Get it?
I jest.
Ba dum bum.
Also, the Yankees manager said the same thing:
“We’re behind the eight ball early, and that makes it tough,” Boone said. “Outside of the strikeouts, I thought the at-bats were building off of last night. I thought we grinded it out really well. We made it really tough on Kremer; we couldn’t finish it off.”
Just kidding.
Rizzo is now 0-for-29 with two outs and RISP for the season.
But he did get a single. His first hit since his breakout 4-for-4 game vs. the juggernaut Royals.
Prior to that game vs. the Royals, Rizzo felt different. Then, he hit his first home run in two months and this lifted a weight from his shoulders.
Since then, Happy Anthony has one hit in 13 at-bats.
If you count GIDPs as two outs, it's minus-one hits in 13 at-bats. That really ought to be a thing ... counting GIDPs as minus-one for one.
This isn't a big mystery.
Four players got old quick.
Donaldson wasn't a shock and he was a bad signing. Stanton has always been a one-trick pony, and now he's more like a pinch-hitter than an MVP candidate. The sudden declines of LeMahieu and Rizzo are devastating and shocking.
I like how Peraza goes in to pinch run for Rizzo and gets an RBI hit with two outs and RISP. For the season, Peraza is 1-for-4 with two outs and RISP.
For the season, Rizzo is 0-for-26 with two outs and RISP.
Rizzo's July is worse than his June.
He hasn't homered in two months.
He is 0-for-25 with two outs and RISP this season.
He apparently hurt himself a bit a couple of months ago ... strained his neck or whatever.
Without researching the situation with any rigor, I think he might be the worst starting first baseman in the major leagues. His WAR for the year is 1.1.
(I was wrong, by the way. I researched the worst teams in MLB and quickly found Nick Pratto of the Royals with his WAR of -0.3.)
So Rizzo is not the 30th-worst. He's the 29th-worst. Yeah, yeah, and some teams may have platoons, so ... whatever.
Rizzo is garbage this year, he has been garbage since Judge went on the IL, and if Rizzo dare to use an injury as an excuse for this performance, it will be an unforgivable sin in Baseball According to Felz.
This nugget dropped at the end of an article about the new hitting coach:
"The Yankees headed into the break with Giancarlo Stanton hitting .203 and Anthony Rizzo hitting .168 with no homers and seven RBIs since hurting his neck in a collision May 28. Josh Donaldson is batting .152, while DJ LeMahieu is hitting .220 after slumping last September because of a toe injury and then missing the playoffs."
I don't wan to hear about the Rizzo's injury or LeMahieu's injury.
I think it's true that perhaps Ohtani's June 2023 was the most remarkable month in MLB history.
But I'd also like to make a case for New York's own Anthony Rizzo, whose June 2023 flew a bit under the radar, but was also quite remarkable:
AB: 75
R: 9
H: 13
RBI: 5
2B: 4
3B: 0
HR: 0
BA: .173
OB%: .311
SLG%: .227
No one closely followed Judge's home run pursuit until the last month of the season.
Also, outside of New York, was it really that big of a deal?
I think Verducci is intentionally misremembering:
"The Marlins play game No. 81 on Wednesday at Fenway Park—halfway through their season—and Luis Arraez still is making a realistic bid to hit .400. On the difficulty scale in today’s game, it is harder than hitting 61 home runs."
Except it isn't a realistic bid.
Arraez is going to have one bad week and then then run out of time.
The numbers are going to get more and more impossible. Like, "if he bats .440 in his last 200 at-bats, he can still finish the season at .400."
"It’s just not as highlight-friendly to see the Marlins second baseman carving out his hits with an average exit velocity of 91.3 mph as it was to see Aaron Judge smashing home runs at an average speed of 109.0 mph last year."
Judge had a mammoth first half last season which set the stage for the AL record-breaking season.
But I distinctly remember at the All Star Break that 62 home runs was just a vague idea ... and even then, about half the crowd still gave deference to Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa.
Nobody has hit .400 since Ted Williams in 1941.
In those same 82 years, 61 home runs have been achieved eight times by five players (Roger Maris, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Judge)."
Sure.
Aside from the obvious PED retort, we're only halfway through the season.
Nobody has come within 20 points of .400 in a full season since 1980, when George Brett hit .390."
Forget .400?
So forget the whole reason I'm reading this?
Look, it's amazing. I think Arraez is getting a lot of attention, actually. I'm not sure who Verducci is arguing with.
I personally hope Arraez does it because some of these Mount Rushmore players should get challenged once in a while.
But he isn't going to.
Arraez is probably going to finish the season over .350, which is amazing enough.
The only way he's going to bat .400 for the season if he he gets hot, creeps over .400, and then stops at the minimum number of at-bats.
McKinney is batting .302 with four home runs in 53 at-bats.
Bauers isn't going to the All Star Game or anything, but he has a worthwhile .492 slugging percentage in June.
Meanwhile, Rizzo has zero home runs in June in 88 at-bats.
In addition, Rizzo is 0-for-22 this season with two outs and RISP.
“Sometimes it happens,” Germán said through an interpreter. “It’s hard to figure out where the issue is; if it’s mechanical, the release point. Are they adjusting or seeing the pitch well? You’ve got to keep working. It doesn’t stop. You’ve got to find what kind of solution you can apply and put it to work.”
He needs the spider tack. No one wants to say it out loud.
Over the past 15 days, Stanton and Rizzo each have just three hits for a combined 6-for-71 with one home run. They’ve struck out 19 times in that span. LeMahieu’s bat has cooled off as well with a 5-for-27 (.185) stretch.
“It is a cop out to just talk about how Judge is the only reason why they win. Because it’s not true. As great as he is, Rizzo had a good year last year,” McMonigle said. “He’s a good player and he’s absolutely lost out there… He is in a funk. He is killing them.
“Stanton is going through his normal not only the month he’s gone but the month it takes to get back into his groove. There are guys on this team.
“I’m sorry. I refuse to just believe the blanket statement that they’re just a 4-8 team. They’re one of the worst offenses in baseball. They’re one of the worst teams in baseball without Aaron Judge. I refuse to believe it. They’re playing as such, at the moment, because their guys who need to step up haven’t just not stepped up, they’ve been in absolute fogs and it’s hard to explain.”
Inspired by Rizzo's bit two-run hit with RISP when the Yankees were down 13-1, I decided to examine his "clutch" stats in 2023.
Two outs, RISP: 0-for-19.
"The Mets and Yankees play their first Subway Series games of this season at Citi Field starting on Tuesday night, a few days before the 26th anniversary of the first Interleague game between the two teams at the old Yankee Stadium on June 16, 1997. A Met journeyman named Dave Mlicki shocked himself and the world by throwing a complete-game shutout that night, and a rivalry that had existed only in the imaginations of New York baseball fans was finally joined in a game that counted."
Dave Mlicki shocked the world, didn't he?
Residents of several sub-Saharan countries still remember where they were the day Dave Mlicki shut out the Yankees.
I'm not going to read the rest of this.
The talk of the town is that this is the least interesting Subway Series ever, espeically with Alonso and Judge on the IL.
If a couple of fourth-place teams want to talk about bragging rights, fine by me. Grown ups can spend their money as they wish. I encourage everyone to enjoy baseball on a beautiful Tuesday evening in mid-June.
But if Lupica wants to post articles on a national website while posing as the Voice of New York, he can't say the 2023 Subway Series has juice ... and start the whole stupid thing by brining up Dave Mlicki.
I'm Mike Lupica and I'd like to say: Mookie Wilson, Buck Showalter, Alex Rodriguez. Mike Piazza, Roger Clemens, Dae-Sung Koo, Brett Gardner.
Gleyber also almost hit a home run in the ninth inning the other day. Then he popped up. Then the Yankees lost.
"They are 16-25 since they came back from their West Coast trip on April 23. It’s as if the dark air afflicting New York City had followed them all the way to Atlanta. Considering the expectations they brought with them from last season’s 101-win campaign to this one, they are as much of a disappointment in the National League East as the Phillies, a World Series team that is a half-game worse than the Mets at 29-32."
No mention of payroll?
"You'd think $110 million would be worth one half of a game."
I mean, in some ways, Lupica deserves credit for finally addressing the subpar Mets. But he also tips his hand for the millionth time. The lack of snark from King Snark is quite noticeable.
Lupica dutifully lists five reasons that are nothing more than a ten-minute perusal of the team stats ... but Lupica just won't admit that maybe he was Wrong About Everything.
"$300 million doesn't buy what it used to, huh? Am I right, everybody?"
"It was Bill Parcells, Showalter’s old friend, who famously said you are what your record says you are. The Mets are two games under .500. Still a long way to go. It won’t matter if the Mets aren’t a lot better over the next 100 than they have been over the first 62. The snakebit team needs to start biting back."
My pal Showalter said they are unlucky, so they must be unlucky.
"The Mets were well on their way to defeating the Braves in Atlanta on Tuesday night, but one inning dashed those hopes."
If it wasn't for that one inning where the Braves scored four runs, the Mets probably would have won.
Also, if it wasn't for that one inning where the Mets scored four runs, the Braves would have shut out the Mets.
But if you don't count those innings, and you don't count the other two runs by the Braves, the score was actually 0-0.
"After starter Carlos Carrasco gave up a second-inning solo home run to Ozzie Albies, the veteran was cruising through the Braves lineup. Two two-run homers from Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso put the Mets up comfortably 4-1, and Carrasco was on the verge of his third straight dominant start when the sixth inning started."
A three-run lead in the sixth inning in Atlanta in not a comfortable lead by any means.
"The battle between the pitcher and the hitter is the ancient core of baseball. Everything in this team sport emanates from that one-on-one duel at 24 paces contested an average of 76 times each game. The odds are stacked in the pitcher’s favor. The pitcher initiates the action. The hitter does not know what is coming. Measured by keeping the batter off base, the pitcher wins 68% of these duels."
So with all the pitch stealing, the league's on-base% is .320.
"But what if the hitter knows what’s coming? The ancient balance flips. Such knowledge can be gained legally, such as a runner at second base relaying signs to the hitter, or illegally, such as the 2017 Astros misusing in-game technology to steal and relay signs."
The ancient balance flips, I guess is that happens.
I don't care.
I don't think it makes much of a difference.
I think it's fair game if you use technology to identify patterns and then ask a batter to figure out those patterns.
It's also easy to combat. The pitcher can use the same technology and wait for a big 2-2 pitch to switch it up.
"'It’s a rather slippery slope,' says the club executive. 'I fall on the side of if it’s something you’re picking up in real time, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s fair game. But this method just doesn’t seem fair to me. And my concern, even if it’s, quote, unquote, "legal now," is that someone’s going to take it too far.'"
I don't think when the person says "quote, unquote" that you have to write down the words "quote, unquote." You just put the subsequent words in quotes.
I root for him specifically because he was unfairly lumped in with Hicks and Gallo in 2022. In 2022, IKF was better than Hicks and Gallo combined ... for a fraction of the cost.