April showers have come and gone, only for May to bring… more showers. Lovely. Seriously, it’s been a while since we’ve had this many days in quick succession in Illinois where the sky has just opened up and dumped buckets of water on us. As I write, it looks like more rain could be coming soon too. I can’t complain too much. All this rain means no hauling water, but still. And, hey, rainy days are a perfect excuse to stay inside and watch some baseball.
Bee Game! Bee Game! Bee Game!
If you were around baseball Twitter (I’m not calling it X) at all last week, you are no doubt aware of bee game. As the Diamondbacks and Dodgers prepared to get underway at Chase Field, a swarm of bees claimed a spot atop the protective netting behind home plate. Naturally, out of fear that someone would disturb the insects with a foul ball and incur their wrath, the game was delayed as the D-Backs scrambled to find a beekeeper.
Already, that was a perfect setup for some peak baseball weirdness and the internet was abuzz (I’m sorry) about the bees. Strange delays aren’t an entirely uncommon thing in baseball, though. Animals have gotten on the field, sprinklers have accidentally turned on, power has gone out during night games, etc. What turned the bee delay into an all-time moment, however, was what came after the colony established a foothold on the net.
Matt Hilton of Blue Sky Pest Control, who happened to be about 30 minutes away at a tee-ball game to watch his son play, was called on to save the day. He left the game early, made MLB aware of the equipment he’d need, and sped to Chase Field a full 70 minutes after the first pitch was scheduled to be thrown. When he stepped on the field and waved to the crowd, he was greeted with a roar of excitement that only continued as he climbed on a scissor lift and made his way up to the bees with tools in hand. As he humanely sucked up the black and yellow buzzers, the stadium supplied him with his own pump-up music – Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero.”
For his part, Hilton played into the insanity of the moment. How could you not? When is a beekeeper ever going to get a chance to have a crowd of fans at a baseball game cheer him on while he does his job again? He made the most of his spotlight by pumping everyone up as he came on and off the field, making him an instant fan favorite. The Diamondbacks awarded him for his efforts by letting him throw out the ceremonial first pitch, which he did in style. He even got a Topps Now card to commemorate the moment.
I love this story for so many reasons. It’s exactly the kind of crossover between baseball and the weirdness of the normal world that catches your attention and begs hypotheticals. Imagine if, one day, you were called into your favorite team’s stadium to perform your job in front of a roaring crowd to get an MLB game underway while “Holding Out for a Hero” blasted in the background. It sounds like pure fantasy, but Hilton got to live it, and it was awesome.
Luis Arraez Traded to the Padres
We are still MONTHS away from the trade deadline, and yet, the first major swap of the year has already occurred. The Miami Marlins, who are off to a dreadful 10-27 start and are already 15.5 games back in their division, decided to ship off two-time batting champion Luis Arraez to the San Diego Padres for a package featuring Korean reliever Woo-Suk Go as well as three promising, if relatively far off, prospects – Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee, and Nathan Martorella. On top of everything, the Marlins are swallowing almost all of Arraez’s $8.5 million to get the best return possible.
There’s a lot to say about this. On the one hand, it’s another affirmation from the Padres that they’re still going all-in this year despite offloading Juan Soto on the Yankees. Before the season began, they acquired Dylan Cease from the White Sox as a way of improving the team after getting rid of one of their tentpole offensive players. Arraez isn’t hitting as well as in recent years (.303/.350/.375/110 wRC+), but he’s still one of the best contact hitters in the game and is sure to only further improve a Padres team with baseball’s third-best offense by wRC+ (119).
The Marlins, on the other hand, deserve some scrutiny. They are almost certainly not making the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean that firing off such an early move was wise. In total, Miami received San Diego’s #6, #9, and #13 prospect, along with Go, who had been pitching in the Padres’ Double-A affiliate. It’s not a bad haul, but for close to two years of Arraez, it seems a bit light. Normally, trades of this sort are rare and, at least in the mind of Marlins president Peter Bendix, a deal this large wasn’t likely to come along again. There’s still a significant lack of star power that has figures throughout the industry worried about the long-term outlook for the Marlins with this trade and wondering if it would’ve made more sense to wait for more desperate teams to come calling at the deadline.
Whatever the case, the deal flips on the bright red “For Sale” sign above LoanDepot Park. Already, Jed Hoyer and the Cubs have reportedly been kicking the tires about a deal for a reliever, though nothing is close yet. Josh Bell, Tanner Scott, Tim Anderson, and more are likely next on the chopping block as the year goes on.
Shōtamania
It is Shōta Imanaga‘s world and we’re all just living in it. The Japanese rookie has been electric for the Chicago Cubs through his first six starts and is starting to find himself among historic company as he evokes the run of Fernando Valenzuela. Before a seventh dazzling performance on Tuesday night, he had a beyond impressive 5-0 record with a 0.78 ERA, only giving up three earned runs through his first 34.2 innings and notching 35 strikeouts against only four (!) walks. On top of everything, the Cubs have yet to lose a game with Imanaga on the bump. The Throwing Philosopher is MLB’s best pitcher thus far, and national outlets are starting to notice.
In a recent ranking of offseason acquisitions by front office executives, Imanaga placed first with nine votes, over double that of the runner-up and only other candidate to receive multiple tallies, Shohei Ohtani. Granted, part of that is likely down to efficiency. Although Imanaga’s 1.4 fWAR is dwarfed by Ohtani’s 2.7, Imanaga only took $53 million across four years and a complicated structure of options to sign (not including the posting fee). Part of his extreme success is his unassuming 92.3 mph fastball which, despite not seeming that intimidating in this era of fireballers, grades out as the most valuable pitch in the sport.
All eyes are now on the 30-year-old Imanaga as the frontrunner for Rookie of the Year in the National League. Some regression is expected – he’s a fly ball pitcher who has yet to get bit too much by the long ball and he’s stranding a remarkable number of baserunners – but even then, he still figures to be a very good player for the rest of 2024.
Aaron Judge Earns His First Career Ejection
Aaron Judge is not a player I would consider confrontational, so it’s fitting that his first career ejection was, indeed, very non-confrontational. The Yankees slugger was tossed from Saturday’s game against the Tigers by home plate umpire Ryan Blakney after a little disagreement over a strike three call in the 7th inning. Before that happened, Judge was frustrated and had a few words for the umpire, but he never appeared to say anything beyond what hitters typically utter if they’re a little miffed about balls and strikes.
Unless Judge says something particularly vicious in that brief turn back to Blakney, it sure doesn’t seem like an ejection was warranted. At least, the way he tells it, that doesn’t seem to be the case. “I was walking away kind of saying my piece,” he said after the game. “I’ve said a lot worse. [The ejection] made a scene, and I usually try not to make a scene in situations like that, so I was a little surprised walking away that it happened.” He’s always come across as very respectful and understated, so I’m inclined to believe that nothing out of the ordinary was said, especially with the way the video plays out. It just looks and feels like an overreaction from Blakney.
It didn’t matter in the end, as the Yankees ended the game as winners 5-3, but that ejection officially takes Judge out of the running to join the list of never-ejected MLBers. Such a lineup includes the likes of Ernie Banks, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and fellow Yankee great, Derek Jeter to name a few.
Weekly Weird: C.B. Bucknor Takes the Ball and Goes Home
I mean, I feel kind of bad for not putting the bee delay here, but it received a dedicated segment. You already know how weird it is. Instead, I’m going to throw it to C.B. Bucknor. Often considered one of the worst umpires in the game like his peers Angel Hernandez or Hunter Wendelstedt, Bucknor delivered a vintage terrible call to end the game on Saturday between the Cardinals and the White Sox. St. Louis had the bases loaded with two outs in extra innings and a strike well off the plate was enough to wipe all of that away and end the game at 6-5.
What tips the scales from being merely another bad call to a weird and kind of funny (except for Cardinals fans) ending, however, is that the final out came after a THREE-HOUR DELAY. So Bucknor went behind the plate after all that and decided “We’ve wasted enough time, one batter is enough,” and uncorked that stinker of a final strike. If that were my team, I’d be LIVID. What a giant middle finger. Any other team? That’s oddly funny.
Bunting For Power 