Everyone likes a little attitude from their players, but sometimes youngsters straddle the line between immature and obstinate. Drafted in the 8th round in 2007 by the Tampa Bay Rays, Matt Moore was one of those players. Immensely talented and confident, Moore’s attitude was a cause for concern as the Rays coaches tried to smooth […]

When Derek Jeter recorded his 3,000th hit last week, he became the first player in four years to reach the milestone, with the most recent before him being Craig Biggio during his farewell tour of 2007. Over the next four years, though, we might have as many as four more guys hit the milestone and […]

Some conversations in life you just don’t forget. Eight years ago Saturday, I was an intern in the Milwaukee Brewers’ media relations department on my way back from visiting friends at Purdue when I had the following exchange with my mom somewhere in between West Lafayette and Merrillville, Ind.: Mom: “Hey Matt, did you hear […]

We took care of the NL Rookie of the Year this morning. Now, it’s time for the AL Rookie of the Year. I wrote about this race a couple of weeks ago, and talked about how Michael Pineda seemed to have the award all but locked up. Did the staff agree with me? Let’s take […]

As we’ve reached the All-Star Break, I polled every one of the 12 writers here at the Outside Corner to determine who the staff picks for the major award winners are. We did the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP awards for each league. The Rookie of the Year voting will be unveiled […]

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  And by “me,” I mean Eric Wedge and his Seattle Mariners who for the second time in nine days fell victim to a three-ball walk. You would have thought that the Mariners would have learned their lesson after losing a game last week […]

First, I would like to say congratulations to Derek Jeter on reaching the fabled 3,000-hit milestone and for doing it in such dramatic fashion.  It is truly a great accomplishment in a great career. Second, I would like to say… yaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwn. No disrespect Captain Jetes, but waiting for you to reach 3,000 hits is like […]

I’ve seen some Cincinnati Reds fans complaining about Jay Bruce’s production this year, so I was fairly surprised to see that he was actually hitting better this year than last year (relatively speaking). Bruce went 3-4 yesterday, hitting a home run plus walking twice to help lead the Reds over the Brewers. That brought his […]

The scene doesn’t need to be set a ton. David Ortiz and Kevin Gregg were going at it all at bat in the eighth inning in Boston last night. After Ortiz popped out to right, Gregg yelled something at him and was ejected. Ortiz responded by storming the mound and throwing some vicious punches at […]

The Royals lost to the Tigers yesterday, as starter Kyle Davies got touched for 5 runs in 6 IP. That moved his season ERA to 7.74 and his record to 1-8. It seemed like during the game that many, many Royals’ fans were questioning why Davies was still in their rotation. The joke about KC […]

I’m sure you’ve all heard the news by now: Angels super-prospect Mike Trout has been called up from AA, and will make his major league debut tonight against the Mariners. Trout has been discussed on the site before, in a Minor Leage Monday feature a couple of weeks ago, but Mark didn’t exactly expect Trout […]

This was talked about on ESPN’s Baseball Today podcast on Thursday, and got me thinking. Jeff Karstens of the Pirates is having a very interesting year. In the 98 2/3 innings he’s thrown this year, he’s only walked 18 batters. That’s excellent, a rate of 1.64 per nine innings, which ranks among the best in […]

Even before Shelby Miller threw three straight no-hitters, he was a big-time prospect, but when he intimated a high price tag and had a brief period of wildness, his stock dropped him out of the very top draft picks in 2009. The St. Louis Cardinals, however, took him with the 19th pick and banked on […]

Sports writers aren’t considered among the upper crust of society’s intellectuals. But few have left the yard as spectacularly in recent memory as the Chicago Tribune‘s Steve Rosenbloom in his latest blog entry. Rosenbloom, for the uninitiated, has made a career out of pushing buttons — think a lower rent, more entertaining Jay Mariotti. He pulls no punches […]

History will show that the Texas Rangers defeated the Oakland Athletics 6-0 on July 7, 2011. An insignificant occurrence in the grand scheme of things if there ever was one because if nothing else, sports are a momentary distraction from the things that do matter in life. But for one family and in particular, one […]