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. There is a magic and a mythos to Minor League Baseball, from its homey stadiums to its zany promotions to its eclectic ballpark eats, that captures the attention of smalltown communities across the country. Now it's captured the attention of one bigtime celebrity, "Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver, who is making an entirely earnest pitch to teams across the Minors: Let him help you rebrand. A true baseball fan and, more specifically, a Mets fan, Oliver has said he started rooting for them when he joined Jon Stewart at "The Daily Show" in 2006, though he also knew that "as a real sports fan in England, it's just not acceptable to come to America and support the Yankees." But his latest foray into the sport was a segment on his Emmy-winning show that was entirely dedicated to Minor League Baseball, highlighting all that is truly wacky and wonderful about it, which our own Ben Hill has of course been doing for many years in his "Baseball Traveler" newsletter (subscribe to it here, we can't recommend it highly enough). Oliver ran through just a tiny portion of the countless outstanding ballpark promotions happening every day across the Minors, even touching on some that have hilariously gone wrong. He cherry picked some of his favorite team names, including the Rocket City Trash Pandas. But we want to focus here on the way he ended the segment. |
"I have a very special offer," Oliver said. "We are willing to use all of our resources and stupidity to give one Minor League Baseball team a total rebrand. We will give you a new team. A new mascot. We will even throw you a theme night. It will be personalized and it will be bespoke." The only catch: Whichever team is picked has to submit entirely to whatever Team Oliver conjures up – "no questions, no notes." It's a bold proposition and one that clubs across the Minors are already clamoring to be a part of. The Lake County Captains, of Toilet Row fame, are not flushing away this opportunity. The Reno Aces are throwing their hat in the ring. The Hartford Yard Goats took a different tack: "John Oliver should let us rebrand him. Never trust a man with two first names," the team joked on its social media account. Since we're nothing if not accommodating over here at The Pregame Lineup, we thought we might send Oliver down the right path, starting with those Reno Aces. The city of Reno, Nevada, is named after Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer who was killed in battle during the Civil War. His son, Jesse Wilford Reno, was the inventor of the first working escalator. So we submit, as a starting point, the Reno Escalators, which might be just weird enough to work with if Oliver's willing to take the climb. -- Scott Chiusano |
CARDINALS: SPEED IS THE NEW POP |
There's been a lot of talk about cardinals and smoke today, but those other Cardinals have been a bit busy burning up the basepaths thanks to one man named Victor Scott II. In fact, Scott's speed has proven so prolific that he's pretty much in scoring position once he reaches first base. Yesterday, the St. Louis speedster twice scored from first, one of those times doing so on a single. That's a nice luxury to have for a team that's middle of the pack when it comes to power numbers (only five NL teams have hit fewer homers this season than the Cardinals have). Scott's wheels are impossible to miss with your eyes, but the numbers bear it out as well. He's tied for the third-best average sprint speed at 30 ft/sec and has 24 bolts (third most in baseball), which are defined as any run where a player's sprint speed is at least 30 ft/sec. Teammate Jordan Walker said it best after witnessing Scott running wild yesterday: "He might be the fastest baseball player I've ever seen." |
• Phillies @ Rays (7:05 p.m. ET, FREE on MLB.TV): Winners of eight of their last 10, including the first two games of this series, the Phillies send superstitious southpaw Jesús Luzardo and his definitely necessary specs to the mound tonight. That's not great news for the Rays, both because he has a 1.94 ERA and because they have been shut out six of the last eight times they have faced a left-handed starting pitcher. |
• Reds @ Braves (7:15 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The Braves have been steadily creeping their way toward .500 after that much-discussed 0-7 start. Though things are looking up, their offense has hit a bit of a rough patch over the past seven games, a span during which they scored just 18 runs but managed to go 3-4. The Reds snapped a four-game losing streak with a win last night that was tempered by Hunter Greene exiting early with a groin injury. |
• Dodgers @ D-backs (9:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The Dodgers begin their first series of the season against an NL West team not named the Rockies, and the reigning champs will be out to prove this division still runs through them. They have ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the hill, armed with a minuscule MLB-best 0.90 ERA. For the D-backs, it's their first divisional clash of the season, and starter Brandon Pfaadt had the Dodgers' number last year, picking up the win in both of his outings against them. |
Eye gold is the new eye black. At least for A's star Lawrence Butler, who on Wednesday afternoon made a fashion statement with his glimmering cheekbones. The A's announcers were a bit perplexed about whether this was more for flair than flare protection, but it's never been totally clear if eye black actually has much utility. Either way, they chalked it up to "look good, play good," and Butler promptly hit a two-run homer. |
Can you Beat the Streak? Try to top Joe DiMaggio's record hitting streak of 56 games by selecting a player each day to record a hit. If you get to 57, you can win $5.6 million. Plus, new for this year, a chance to win unique weekly prizes. Angels shortstop Zach Neto is currently riding a 12-game hit streak entering tonight's game against Toronto, and he's batting .354 with seven extra-base hits in that span. |
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