Clayton Kershaw's Perfect No-Hitter

People say all the time no-hitters are overrated. The reason being is usually one or two happen a year plus there are some like Edwin Jackson where they walk eight batters, hit one, yet still get a no-hitter. People revel in the perfect game with 27 up and 27 down because it is much more rarefied air. Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw added a no-hitter to his resume last night in an 8-0 victory against Colorado, and it was not an overrated one by any means. Kershaw had quite possibly one of the best no-hitters in Major League Baseball. That is said without overreaction or hyperbole.

The only reason Kershaw didn't deliver the perfect game was Hanley Ramirez had an error at shortstop. Not a walk, but an error by the shortstop. Kershaw didn't walk anyone to lose his no-hitter.  In fact, he had only one count that reached three balls all night. This means out of the 28 batters Kershaw faced on Wednesday night, only one of them saw a three ball count. For reference, that would be .03 percent of the batters. What's possibly more impressive about Kershaw's no-hitter is it came against Colorado, one of the best hitting teams in baseball. Coming into the game, the Rockies led the lead in runs, only team with 700 hits, lead in doubles and home runs. Kershaw shut them down like Jon Taffer does to a kitchen serving under-cooked chicken.

Kershaw's no-hitter also featured him striking out 15 batters, a career-high for the Dodgers left-hander. He came within two strikeouts to tying Nolan Ryan for the most strikeouts when throwing a no-hitter. Kershaw struck out every batter whom started the game at least once. Josh Rutledge was the only player without a strikeout in the starting lineup, and Kershaw dusted him with a curveball in the eighth inning. For percentages, Kershaw struck out 53.5 percent of the batters he faced last night. Additionally, Colorado has only 528 strikeouts as a team this season, the only team with less strikeouts in the National League is the St. Louis Cardinals. No one should ever say this no-hitter is overrated.

Kershaw is moving into the category of one of the best to play the game.  With only being 26 years old, he is just beginning the prime of his career. Pedro Martinez went through a stretch from age 25 to 32 where he was virtually unhittable earning three Cy Young's in four years. I don't think it is out of the question to think Kershaw could do the same thing. There was some concern this year for him with the injury to begin the year, his blow-up start against Arizona, but the last month has been masterful for Kershaw as his ERA has gone down a full run. No-hitter probably aided it a little bit, yet he is rounding into form at the right time as the Dodgers push a struggling San Francisco for the top spot in the National League West.

In the last couple years, Kershaw has became a player where if he faces your team, you have to see him. That's how Randy Johnson was in his career, same for Martinez and Roger Clemens. Right now, if the Dodgers are playing Milwaukee at Miller Park and Kershaw is pitching one of the games, I am going without question. It doesn't even matter that the Brewers will likely lose the game, it's not about the win or loss. Rather it is about watching one of the best to ever play the game and telling those you have seen Kershaw pitch a game whether he dominated your team or not. He is that special of a baseball player.

Game Score is a stat by Bill James where it values the strength of a pitching performance. Kershaw scored a 102 which is the highest in Major League Baseball for any pitcher, and the second-highest in history next to Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game. Kershaw's no-hitter was not your prototypical one where the pitcher survives a couple walks here and there, no it was a perfect game by a pitcher with one mistake by a position player.

Charlie.

Changes to Interleague Rivalries Needed

For the last two years, Milwaukee and Minnesota have been playing a split four-game series during the week.  It is a part of the new Major League Baseball Interleague system as Houston Astros made the transition to American League giving both leagues 15 teams. This meant we would have an interleague series every series turn with two divisions playing each other along with the ‘rivalry’ matchups getting a four-game series during the week so each team would get two games at home.  This officially needs some fine tuning after two years because it is hurting baseball’s economy with ticket revenue.  How to fix it is pretty simple actually and it is beyond me why MLB hasn’t thought about it before.

The four-game weekday series works for only four interleague rivalries.  Those are Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox, Oakland A’s vs. San Francisco Giants,  New York Yankees vs. New York Mets  and Los Angeles Angels vs. Los Angeles Dodgers. The reason why it works for these four rivalries is the opposing fanbase can make it to the other team’s venue with ease drawing a bigger crowd.  When you have something like Minnesota-Milwaukee which is a six-hour trip, no one is making the trip to Milwaukee on Monday or Tuesday.  Cleveland and Cincinnati, Tampa Bay and Miami are other examples where it makes things difficult for the opposing fan to travel elsewhere.

This doesn’t stop at the box office either. Sure, most people coming into town will spend more money. They might buy a Hank t-shirt, stuff animal, etc, but they are also seeing the game at better seats.  Further, usually these opposing fans are probably staying at a hotel which is more revenue for the city along with spending money in the variety of bars and restaurants across the city. It might not be significant revenue unless the opposing team is really good and bringing in a great deal of fans, but it still is something missing in the last couple years.

Honestly, the series haven’t been as much without having Twins fans all over the city. As they have struggled, we haven’t seen as many around Milwaukee in the past couple years, but it is a good-hearted rivalry.  Additionally, it is really fun to be in an opposing ballpark giving the other fans shit in a scenario like this one.  You start singing Jason Kendall’s name like clocktower (JAAAAAAY-SON KEN-DALLLLLL, JAAAAAY-SON KEN-DALLLLLL) and talking about football in June because at times, Vikings fans have small-man’s syndrome (Love you guys).  MLB is taking away all of these things away from Brewers and Twins fans along with other rivalries around the league.  Hopefully, this is the last year with these split series during the week.

If they decided to these series on the weekend where MLB had four-game series split with Thursday/Friday being at the first place with Saturday/Sunday being at the second place. MLB can flip it every season allowing for both teams getting the weekend games.  This would still help drive people to the opposing ballpark. It is a lot easier to take off work at the end of the week telling the boss, ‘We are going to see Brewers-Twins in Milwaukee and spending the whole weekend down there.’  Taking two days off work and probably staying an extra day to party is not the worst thing in the world. Most people are not taking off Monday and Tuesday because one, there is not much nightlife happening and two, many people don't want to come back to their job on Wednesday.

The other thing baseball could think about is adding an extra series to interleague.   I doubt they want to do something like this because do you really want each team to get a weekend series with their interleague rival versus an extra division series?  Odds are probably not, but if they could figure out a way to make a schedule work, that would be the dream honestly. The one place where I could see them finding a way is trying to subtract an inter-division series.  But is it really beneficial to have them play another interleague series versus inter-division matchup like Arizona-Milwaukee?  For revenue standards, no question about it, but for potential playoff record against the National League, it could be troublesome.

This is one of the minor things the new commissioner will have to address next season.  Four-game series aren’t affecting the players rather it is affecting the fans whom want to cheer their home team in a city not their own. 

Charlie. 

Yasiel Puig Dominating Bat Flip Life Per Usual

First of all, I am celebrating a lazy day. We are coming close to Memorial Day weekend and since I have stuff to write about on Friday and Monday, I need to get a free day in here. That's what today is since I had to work during the morning and had no motivation when I came back. I am sure this makes me a bad blogger, Chuck's Corner type shit, but we have nearly 1,500 hits out of the goddamn blue so that's cool. Also what's pretty cool is Yasiel Puig bat flipping with random people even if these people have awful reasons to bat flip and probably haven't watched baseball in the past decade. Puig is the man, and he would probably be one of the only non-Brewers jersey I need to own.  Related, Fat Joe is Kinda Fat Joe these days. We will back in full force tomorrow, definitely a song tonight, maybe a post tonight if I get my shit together. (H/T Barstool Sports) 

What's Magic Johnson's true involvement in Donald Sterling Situation?

Conspiracy theories can be some of the best cocktail party fodder while at the same time, it can drive you insane trying to figure out a rhyme or reason as to why something happened usually a major event. Conspiracy theories more times than not make the person whose making the case for it look complete crazy leading to all sorts of criticism. But the best is when someone floats out a conspiracy situation that ends up coming true in the end after all. The Donald Sterling situation presents itself to a conspiracy and makes me wonder if Magic Johnson could ever own the Los Angeles Clippers.

Adrian Wojnarowski came out with a story late Sunday night that Johnson and his investment group, the Guggenheim group had been trying to buy the Clippers. He went after their neighbors, the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Buss family rejected their group meaning Magic had to look to the Clippers about becoming the owner and taking over the city once and for good.  Johnson denies he wanted to own the Clippers, but just think about how much of this is all falling into place for him. 

Everyone knew Sterling was a racist before the tapes came out, but it did nothing to cause him to lose his NBA franchise. There is no reason why Sterling should have a basketball team before this issue even happened with his estranged girlfriend Adam Silver meets with the media in three hours, and it seems like Sterling will be suspended b the league with the intent that he sells the team. Several owners have spoken out against his words plus many advertisers have either pulled out for the rest of the games this season or for following year. The latter could be the biggest reason why Sterling loses this team is if the ad money disappears, the NBA nor does the team makes any money. NBA doesn't want to deal with Sterling in the coming years meaning this is the perfect excuse to get rid of them. 

Magic's group features many multi-millionaires and some billionaires as well meaning there are a ton of people whom know what it takes to make business deals happen even if it takes extreme measures. V. Stiviano, Sterling's ex-girlfriend said Sterling asked her to tape what he said allowing him not to forget the different things he said on a daily basis. This makes sense seeing as Sterling is 80 years old and probably senile. It did feel like she baited him a bit into answers, but that's not to be debated here. We all agree Sterling is a racist, but Stiviano pushed him in the direction. What question needs to be answer to clear conspiracy thoughts is Magic's relationship with Sterling's ex-girlfriend. 

If it is the only one time meeting, then it probably was all her doing without any involvement from Johnson. But if they somehow knew each other throughout the years which is entirely possible given Sterling having a relationship with Magic throughout the years. She could have played the tape for Magic and he could have been the leak, not her. That we will never find out, but think about how well of a position Magic is in if Sterling does get the ax.  The league will take control of the team and look towards Magic and his group given all their success with the Dodgers. If people think the NBA would ignore Magic's desire to buy a team, you have no concept of how important and powerful it would be to have one of the best players in league's history to have his own team. 

It also very possible Stiviano got sick of Sterling's shit and made sure he would save the racist things to ignite an outrage. That's the fun part about conspiracies.  You never really know how the outcome will play out in your favor. This is not a hit job by Johnson and his group rather it don't think it is unreasonable to think Magic had his hand somewhere in here. He is one of the most revered men in sports as many see him in such a high regard which leads people to not dig around very much. Johnson denies wanting to own the Clippers, but you cannot tell me he wants a piece of the pie.

Charlie. 

SnoTap Baseball Thing of the Day: Pineda's Pine Tar, Swaggy P & Lucky Toilets

About two weeks ago, we talked about Michael Pineda probably using pine tar on his hand to doctor the baseball. He did it again versus the same opponent, but used it on his neck. C'mon dude. Make it a little less obvious here. It is not like you are trying to cover up a hickey or sunscreen as it is the middle of April. Yankees are on their high horse pissed about it while the Red Sox are saying 'Nahh, it's not that important."'



Swaggy P also known as Nick Young has been everywhere lately and he cannot throw the baseball to save his soul.

Evan Longoria keeps a mini toilet in the Tampa Bay Rays dugout. Why? We don't know!  He wouldn't tell the reporter, but the story is interesting enough for me to link it out. I also would like to attribute the success of the Rays to this toilet.

Charlie.