Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Pérez on a hot streak:
The Marlins suffered their first series loss in a month when they dropped two of three against the Astros this week, though they avoided a sweep with yesterday’s victory. They’ll send their best starting pitcher to the mound today in hopes of starting a new streak of series wins. Most think of Sandy Alcantara or Edward Cabrera when thinking of the Miami rotation, but it’s 22-year-old right-hander Eury Pérez who increasingly looks like the staff leader for the Fish. The towering 6’8″ righty was regarded as the top pitching prospect in baseball prior to his 2023 debut, and he’s picked up right where he left off after missing 2024 due to Tommy John surgery. Pérez has roared back with a 2.70 earned run average, 26% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate in 50 innings.
That’s impressive in and of itself, but it includes a handful of short and uninspiring performances as he eased back into the league. Over his past six turns, Pérez has been borderline untouchable. He’s pitched 34 innings and held opponents to four runs (1.06 ERA) on just 15 hits and eight walks with 37 strikeouts. Pérez squares off against an underperforming Braves lineup that has lost Austin Riley and Ronald Acuña Jr. to the injured list within the past ten days. A win today would get Miami back to .500, but the Marlins are still six back in the Wild Card chase.
2. Reds push for Wild Card:
The Reds took a step forward in the NL Wild Card this week when they took two of three from the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Chicago is the top Wild Card team, but that series win coincided with a four-game slide in Queens that leaves Cincinnati just three games behind the Mets entering play today. New York is off today, meaning that the Reds have an uncontested opportunity to make up ground as they push towards a potential spot in the postseason. In order to capitalize on that opportunity, however, they’ll need to take down the Pirates during a game started by superstar Paul Skenes. The righty has a 2.02 ERA and 2.41 FIP in 138 innings of work this year.
Despite his status as a frontrunner for the NL Cy Young award, Skenes enters today looking to bounce back from a rough start at Coors Field where he surrendered four runs in five innings of work against the Rockies. The Reds will counter with Brady Singer, who has a 4.36 ERA in 22 starts but is coming off back-to-back gems against Tampa Bay and Atlanta where he struck out 18 batters in 13 1/3 innings of one-run ball.
3. Encarnacion to undergo MRI:
It sounds as though Jerar Encarnacion’s stretch of poor injury luck is continuing. Giants manager Bob Melvin told reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle) that the slugging outfielder will miss some time after suffering a hamstring injury in yesterday’s game. He’s scheduled to undergo an MRI today to determine the severity of the issue. Encarnacion has made it into just ten games this year due to a broken hand, an oblique strain and now this hamstring issue. The 27-year-old made an improbable return to the majors in 2024 after demolishing Mexican League pitching, signing with the Giants and going on a similar tear through Triple-A. He’s belted seven homers in 149 plate appearances since reaching the bigs late last year, though a lack of walks (3.4%) and plenty of strikeouts (27.5%) has left him with an overall .231/.255/.420 slash.
The Reds kids are playing their keister off despite their front office’s tepid help at the deadline.
Let’s hope they pull it off despite that, even though it will probably encourage more cheapassery in the future.
Jed Hoyer and Nick Krall could learn from Boston in how to extend your young superstars.
Even though I sound like a film critic, two thumbs up at that one.
De la Cruz is a Boras client so he’s not signing, and CES looks more like a one year wonder. Looks like they did the smart thing and traded India before he tanked. Steer they could try and expend but he looks more like a complimentary player than a franchise one. Also these Delirium beers are fing good yo
Only Stephenson, Abbott and Lodolo
Mike Trout is 34 today.
Batting .240, and for a 162 game pace is at 210+ strikeouts and 2 WAR to go along with bad defense at an unimportant position.
Can”t field anymore, can’t run anymore, can’t hit for BA anymore. The occasional HR, that’s all there is left with him. It’s past time for him to retire. He has never been the same since 2019 and in fact, the red flags were already appearing in 2019. But 2019 was still a prime performance season for him despite that. .
He’s also taking a boatload of walks which is why his OPS+ is 130, a very serviceable number for a rightfielder/DH.
He’ll retire when he wants to and not a minute sooner and he’s earned that right.
Also, no one retires and gives up money they’re rightfully owed.
The first year of the contract was 2021. In other words, the contract has been a disaster since day 1. Easily one of the very worst contracts in sports history and he is already half a decade into reaping the full financial benefits of such a disastrous contract. The decent thing for him to do would be to step away from the game with the hundreds of millions he has already been paid. Or restructure his contract so he isn’t a complete anchor on the payroll and on the team. He would be worth a roster spot at around $10 million or less, not $37 million. And the game will eventually retire him if it comes to that. He can’t play as long as he wants.
Bitb
“The decent thing for him to do would be to step away from the game with the hundreds of millions he has already been paid.”
The decent thing for you to do would be quit commenting.
Trout is still average among the world’s best baseball players. You can’t even reach that level among the wretches of the MLB comment section.
“The decent thing for him to do”
The decent thing for teams to do is properly pay young stars the 100’s of millions they’re worth for the value they offer in the early peak years of their careers.
When that happens (which it never will) then your comment about players doing ‘the decent thing’ at the end of their careers might be a little more relevant.
Bitb
“The first year of the contract was 2021. In other words, the contract has been a disaster since day 1. Easily one of the very worst contracts in sports history and he is already half a decade into reaping the full financial benefits of such a disastrous contract. The decent thing for him to do would be to step away from the game with the hundreds of millions he has already been paid. Or restructure his contract so he isn’t a complete anchor on the payroll and on the team. He would be worth a roster spot at around $10 million or less, not $37 million. And the game will eventually retire him if it comes to that. He can’t play as long as he wants.”
Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?
Rough night?
Rough life?
Trout may be able to play as long as he wants. He may not. You certainly don’t know that.
It seems like you were fine with trout being paid the minimum when he was the best player in the world but get a little bent out of shape when he underproduces his contact. Why is that?
Per FanGraphs, Trout’s career production is $670 million. He’s been paid…less than that.
If anyone owes anyone, the game owes him.
Hope you feel better soon
Paid the minimum while he was the best player in the world?
If you recall correctly, Trout made a big, unprecedented stink in the media about not being paid more money when he was all of 21 years old and already a multimillionaire with all of 1 single season under his belt. Moreno gave him the biggest salary jump in history for a player of his service time because of it and gave Trout a mega contract (his first mega contract) very soon after that.. But Trout tried to play it both ways, saying he was ‘just focusing on the game and not the salary stuff’, pretending he was above it, while at the same time having his agent make a big unprecedented stink in the media about it.
“Paid the minimum while he was the best player in the world?”
Yes
In his first full season, 2012, when he lead the majors in WAR, he was best player in the world at the major league minimum.
You, who woke up this morning a decided to rant about him being overpaid and needing to give money back to the team, try to minimize that he produced $65 million in on-field value while being paid $0.5 million because he “made an unprecedented stink” about giving away $60 million in value.
Direct question: why do you think a player give back their salary when they are paid more than they produce but don’t think a team should give a player additional salary when they produce more than they are paid?
Trout didn’t give away “$60 million”, he didn’t give away anything. He was being compensated in the same manner that every player before him and after him has been compensated. Trout just decided that the standard practice applied to every player before him shouldn’t apply to him and to therefore make a big public thing in the media about it, while also trying to have it both ways by pretending that it was really just his agent involved in it and pretending that he was above the situation. Never before or since have I seen a player do what Trout did with his public money grubbing, especially while being a 1 year service time MLB player who was already a multimillionaire at 21 because of his draft pick. .
Cb
“no one retires and gives up money they’re rightfully owed.”
Some people do. It’s each player’s personal decision.
@JUJH- Very few do… look at the Strasburg situation as a prime example of not leaving money on the table for retirement. He dragged it out for over a year when the Nats tried to not pay him his full contract. He only retired once the $245M was guaranteed to him, just over a longer period of time.
Bitb
“Batting .240, and for a 162 game pace is at 210+ strikeouts and 2 WAR to go along with bad defense at an unimportant position.”
A well above average hitter and at worst an average player.
Trout is almost certainly better at his chosen career than you are.
Trout isn’t leaving almost $200 million on the table any time soon so don’t hold your breath waiting for him to retire
Curious to bring him up in an article that doesn’t mention Trout. Also, how much thought/research did you put into your rant because in the 58 games since returning from the IL for his knee (something that is used in hitting) he has a slash line of .272/.412/.475/.887 with 19 xbh, 48 walks & 78 strikeout.
Sure the strikeouts are high but projected over a full season he’s putting up a slash line better than Kyle Tucker.
As he’s been a DH since he returned, his defensive metrics are based on a small sample size on a bum knee.
His stats from before his latest injury are just as valid as his other stats. That’s like when people say ‘well, he gave up 5 runs in the first inning, but then he really shut them out for the rest of the game, so it was actually a good outing’. Last year, it was .220 BA, . 325 OBP. .850 OPS and a 4 WAR pace beginning in 2023. Not even close to previous career norms.
So, every time he doesn’t perform well, it doesn’t count because there’s some excuse that for it? Asking rhetorically.
4 WAR pace overall 2023-2025, but much worse this year. He can’t field anymore, he can’t steal bases anymore, he can’t run in general anymore except for certain exceptions, he can’t hit for BA anymore, soaring strikeout levels (Adam Dunn level), and he is at an .850 OPS and a 4 WAR pace (2 WAR average actual production) from 2023-2025. He’s done, he’s cooked.
Bitb
“he is at an .850 OPS and a 4 WAR pace (2 WAR average actual production) from 2023-2025. He’s done, he’s cooked.”
How have you decided that a player hitting 32% better than the league average and putting up 3.6 bWAR per 600 PA is “cooked”?
Trout right now is almost certainly better at baseball than you are at anything that you do.
@Backinthebleachers
How will you cope with and endure five more years of Mike Trout misery? I suggest a diary or calling your local radio station daily.
Can you use the doll to show us where Mr. Trout hurt you?
You just described Cabrera’s last three years in a nutshell. Leave the hate behind.
Encarnacion: Giants best cut their loss and trade him in the off season (for not much). With Devers on board, there really is no place for him.
Cut what loss? The Giants have little invested in him. They signed him less than 15 months ago, so they’ve invested very little in development.
I agree there’s probably limited playing time next season with Devers and Eldridge at 1B/DH, but he can also play the OF. I don’t think they should trade him, as you say, for very little. I’d keep him in Sac as depth for the inevitable injuries.
Everyone’s doing the fish. Yeah yeah yeah
Marlins are playing good ball and they owe it all to the pitching staff. If they actually invest in some offense next winter to go with the pitching they could be a playoff contender
Marlins really feel like they could be this year’s Tigers. If anything, they’re ahead of where the Tigers were last year. The Tigers didn’t stick to .500+ until August 24. The Marlins are a series win away from getting to .500.
It seems like the Marlins are always on the cusp of respectability, but then something catastrophic happens with their roster or front office that jeopardizes all their progress.
Why haven’t you posted anything about Jen Pawol being the first woman to umpire a major league game?
That’s not a lady..