Major League Baseball is pursuing these random exclusive game partnerships with every streaming platform that will pay them because $$$, but it sure seems weird that the league has a best-in-class cross-device streaming platform that people happily pay for, and instead it goes out and makes the experience worse.
So far this season, I’ve been able to follow games during baby duties by switching between my phone and laptop until he goes to sleep. With tonight’s game limited to Apple TV+, I was basically SOL until I was able to return to the main TV after six innings. That means I missed the first 6½ innings, or basically all the action unless you count Liam Hendriks working a clean inning on 11 pitches for his first easy save, and with the smallest of cushions.
Therefore, a bullet-point recap will have to suffice until I can actually watch the game on my terms:
*Dylan Cease expanded on his first start of the season, throwing the team’s longest start of the season at 5⅔ innings. He allowed just three singles and two walks while striking out eight, and there could’ve been no run on his tab…
*… except Aaron Bummer once again struggled to play to his strengths and allowed an inherited runner to score after two outs, along with one of his own. Granted, Luis Robert should’ve caught Ji-Man Choi’s drive to left center, but his timing near the wall still isn’t what he wants it to be, and it rattled around for an RBI double. He then gave up a slashed double inside the bag to Yandy Diaz to make it a one-run game before Mike Zunino lined out.
*Bummer also gave up a leadoff single and a stolen base in the seventh, but worked around it with two strikeouts and a soft lineout. The Diaz double is still the only ground-ball he’s induced all season.
*Still, thanks to Bummer’s second inning, Kendall Graveman’s easy eighth and Liam Hendriks’ neat ninth, the White Sox’s single tallies in the second, third and fifth innings held up as enough.
*Jake Burger was at the center of it. He got on top of Drew Ramussen’s 95 mph fastball just above the zone and tomahawked it out to left for a solo shot that gave the White Sox a 2-0 lead in the third. Two innings later, he stayed down on a Rasmussen slider low and away and slapped it into right field for an RBI single.
*Said single scored Leury García, who finally came through with his first hit of the season in the form of a leadoff double.
*Gavin Sheets scored the first run of the game on #WILDPITCHOFFENSE after reaching on a one-out double and moving to third on a García grounder.
*Cease once again loved his slider as much as his fastball, but his curve got four whiffs on five swings, which is what you want.
*The White Sox didn’t draw a walk, but they only struck out six times, for those of us paying attention to that category this series.
Record: 5-2 | Box score | Statcast
It sucks to be paying a pricey mlb-tv subscription to be left out in the cold, because this greedy bastards sell the games to stupid streaming services that decide it is not worth showing the game in your country.
MLB’s fascination with making their product as unavailable to fans as possible is truly astounding.
I don’t follow other sports closely enough to know, but do the NBA and NFL operate like this, too? Or is there anything comparable?
The cheapest deal I could find to watch Bears games out-of-market last year was like $15 a game(!!!), so the NFL has their own plan for keeping my eyes off their product.
With NFL Game Pass I could watch every regular season game (270 of them), playoffs and Super Bowl if I wanted to pay the hefty subscription (I don’t). You are only partially blacked out in the UK/IRL (I assume because of the London game(s), which, if you live there, you can watch by other means. It is logical. They host the show, they have the rights.
But these greedy bastards from MLB, sell some of the games away to freaking Apple TV or freaking Peacock, and you find out after you have signed up, because is hidden, of course, in the tiny print about black-outs. I never thought I would have to worry about black-outs, because I live I Spain. Nobody broadcasts baseball here. Not even fucking Apple TV or stupid Peacock.
NBA has essentially the same blackout rules, minus these new streaming carve outs.
Pro tip: if you join the MLBPA Alumni Association for $25 bucks, you get a 50% off MLB.TV coupon code. Just discovered that this season. So it makes the total cost of MLB.TV like $95 instead of $140.
Cease looks like a different pitcher so far. Way more confident and composed, in a way I’m glad he’s being forced to step up. I also love seeing La Hamburguesa contribute, especially when one hit showed off his power and the other one showed an ability to take what he was given and get the bat on the ball. If Tony is smart he’ll keep putting Jake in the lineup until he gives him a reason not to.
who did the Sox give up for Cease and Eloy again? Wow, one of most lopsided trades of all time. As bad as Tatis/Shields was, I wouldn’t trade Cease+Eloy for Tatis, so the Q trade even more lopsided than the Tatis tragedy.
I noticed the confidence too (based off the highlights the Sox posted to Instagram… thanks AppleTV!)
Him and Lopez are maybe the only two pitchers I’ve ever seen legitimately look scared on the mound, as if someone had just told them a scary ghost story or something.
It’s hard to tell whether the confidence changed the results or the results changed the confidence, but I just hope the two keep feeding off each other.
cease has been a popular dark horse Cy young pick, and he’s sure making that look good so far. still disappointed they didn’t resign ‘Los… that would be a truly special rotation with Cease and Kopech taking steps forward.
as for mlb.tv… when they make watching impossible despite the damn subscription I don’t feel any guilt whatsoever about pirating it, which is remarkably easy with the website mlb66 dot ir
He wasn’t *too* dark horse. I tried to put some money on him a couple weeks back but he had something like the 7th highest odds in the league.
Has anyone ever invented a metric that distinguishes between ERA and ERA-minus-runs-given-up-by-the-reliever-who-inherits-the-runner? Conversely, a metric that can pinpoint which relievers tend to give up runs when inheriting runners? Not that it matters that much, but we have metrics for everything else.
FIP is probably the stat you want.
Hey, Ted, don’t tell me you moved the sporcle to AppleTV+
Only available on select weeknights during a blue moon, exclusively with Hulu Primeness-ish! Seriously, though: it will publish at 9 am during the regular season. Minor Keys is the opening post, then the Sporcle.
Are advance stats like Bummer’s common in the early season?
ERA – 7.36
FIP – 0.62
xFIP – 1.40
This is small sample size randomness. Though lol that is basically bummer luck.
100%
I hate this Apple partnership thing. If MLB intends to dilute the value of MLB.TV subscription, already down with the blackout problem, then they should reduce the cost of the subscription.
At what point do we start thinking through Moncada to 2b
I think it’s safe to say never happening.
It is a reasonable question though, since he has played there before. With the Sox being defensively challenged and Moncada being one of their only plus defenders, it is easy to see why they would want to keep Moncada at 3b.
If Burger looks excellent at 3b, Moncada to 2b is something that would be natural for them to look at. I don’t know how long it might take for Jake to learn 2b, that’s one way Moncada’s injury hurts, Burger would probably be playing some 2b at Charlotte.
Jake hasn’t made any errors, how does he look defensively? I have not been able to watch too much game action.
If they could it again, Moncada in right field 4 (!) years ago would have been nice. I heard him in an interview once saying he liked playing center, so not a stretch for right with a decent arm and athleticism. Sox didn’t have the minor-league outfield depth they thought they had and the one-year fixes fell flat.
He never looked to good at 2B. Jake, take some more grounders there!
Would have much preferred that to any of our recent RF’s.