Video: Benches Clear After Blue Jays Bean Rays' Kevin Kiermaier Over Data Card Theft
Sep 22, 2021
TAMPA, FL - SEPTEMBER 22: Ryan Borucki #56 of the Toronto Blue Jays speaks to Kevin Kiermaier #39 of the Tampa Bay Rays after hitting him with a pitch in the eighth inning during the game at Tropicana Field on Wednesday, September 22, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Carlson/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The supposed truce between the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays lasted just seven innings.
In the bottom of the eighth Wednesday, the Jays took out the remainder of their frustration with Tampa's Kevin Keirmaier, hitting him with a 93 mph fastball in the numbers and causing both benches to clear.
On Monday, Kevin Kiermaier picked up a card with the Blue Jays game plan and the Rays reportedly refused to give it back.
Today, the Jays hit Kiermaier with a pitch and the benches cleared.
Nothing else come of the fracas, which goes back to Kiermaier picking up a data card dropped by Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk during a play at the plate earlier in the series. Toronto was incensed that their American League East rival had access to its scouting report.
Earlier Wednesday, MLB Network's Jon Heyman reported Rays manager Kevin Cash and Jays skipper Charlie Montoyo cleared the air over the incident. That message apparently wasn't relayed to Toronto reliever Ryan Borucki, who will likely face a suspension unless MLB buys his excuse that he just "missed" with his pitch.
Rays Beat Blue Jays to Clinch 2021 MLB Playoff Spot
Sep 22, 2021
Tampa Bay Rays' Austin Meadows watches his three-run home run off Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Ross Stripling during the third inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
The Tampa Bay Rays are headed to the playoffs for the third straight year after defeating the Toronto Blue Jays 7-1 on Wednesday.
Austin Meadows blasted a three-run homer, Randy Arozarena smacked three hits and six Rays pitchers combined to allow just four hits.
Tampa Bay can finish no worse than the second American League Wild Card spot, but an AL East title appears to be its destiny. The Rays lead the second-place Boston Red Sox by 6.5 games for the division crown with nine matchups left.
They also currently own the AL's best record by three games over the Houston Astros.
The Rays have steadily improved since going 68-94 and finishing last in the AL East in 2016. They added 12 wins in 2017 before going 90-72 in 2018.
That wasn't good enough for the playoffs, but a 96-66 record did the trick in 2019.
Once there, the Rays took the eventual pennant-winning Astros to the five-game limit in the AL Division Series before losing.
The 2020 season saw the Rays win the AL East before taking down the New York Yankees and Astros in the playoffs to take their first pennant since 2008. They pushed the favored Los Angeles Dodgers to six games in the World Series before bowing out.
This year's Rays look primed for another World Series campaign. They have a deep and balanced team once again, and now they've added prodigious power hitter Nelson Cruz from the Minnesota Twins to help them in the stretch run.
Arozarena, Meadows, Mike Zunino and Brandon Lowe provide the pop in this lineup alongside Cruz. Rookie sensation and former No. 1 overall prospect Wander Franco has also starred at shortstop.
The Rays are also excellent in the field, especially with Kevin Kiermaier patrolling center. The three-time Gold Glove winner has led a Rays defense that sits third in the AL in fielding percentage.
The Rays' pitching strength lies in the bullpen, which is a fantastic group that includes a pair of sub-2.00 ERA relievers in Collin McHugh and Andrew Kittredge, the latter of whom is on the 10-day injured list with neck tightness.
Closer Diego Castillo has enjoyed a solid year too with a 2.72 ERA and 14 saves.
The Rays are doing all this despite missing ace pitcher Tyler Glasnow, who underwent successful Tommy John surgery and is out until 2023. Glasnow was 5-2 with a 2.66 ERA and 123 strikeouts in 88.0 innings before being lost for the season.
Tampa Bay has somehow made it work without him thanks in part to pitchers such as Shane McClanahan (9-6, 3.51 ERA) and Drew Rasmussen (3-0, 2.67 ERA).
Now the Rays will search for their first World Series title in franchise history, which dates back to 1998.
Rays' Kevin Kiermaier on Taking Blue Jays' Data Card: 'I Never Even Looked at It'
Sep 22, 2021
Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier reacts after the Rays defeated the Toronto Blue Jays during a baseball game Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier claims he did not look at the Toronto Blue Jays data card that he picked up after being tagged out in the sixth inning of the Rays-Jays game on Monday.
"I never even looked at it, I'll say that," Kiermaier told Arash Madani of Sportsnet. "But at the same time, I'm not going to drop it or hand it back."
Madani provided detail, highlights and more Kiermaier quotes.
Spoke w/ Kiermaier. These are his comments.
Around 5:20 pm, Kevin Cash came out to speak with Charlie Montoyo about it.
The Jays are pissed. As a team source told me, "if there’s one card we wouldn’t want any opponent to have, it’s that one"
The Kiermaier incident brought forth a host of opinions.
"Kiermaier did absolutely nothing wrong," Chris Carlin of ESPN Radio tweeted."Bad on Kirk for dropping it. Sorry."
The Toronto Star had this take, per an opinion piece from Mike Wilner.
Was Kevin Kiermaier scooping up Alejandro Kirk's cheat sheet the morally correct thing to do? No. Would everyone on the #BlueJays have done the same thing? Yes.
Tao of Stieb, a Sportsnet blogger, tweeted this perspective: "I would have more respect for Kiermaier if he just owned it. If he saw it and picked it up, so be it. All this 'aw shucks, I didn’t even, I don’t know, I just handed it to someone and never heard of it again' is pretty fake."
As Kiermaier noted, he did not give the card back.
This incident occurred during a very important series with postseason ramifications for both teams.
Yankees Face Agonizing Dilemma with Gleyber Torres' Fall from Stardom
Sep 17, 2021
New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres gestures against the Minnesota Twins during the sixth inning of a baseball game on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Is it possible that Gleyber Torres isn't long for the New York Yankees?
That this is even a question amid Torres' fourth year in the big leagues is remarkable in and of itself. This is, after all, the same guy who was an All-Star both as a 21-year-old rookie in 2018 and as a 22-year-old sophomore in 2019.
Yet the last two seasons have been a mighty struggle for him offensively, as he's hit just .250 with 10 home runs over 154 games. He's also been a near-constant source of frustration for the Yankees in the field, specifically in the 144 contests in which he's started at shortstop.
In all, the Venezuela native has been worth 0.4 wins above replacement since the start of the shortened 2020 season. That's 6.2 less than he was worth in 2018 and 2019 and among the dregs of players who've gotten in at least 150 games over the last two years.
Mercifully, the Yankees pulled the plug on Torres as a shortstop when they moved him back to second base Monday. The next day, manager Aaron Boone didn't like how Torres neglected to run out a ground ball and banished him to the bench.
The obvious bright side is that Torres will only turn 25 years old on Dec. 13. Another lesser yet significant bright side is that his rights are under the Yankees' control through 2024. Put together, these two things amount to an excuse for patience.
The big question, then, is how much of a project Torres has become. Is he just a few tweaks away from reclaiming his stardom? Or does he need a full-on reboot, preferably in a city other than New York?
What the Heck Happened to His Bat?
It ought to be difficult to explain how Torres has gone from an .849 OPS in his first two seasons to a .687 OPS in his most recent two, but the overarching cause is straightforward.
He used to hit for power. Now he doesn't.
The 62 home runs that he hit across 2018 and 2019 weren't just impressive. They were historic, in that they were the most all-time by a middle infielder in his first two seasons. To go from that to 10 homers in nearly a full season's worth of games is a drastic fall.
Torres' Statcast metrics tell an easy-to-understand story of how his power has dried up. His average launch angle is on a steady downward trajectory, going from 19 degrees in 2018 to 14 degrees in 2021. His average exit velocity peaked at 89.1 mph in 2019 and is at 86.9 mph this year. In short, he's neither getting under the ball nor hitting it hard like he used to.
Dig a little deeper, and an even more ominous culprit for Torres' power outage emerges. Whereas his performance against breaking and off-speed stuff could be worse, his capacity for slugging fastballs has all but disappeared:
You might think this is a swing-and-miss problem, yet Torres' whiff rate against fastballs is actually down from his first two seasons. For that matter, his average exit velocity against fastballs is only 0.2 mph lower than it was in 2019.
Rather, Torres' malfunction relates to how he is (or, more accurately, isn't) turning on fastballs.
A career-low 28.7 percent of the right-handed swinger's batted balls off heaters are going to his pull side. And even when he does pull a fastball to left field, it's generally not with the same exit velocity that he was previously capable of.
The general picture here is that of a hitter who's getting jammed when he tries to turn on heat and yet also gets jammed when he tries to turn on something slower. Either way, he's being cut off from his best field for slugging.
Weirdness like this might be ascribed to an injury, but Torres has been largely the same on either side of last year's hamstring strain and this year's thumb sprain. So unless he has some nagging injury that he and the Yankees are keeping quiet, his real problem is mechanical, mental or some combination of the two.
Observationally speaking, Torres has come to look like a guy who doesn't know what kind of hitter he wants to be. It's hard to tell whether he's seeking something to drive or if he's merely trying to get on base. As a result, he's not doing much of either.
What the Heck Happened to His Glove?
As Torres was coming up through the minor leagues in the mid-2010s, the scouting reports on him were generally positive regarding his defense. For instance, take the book on him from Baseball America at the outset of 2018:
Defensively, there's no reason Torres can't stick at shortstop, but the emergence of Didi Gregorius in New York necessitated that Torres learn other positions quickly. He shuffled around during his brief season, playing 15 games at third base and 10 more at second base before the injury. He has the above-average range and arm to play those positions or shortstop. If he were to land at third base, he would hit for enough power to profile there.
At no point, however, has Torres lived up to this billing. Apart from the five defensive runs saved that he posted at second base in '18, his defensive metrics have been universally below average. Outs above average (minus-28) is especially harsh on him, rating him as one of the worst everyday fielders of the last four years.
Though OAA dings Torres for being bad at making plays to his right, it's the errors that stand out the most. He made nine of them in only 40 games at shortstop in 2020 and 18 in 108 games at short this year.
While it's sometimes unfair to judge a guy by his errors, what makes Torres' boots so infuriating is how avoidable they should have been. As seen here, here and here, he's bobbled too many balls hit right at him. There have also been times when he's botched eminently makeable plays
(see here and here)
with unnecessarily fancy execution.
In fairness, Torres probably doesn't deserve to have 10 throwing errors this year. Some of those (like this one and this one) were more so his first baseman's fault. But said first basemen could just as easily argue that Torres didn't make accurate throws from shortstop as often as he should have. Which, well, fair enough.
If nothing else, all this suggests Torres simply has a hard time focusing when he's in the field. Yet the way in which he's tended to turn relatively easy plays into mishaps also makes it fair to question whether he has the hands or the instincts to play anywhere on the infield, much less shortstop.
Where Do the Yankees Go from Here?
At least for now, it doesn't sound like the Yankees are ready to give up on him.
“We forget he is still a young player,” Boone said, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post. “He’s had massive success at the big league level. I still think there is a chance for him to be an impact player in this league for a long time.”
After his back-to-back lost seasons, however, the Yankees have every reason to wonder if Torres can get back to what he was in 2018 and 2019 without dramatic change.
Whether it's an overhaul of his batting mechanics or some such project, said change could specifically concern him. Or, if what he really needs is someone other than Boone managing him, said change could be one that impacts every other player on the Yankees.
If the Yankees are going to move on from Torres, it almost certainly won't be by way of a non-tender. It's obviously suboptimal that he's already a replacement-level player making $4 million with three more trips through arbitration to go. But at least until his salary starts climbing into the eight-figure range, he's more likely to leave town via a trade.
Should the Yankees pursue that route this winter, they'll surely be selling low on Torres. But that's not to say that they would stand to gain nothing from trading him.
They could find a team willing to do a one-for-one reclamation-project swap. If such a deal were to save the Yankees some money, they would have that much more capital to put toward one of the market's top free-agent shortstops. Think Corey Seager. Or Trevor Story. Or best of all, Carlos Correa.
The only bad decision the Yankees can make is sticking with the status quo. That would mean simply waiting on Torres to go from "broken" to "fixed," which is basically waiting on a miracle.
Aaron Judge Exits Yankees vs. Mets After Experiencing Dizziness During At-Bat
Sep 12, 2021
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone checks on New York Yankees Aaron Judge during a time out against the New York Mets during the first inning of a baseball game on Sunday, Sept.12, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
New York Yankees star Aaron Judge exited Sunday's game against the New York Mets in the third inning because of dizziness, which he experienced during his first at-bat of the game.
"Hopefully, it's something that subsides here over the next little bit, and get him back in there tomorrow," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, per ESPN's Buster Olney
Judge—who was 0-for-2 before exiting the game—was replaced by veteran Brett Gardner.
Prior to this season, Judge had issues staying on the field consistently. The three-time All-Star missed a total of 142 games from 2018 to 2020. His performance did remain strong with a .274/.381/.536 slash line and 63 homers during that span.
Judge didn't have any serious injury woes in the first half of this season. He appeared in 84 of 89 games by the All-Star break. However, the 29-year-old was among six Yankees players who began the second half on the COVID-19 injured list.
Up until a recent slump, New York had fared much better after adding Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo added to its lineup at the trade deadline. Now, the Yankees (79-63) sit a half-game back of the Toronto Blue Jays (80-63) and the Red Sox (81-64) in the American League wild card race.
Judge has been the Yankees best offensive player so far in 2021. He entered Sunday hitting .294/.378/.538 with 32 homers and 79 RBI in 128 games.
Rays' Wander Franco Placed on 10-Day IL with Hamstring Injury
Sep 11, 2021
Tampa Bay Rays' Wander Franco hits a single against the Detroit Tigers in the first inning of a baseball game in Detroit, Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The Tampa Bay Rays placed shortstop Wander Franco on the 10-day injured list Saturday because of a right hamstring injury.
Franco went down in Friday's loss to the Detroit Tigers and was replaced by Joey Wendle. The burgeoning superstar was 1-for-1 before exiting, reaching base for the 39th straight game.
Tampa Bay recalled Taylor Walls from Triple-A Durham in a corresponding roster move.
#Rays Cash said there is 2-3 week timeline for Franco’s return
Franco, who made his MLB debut in June at age 20, is hitting .285/.347/.463 with seven home runs and 36 RBI. He's been spectacular over the last month-and-a-half after a rough start, hitting .313 in August and posting 11 hits in 30 September at-bats.
The injury couldn't have come at a worse time for the Rays, who are looking to maintain their large lead in the American League East and clinch home-field advantage for the AL playoffs. They have built a nine-game lead over the Boston Red Sox and are 5.5 games ahead of the Houston Astros for the best record in the Junior Circuit.
DJ LeMahieu Says Yankees 'Beyond Frustrated' With 7-Game Losing Streak
Sep 11, 2021
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 05: DJ LeMahieu #26 of the New York Yankees in action against the Baltimore Orioles during a game at Yankee Stadium on September 5, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images)
Count second baseman DJ LeMahieu among those who are discouraged by the New York Yankees' recent struggles.
After the Bronx Bombers fell 10-3 to the New York Mets on Friday night to extend their losing streak to seven games, LeMahieu said the recent lack of success hasn't sat well with the team, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today: "I think we're beyond frustrated. But now is not the time to point fingers at anybody. It's not too late to raise our game and collectively get out of it together."
Shortly before the seven-game losing streak, the Yanks enjoyed a 13-game winning streak that took them from out of the playoff picture to the No. 1 wild-card spot in the American League.
Now, entering play Saturday, the Yankees are hanging by a thread to the No. 2 wild-card position, leading the Toronto Blue Jays by only a half-game.
Toronto had been on the fringes of the wild-card race, but after earning a four-game sweep over the Yanks at Yankee Stadium, the Blue Jays closed the gap significantly. Those four losses for New York came on the heels of two straight losses to the 46-94 Baltimore Orioles.
The Yankees were able to keep the No. 2 wild-card spot Friday despite the loss to the Mets since Toronto lost as well.
LeMahieu, for his part, has struggled through a down year compared to his first two seasons in New York.
In 2019, he hit .327 with 26 home runs and 102 RBI, resulting in an All-Star nod, a Silver Slugger Award and a fourth-place finish in the AL MVP voting. Last season, LeMahieu won the batting title by hitting .364 and finished third in the AL MVP voting.
So far this season, his average is down to .268, and he has clubbed just nine homers and 54 RBI as New York's primary leadoff man.
Inconsistency has plagued LeMahieu and the team as a whole this season, and the three-time All-Star acknowledged that fact, saying: "We've been the streakiest team in the league. Either we've been playing really bad or unbelievable. Not a whole lot in between. One good game and the tides can turn in a hurry."
One positive for the 78-63 Yankees is that their upcoming schedule looks fairly easy on paper.
Their next 12 games will come against non-playoff teams in the Mets, Minnesota Twins, Orioles, Cleveland and Texas Rangers. That run will be followed by tough three-game sets against the Boston Red Sox, Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays to close the season.
JD Martinez Scratched from Red Sox Lineup vs. White Sox with Back Injury
Sep 11, 2021
ST. PETERSBURG, FL - JULY 31: J. D. Martinez (28) of the Red Sox hustles down to first base during the regular season game between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays on July 31, 2021 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The Sox previously placed the four-time All-Star on MLB's COVID-19 injured list in August, with manager Alex Cora saying at the time hadn't been feeling well.
The designation interrupted a solid 2021 season at the plate. Through 131 games, Martinez has 25 home runs, 89 RBI and a .286/.353/.528 slash line.
That's a far cry from the shortened 2020 campaign, when he posted a .680 OPS, the second-lowest of his career.
Boston has exceeded expectations, climbing to second in the American League East, nine games behind the Tampa Bay Rays. Martinez's relative return to form has had a hand in the team's success.
The Red Sox still have Rafael Devers and Hunter Renfroe in the middle of the order, and they acquired Kyle Schwarber from the Washington Nationals ahead of the MLB trade deadline. As long as Martinez isn't out for an extended stretch, the lineup should be able to hold its own.
Pedro Martinez Suggests Racism Was Factor in 1999 AL MVP Snub
Sep 10, 2021
Former Boston Red Sox's Pedro Martinez walks on the field before a Red Sox alumni baseball game, Sunday, May 27, 2018, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Baseball Hall of Famer and current MLB Network analyst Pedro Martinez told ex-teammate David Ortiz and Barstool Sports' Jared Carrabis on the Call Him Papi podcast that he believed racism may have played a factor in him not winning the 1999 American League MVP Award.
Jordan Cohn of Audacy Sports provided Martinez's remarks, in part:
You don't want to say you're racist, but sometimes you have to think, like, there are people that are racist. Because how can you give votes to people that didn't belong in MVP contention just to harm someone individually?
And I had nothing against those two guys. I've always been a professional, I've always been able to grant interviews, I've always been able to grant answers to your questions. And I don't know why two persons like that would just pick on one single person to just do that...
As Brandon Contes of Mediaite noted, Martinez was referencing George King of the New York Post and La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, who left Martinez off their AL MVP ballots entirely.
"MVP is for everyday players. Pitchers have their own award," King said.
Martinez wondered why he couldn't even get a lower-ranked vote.
“I don’t know why two persons like that would just pick on one single person,” Martinez said on the podcast, per Contes.
“To just do that, to be that bad, out of 20 places that they have, each one of them—they couldn’t just give me a 19th-place vote?”
Martinez went 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts in 213.1 innings. It's one of the greatest seasons in the modern game considering that Martinez posted that stat line that during the height of the steroid era. He also paced MLB with a 9.8 WAR that year, per Baseball-Reference.
Martinez won all 28 first-place votes to win the Cy Young unanimously, but he finished second in the AL MVP voting to Texas Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez. The top six vote-getters, in order, were Rodriguez, Martinez, Cleveland's Roberto Alomar and Manny Ramirez, Texas' Rafael Palmeiro and New York's Derek Jeter.
The only other pitcher to get MVP voting points was Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, who finished 14th.
No National League pitcher finished in the top 13 of the MVP voting. Arizona Diamondbacks left-hander Randy Johnson, who went 17-9 with a 2.48 ERA and an MLB-high 364 strikeouts, finished 14th.
Martinez earned the most first-place votes with eight, but he ultimately didn't have enough voting points to get the MVP. Regardless, he was the best player in baseball in 1999. He helped carry the Red Sox to a wild-card spot after a 94-68 season. Boston went 26-5 with him on the mound and 68-63 otherwise.
It's hard to argue his remarkable value, even if he didn't end up with the hardware.
MLB Denies Hunter Renfroe's 'Completely Wrong' Claim About Red Sox's COVID-19 Testing
Sep 9, 2021
BOSTON, MA - SEPTEMBER 6: Hunter Renfroe #10 of the Boston Red Sox reacts after hitting an Rbi single during the sixth inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays on September 6, 2021 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
Major League Baseball quickly pushed back against claims made by Boston Red Sox outfielder Hunter Renfroe alleging the league told his club to stop testing for COVID-19 amid a recent outbreak.
Speaking to WEEI's Merloni & Fauria show Thursday, Renfroe was asked if MLB wanted the Red Sox to halt testing procedures:
"MLB basically told us to stop the testing and just treat the symptoms. We're like "No. We're gonna figure out what's going and keep this thing under control.""@LouMerloni: MLB asked you to stop testing?
“[Renfroe] is completely wrong and inaccurate," a league spokesperson told the Boston Globe's Julian McWilliams following the interview.
The Red Sox also refuted their player, telling MassLive's Chris Cotillo they have stuck to MLB's guidelines.
“We have been following MLB’s COVID-19 protocols all season long," the team said. "We have consulted closely with them on everything we’ve done and continue to test and their medical staff has been very supportive.”
Boston remains one of the MLB clubs below the 85 percent vaccination threshold.
In the last week or so, at least nine people have tested positive for the coronavirus and 11 more have been held out with symptoms or because they were deemed as close contacts. That includes star players like Xander Bogaerts, Nick Pivetta, Christian Arroyo and Kike Hernandez.
Frequent PCR testing will be administered by the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory on saliva samples collected via the Spectrum Solutions SDNA-100 saliva collection kits. Players and other on-field personnel will continue be tested at least every other day throughout Spring Training, the 2021 Championship Season, and (as applicable) the postseason. Daily symptom screens and temperature checks will be recorded at least twice daily. As a supplement to routine Monitoring Testing, accurate and reliable point-of-care testing will also be available to all Clubs at home and on the road.
Individuals who test positive will be required to isolate for a minimum of 10 days, receive appropriate care and monitoring from the Club medical staff, and be cleared by the Joint Committee and the individual’s team physician, following a mandatory cardiac evaluation and a determination that the individual no longer presents a risk of infection to others.
This may not be the end of this storyline as Renfroe will likely be asked to further explain his comments.
