Archives › Craig Calcaterra
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Future scouting report: ”Great upper body strength. Good batting eye. Fluid swing. Well-developed , V5 region of his visual cortex. Good looking girlfriend, so he clearly has self confidence …” In a study published today in the journal Neuron, UC Berkeley researchers used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to pinpoint the prediction mechanisms in the brain that enable hitters to…
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David Ortiz is off to an great start. So of course he must be cheating. At least that’s Dan Shaugnessy’s thought process: I went to Ortiz Tuesday afternoon in the Sox clubhouse and put some hard questions to him. I told him he looks dirty. Did he hear the fans in Toronto chanting, “Steroids!’’? “No,…
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Indians 4, Athletics 3: Angel Hernandez said there was not enough evidence with which to overturn the original call of double on Adam Rosales‘ would-be game-tying home run. Of course, the replay clearly shows that it was a home run, with the ball hitting off the railing above the wall. This is pretty simple: If…
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This morning we linked Adam Kilgore’s story about the Nats’ silly policy of not allowing fans to exchange tickets from rained out games for any other game, subject to availability. Rather, they required fans to use the tickets for the makeup game. Which, in the case of last night’s rained out game against the Tigers…
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Matt Harvey gets the overlaid gif treatment. And it’s spectacular
May 8, 2013, 4:30 PM EDT
Matt Harvey‘s outing last night was otherworldy dominant. To see exactly why, you have to go check out Drew Sheppard’s latest at FanGraphs. Drew is the guy who made that Yu Darvish gif mashup that went viral, but this one is both instructive and cool. There are multiple gifs on the post showing strikeout sequences…
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90 percent of pitchers are using spray-on sunscreen, Buchholz-style
May 8, 2013, 3:30 PM EDT
Jeff Passan picks up the thread Dirk Hayhurst and Jack Morris pulled last week regarding Clay Buchholz‘s start against the Jays and accusations that he was doctoring the ball: Two veteran pitchers and one source close to the Red Sox told Yahoo! Sports that about 90 percent of major league pitchers use some form of…
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Don’t know! And neither does ESPN’s Jayson Stark. But Stark does have an excellent lay-of-the-land piece up today. What makes it good is that, unlike all of the “it should be George W. Bush, it should be some broadcaster, it should be some famous person” chatter that always comes up, Stark actually discusses what the…
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Roy Halladay to have shoulder surgery; could still pitch this year
May 8, 2013, 2:30 PM EDT
As promised, Roy Halladay addressed the media a few minutes ago. The verdict: he has bone spurs in his shoulder as well as a partially frayed labrum and rotator cuff. CSNPhilly has the whole story here. That sounds scary and, yes, it is serious. But there’s an optimistic angle to it all too: the labrum and…
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Kay and I talk about Pujols and about J.A. Happ.
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On the one hand, a pitcher with shoulder trouble addressing the media following visits with a specialist is kinda ominous sounding. Especially when rumors — denied by both the team and by Halladay’s people — have swirled that Halladay may choose to retire if his diagnosis is grim. On the other hand, Charlie Manuel was…
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The Tyler Cloyd era is … go! Jim Salisbury reports: The Phillies will bring up Tyler Cloyd to start in Roy Halladay’s place Friday night in Phoenix. Cloyd, who turns 26 a week from Thursday, is 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA in six starts at Triple A Lehigh Valley this season. Salisbury reports that Ruben Amaro chose…
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UPDATE: Great news: Happ is out of the hospital: J.A. Happ has been released from Bayfront Medical Center. He has a bandage around his head and was on crutches. #BlueJays #mlb — Chris Fischer (@ChrisFischer07) May 8, 2013 Not sure what the crutches would be for given that he was listed as having a…
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This isn’t like our friend OldHossRadbourn, tweeting from beyond the grave in an over-the-top manner parodying 19th century attitudes. Shoeless Joe Jackson’s Twitter account is a straight-up exercise by the Chicago History Museum and its archivist, Peter Alter, who is seeking to put some historically accurate words in the mouth of a figure most know…
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Beware, Gatorade coolers of the Atlantic League: In case you missed it, Carlos Zambrano has signed with the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League. #Cubs — Carrie Muskat (@CarrieMuskat) May 8, 2013 Zambrano joins quite a famous assemblage of toasted talent on the Ducks roster, as Dontrelle Willis and Vlad Guerrero are already…
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Hanley Ramirez had an MRI on the hamstring he injured on Friday. And the expected happened: a strain was found, and the Dodgers’ shortstop is going to miss 4-6 weeks. Dee Gordon is going to likely get most of the reps at short, seeing as Bill Russell ain’t walkin’ through that door.
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Jose Iglesias is sitting on the PawSox’ bench for attitude reasons
May 8, 2013, 10:30 AM EDT
Jose Iglesias, late of the Red Sox but now of the Pawtucket PawSox, has maybe the best glove at shortstop of anyone in the game at any level. But he’s been sitting on the Triple-A bench since Saturday. Why? He’s leading the team in ‘tude, reports CSNNE’s Sean McAdam. Iglesias has failed to run out…
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Absent a sitcom-like case of frying-pan-to-the-head-induced amnesia, they won’t let him. But Victor Martinez would love to get behind the plate: “Hopefully by the end of the season I’ll be able to get behind the plate.” Martinez said he could catch right now if the Tigers asked him to. “I’m pretty healthy,” he said. “That’s not…
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This isn’t good: J.J. Putz left his appearance last night because of elbow stiffness. Putz has been struggling so far this year — he’s allowed six runs on 12 hits and eight walks in twelve and two-thirds — and perhaps this is the reason why. If he is DL’d, the Dbacks’ options at closer are David Hernandez,…
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My snark at Matt Harvey‘s alleged lack of The Will to Win continued on to Twitter this morning, where I decided to be a pest to the MLB Network people: .@mlbnetwork if no one asks Harold today if Matt Harvey’s game last night was lacking because of no W, you guys are committing malpractice. —…
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The Nats-Tigers game was rained out last night. It’ll be made up on Thursday at 4:05PM. If you held tickets to last night’s game you cannot, as fans of most other teams can and as the Nats used to allow fans to do in the past, use them as a rain checks for any future…
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Mets 1, White Sox 0: For as good a pitcher as Matt Harvey is, something is clearly wrong with him given that he did not get the win in this game. The object of the game is to win it, Matt. You clearly lack The Will to Win, as I’m sure Hawk Harrelson mentioned during…
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I’m pretty sure Derek Jeter woulda been a Hall of Famer even without the intangibles
May 7, 2013, 5:42 PM EDT
Howard Bryant’s latest ESPN column considers Derek Jeter. It starts thusly: THE MAGIC OF baseball will always live in the storytelling Pretty lucky for Bryant, given that he’s a storyteller! Anyway: – the grandeur of Ruth, the Midwestern identification with Musial, the unbreakable Robinson and the complex defiance and moral ambiguity of Bonds. It’s what gives…
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That Bo Jackson scouting report from earlier today, I am informed by Larry Granillo, is from the Baseball Scouts Database at the Hall of Fame website. Which is really cool. It has a searchable database for scouting reports on any number of players. I just randomly looked up Randy Johnson’s first archived scouting report from…
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Scroll past the story about the new male strip club in the Castro and you’ll find this item in the San Francisco Chronicle: . . . the San Francisco Giants have agreed to pay $700,000 in back pay and penalties to 74 batboys, cooks, clubhouse attendants and other workers after a federal audit concluded the…
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John Farrell was on MLB Network Radio today and was asked about his closer situation, what with Joel Hanrahan leaving Monday’s game with forearm soreness: “We’d look to close Tazawa, keep Koji in the 8th inning role. Fortunately we have some depth internally” Koji being Koji Uehara, of course, who many probably assumed would be next…
