You can be forgiven if you didn’t stick around for the Phillies’ loss last night in Los Angeles. I barely made it past the fourth inning. But there were some encouraging signs out of Spencer Howard. He more or less held his velocity into the fifth inning, his curveball had some nasty break to it (ask Mookie Betts about the one in the first inning), and he just generally looked better. He made two mistakes of course, but he wasn’t helped at all by the home plate umpire’s “fluid” strikezone. You don’t want to blame umpires, but that guy was horrendous. All in all, though, a good start for Howard.
On to the links.
Phillies news:
- This weekend’s Phillies-Giants series will, for some reason, be broadcast only on Peacock.
- The Phillies can overcome their flaws and become buyers headed into the trade deadline. Here’s how.
- Outside of last night’s game, the Phillies have been hitting the ball well in June. Is that a good sign or just a blip on the radar?
- Jean Segura is the “Steph Curry of baseball”. So says Andrew McCutchen.
MLB news:
- The news has leaked out about what type of punishment pitchers will face if caught using foreign substances. It should look very familiar.
- Spider tack is the big stuff that pitchers use. Why is it so popular?
- Look out: the Braves are one of the team’s that should be able to add payroll at the trade deadline.
- Cleveland suffered a huge blow as they had to place Shane Bieber on the injured list, the pitcher not being able to throw for the next two weeks.