in the movie The Natural as the opposing manager who calls in a reliever to face Roy Hobbs in the climactic scene. As Sisti would say later of the fictional pitching change: "If they ever make a Natural II, I'm going out there again. But this time, on the first pitch, [Robert] Redford's going down on his ass!" -- Scott Chiusano |
"Chest hair. Gut's out. Bucs win." Did Pirates backstop Joey Bart start a fashion trend, or create a glorious team slogan that not even "clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" can top? We're going with why not both. Bart (no homer involved here) is not the first to have his jersey ripped off in a spontaneous moment of ecstasy after a walk-off win, but nobody has rolled with it quite the way he did. It wouldn't be very surprising to see some "Chest hair. Gut's out. Bucs win." T-shirts around PNC Park as soon as, like, next week. Hopefully, those shirts will stay intact. |
Admittedly we are stretching the definition of this category, because by the time you're reading this there will be only two games today not yet underway. And yet here we are, giving you good reasons to watch them both. You're welcome! • Blue Jays @ Red Sox (4:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The Blue Jays have looked like a different team this week with Vlad Jr. newly extended, and they've taken the first three games of this series. A sweep would be a real cherry on top of that $500 million sundae. |
• Phillies @ Braves (7:15 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The first two thrilling games of this set have been befitting of two bitter NL East rivals, despite their very different records. Spencer "Spell Check" Schwellenbach (eight scoreless with 10 K's in his last start, nickname not officially sanctioned) gets the call as the Braves try to pick up their first series win of the season. |
IN CASE YOU (BLINKED AND) MISSED IT |
We have a need to discuss speed. Last night, Marlins Minor Leaguer Emaarion Boyd swiped six bases. That alone has not been done in the bigs since 2009, and yet it's not even the half of what made this speed demon's night so impressive. Boyd did all this without recording a hit. So if your eyes did not make it all the way across the box score, you'd see a pretty ho-hum 0-for-1 performance from Boyd. No Major Leaguer has had six steals in a game without a hit since at least 1901, which we don't have to tell you is a while ago. |
Pick one of the day's games, open up your board and see if you can get bingo with these baseball occurrences. Then sing to yourself, and bingo was his Nomo. Play free >> |
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