Troy Tulowitzki has arguably been the best player in baseball this season, leading the National League in slugging percentage and OPS while hitting .347 with 16 home runs. Unfortunately, he's expected to miss four to six weeks after breaking a rib, and his reputation as a brittle player is further cemented.
We're about a month out from the All-Star Game at Citi Field in New York, so it's a good time to take stock of how the All-Star rosters might be shaping up -- after all, the debate of who goes to the game is usually much more interesting than the game itself.
Let's get the negative stuff of the way: 1. I've never been the biggest Carlos Gonzalez fan, always skeptical because of his severe home/road-batting splits throughout his career with the Rockies; 2.
The evening began with the OTL report that MLB seeks to suspend Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Bartolo Colon and others named in the Biogenesis scandal. But the night turned into a reminder of what makes the sport so great.
Andrelton Simmons won the Defensive Player of the Month award in our voting for May. We've done the gushfest on Simmons' defense already a few times in this space, so we're going to keep the synopsis on his month brief and focus on a couple of the runners-up.
It's a fantasy that would certainly appeal to Marlins and Astros fans, or Mariners and Cubs fans, and probably fans of several other franchises: If every player in baseball became a free agent and salaries didn't matter and there was gigantic expansion draft -- in other words, if we just gave this whole thing called Major League Baseball a reboot -- what would happen?
Some thoughts on Sunday's MLB games and other stuff ... It's getting more and more difficult to paint a positive outlook for the Nationals, other than it's still early June. Nate Karns started Sunday, exposing the team's lack of rotation depth, as the Braves won 6-3 to take the series.
Haven't done one of these all week, so some quick thoughts on Thursday's games ... I was watching the Detroit Tigers-Pittsburgh Pirates last night but on my laptop I had on the Kansas City Royals-St.
Yesterday, we looked at the last time each American League club drafted a player who became an All-Star -- whether for the franchise or another. The Cleveland Indians had the longest drought: CC Sabathia was the last All-Star they drafted and he was selected way back in 1998.
The first-place Cleveland Indians strode into Fenway Park on Thursday night to face the Boston Red Sox, which normally wouldn't be significant but the return of Tribe skipper Francona to the place he managed to two World Series titles in his eight-year stint made it so.
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