Bryce Harper duking it out with some Giant pitcher. Anyone know what the deal is with Buster Posey staying glued to home plate? I don't recall ever seeing a catcher less interested in coming to his pitcher's defense. Even the 72 year old ump got to the mound faster.

In another clip I saw, the pitcher had to be carted off the field by three of his teammates, whom he was fighting off pretty violently. What a temper! Reminded me of Carlos Zambrano from about ten years ago.

I'm not sure Strickland is just "some Giants pitcher." He's been pretty good for them for a few years now and was the prospective closer until they signed Melancon. I'm pretty sure he's pitching a lot better than Melancon this year, too.

That's an interesting point about Posey, though. Maybe he has instructions from Bochy to stay out of trouble and stay healthy. They need his bat.

As the pitcher I obviously would not love that non-intervention. On the other hand, in this case I'm pretty sure Strickland is a lot bigger and more intimidating than Posey. Maybe he just didn't seem like he needed the help. The dude's pretty jacked for a pitcher.

I saw a post-game interview with Posey where he said something along the lines of, "I could see Harper's point." I don't follow NL teams much, but my impression was Posey thought Strickland was a meathead and that he was on his own if he wanted to throw at batters for no particular reason. Apparently Strickland was upset about a couple of home runs Harper hit off him ... in 2014!

Has to be one of two things, we may never know for sure.

1) Posey thinks, crap, this nutcase just pegged Harper. i'll be the receipient of the National's payback. More likely, it's
2) Strickland has not let the two bombs he allowed to Harper in the 2014 playoffs "go" yeet. Strickland tells Posey before the game that he's going to "get" Harper if the situation presents itself. Advises Posey to stay out of it (perhaps in some recognition of Buster's recent concussion issues?).

I'm a Giants fan. Still, it seemed as if Strickland was completely off his rocker and really didn't mind handling the Harper matter by himself. He is an ox and dutifully was the winner of the fight.

What's wrong with Jake Arrieta?

He's having Baltimore flashbacks.

Something seems to have happened to Arrieta around last June.

His first 14 starts of 2016 he was 11-1 with a 1.74 ERA. This was right in line with his terrific 2015 Cy Young season when he went 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA.

Then for the rest of his 2016 regular season (17 more starts) he went 7-7 with a 4.31 ERA. In the post-season he rebounded a bit, going 2-1 with a 3.61 ERA in 4 starts.

Thus far in 2017 he's 5-4 with a 4.92 ERA in 10 starts.

So since last June (31 starts including playoffs), he's gone 14-12 with an ERA of 4.42.

Quite a drop from his 2015/first half of 2016 numbers.

Arrieta? I don't think there is anything "wrong" with him in the sense of something being awry. He is pitching around what he is, and we take a great season/season and a half and believe that's who should continue being. He had a career year in 2015 (years, if you include his short inning pitched season of 2014) and appeared to "get good" upon relocation to the NL. Any newness his brought from Baltimore to Chicago is now gone. The scouts and analytics guys have caught up to him. His dominance was in his age 28 and 29 seasons. He's 31 years old now. These are just a few of my thoughts regarding another player who had a peak career year and is now expected to keep it up.

You're probably right, but it's still a bit shocking to see a pitcher's ERA+ number go from 215 to 131 to 85 in three straight seasons (that last one will improve after this afternoon's start, where he pitched 6 innings and allowed 1 earned run in a no decision).

Couple of highlights from tonight's games:

Twins turn 5-4-3 triple play vs. Angels

Abad fans Schoop on 60 MPH pitch

Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen now owns the MLB mark for most strikeouts to begin the season without a walk. Jansen has 39 strikeouts over 22 innings and has yet to issue a base on balls.

Impressive as all get out. Jansen's bb/9 is off the hook too.

Posted by crazystengel on 6/3/2017 2:19:00 PM (view original):
Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen now owns the MLB mark for most strikeouts to begin the season without a walk. Jansen has 39 strikeouts over 22 innings and has yet to issue a base on balls.

What a turnaround. It seems like a lot of closers just need to control the walks to be elite, but never do (looking at you Carlos Marmol). This is one of those success stories.

Scooter Gennett has just hit his 4th homerun in ONE GAME!

SCOOTER


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GENNETT