Mound Visits: Why are we not still talking about Pablo Sandoval throwing a 69 mph pitch?

Welcome to Mound Visits, your weekly recap of the best things you might have missed in baseball every week. This week brings us Joe Kelly enjoying his six-game suspension, Trevor Bauer getting emphatically dunked on, and Pablo Sandoval position player pitching.

Ahead of the Cavs’ Game 6 face-off with the Pacers last Friday, Indians’ star Francisco Lindor wore a custom “The Land” jersey with his name on it for batting practice.

It didn’t work too well as far as providing luck for the Cavs goes, since they lost Game 6 and had to take care of business in Game 7 so they could make it far enough to crush the Raptors’ dreams in the second round (a tradition unlike any other). But it worked for Lindor: he hit a home run that night.

How are we not still talking about this? Seriously. It’s been less than seven days and that’s it? Everyone needs to step up their game.

Everyone can partially focus on Kanye and who dies in the Avengers: Infinity War (no spoilers here, I promise) and the warm weather that has been eluding them finally arriving for half of the country and that’s all well and good. But — 1) PABLO SANDOVAL PITCHED A ONE-TWO-THREE INNING, AND 2) HE THREW A LEGITIMATE CURVE BALL THAT CLOCKED IN AT 69 MPH ON THE RADAR GUN. We can’t just let that go so soon!

Baseball is the best sport in the world you can not convince me otherwise and we cannot forget this day happened. Under any circumstances. What a freaking gift amidst a news cycle of dreck. How dare everyone let this go after a few short days.

After Eduardo Escobar met Nicolas Cage a few weeks ago in Puerto Rico, the Twins decided to commit to the bit and make their game notes Cage-themed. I fully support this and hope they don’t stop at this. Get Cage to come to a game. Put him in a Face/Off-themed promo video — you know his asking price can’t be that much these days. Have a Cage movie theme night. Do all of those things. Just call me if you need ideas, Twins. I’ll be waiting by the phone.

Because he’s alllll byyyy himseelffffff. Since it’s by choice it’s awesome though, not sad. Harden spent a night this week watching the Astros play baseball while he sat alone and ate ice cream out of a novelty helmet cup. Which is just a normal weeknight in my apartment, but I’m not a top-tier NBA player balancing the playoffs with ice cream eating so it’s not as impressive.

This week the player formerly known as Trevor Bauer came at the Astros and accused their pitchers of using sticky substances to increase spin rate and he was promptly dunked on by multiple members of the team. Come for the first wave of responses, stay for Alex Bregman shutting things down for good.

Harper, how much do you have in those pockets?! It looks like at least a pack of red vines, a deli sandwich, a can of Pringles, and a few lottery tickets. He could live for three days off of what he keeps in his pockets. If the Nationals ever accidentally get locked in the clubhouse over night and can’t reach the fridge, they should immediately check Harper’s locker for the stash that has to be in there.

In this week’s unofficial Joe Kelly corner we saw him enjoying his six-game suspension by opting for the stands instead of a suite at Fenway. Then Pedro Martinez was the honorary fan banner captain at a Bruins’ playoff game and he looked so happy doing it. And to top it all off, Mookie Betts hit approximately 400 home runs since last Friday (approximately.) What exactly is in that dirty water in Boston. They’re having too good a time.

Have a favorite moment from this week? Tweet them at me and I’ll include them in next week’s Mound Visits.