Javier Baez is fun, and Carlos Gomez and Jake Bauers are basically family now

Hello, and welcome back to SB Nation’s half-serious, three-quarters silly recap of what happened in baseball over the last week. Wow, do we have a great show for you tonight. Leading off, we have Javier Baez making a ...

Just get to the part where the dudes on the Rays hit each other in the beans.

Ha ha, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait your turn. Today, we’ll focus on ...

I wonder how long it would take Cirque du Soleil performers to learn how to jump into each other’s beans like that.

Listen, I promise we’ll get there, but we usually start off with a good play, then move to a unique play, then maybe circle around to see how Shohei Ohtani did, then ...

Do you think that time slowed down, and they both started screaming “AHHHHH” while they were in the air, like some sort of anime?

STOP IT. THERE ARE RULES.

AS ALWAYS, WE START WITH A REMINDER THAT

Javier Baez didn’t have to do this:

But as long as he did, let us appreciate all the things that make us remember that baseball is good, actually.

1. It was a great catch

Basic, but let’s not lose sight of why we’re here.

2. The score was 5-1, Phillies, in the ninth inning

It’s a serious dad-ism to chuckle something about how baseball is the only sport that doesn’t have a clock, but let me flip this burger, turn down the Springsteen, kick off my Crocs, and tell you why that’s absolutely true. Before Baez made this catch, the Cubs’ win probability was 1.6 percent. After the catch, it was 1.7 percent.

Baez risked his health to win this game in one scenario out of 1,000 possible scenarios. He wasn’t thinking, “1/1000, 1/1000, 1/1000” as he tumbled into the stands. He’s just internalized this idea that outs are important. Outs are important because they’re the currency of baseball, not time.

3. This guy smiling as his $18 beer was being kicked

I have seen a lot of plays like this, and they usually involve a fan thinking about an immediate concern. They have no choice. The part of the brain that controls the “Oh me oh my, I am suddenly covered in a beverage” is a powerful one, and the people almost always look down at themselves, newly doused and stinky, and wonder what’s going on before they process that a Major League Baseball player is concussed on the concrete in front of them.

Not this guy. Doesn’t even register the tragedy of the beer being lost two innings after beer sales stop.

Doesn’t even react to the his buddy getting kicked in the face. Doesn’t even think to HELP THE BASEBALL PLAYER TUMBLING TO HIS DEATH. He’s just agog with what’s the idea that a baseball player has tumbled out of the abstract and into his life, so he puts a hand on his belly and doesn’t even mind the beer he lost. It’s the best game he’s ever been to, certainly, even if it ended with a 6-1 Phillies win.

4. That Javier Baez acted like it was no big deal

He looked at the ball in his mitt while he was on the ground. Then he calmly got up and lingered a bit while fans clapped him on the back.

He’ll probably never have an OBP over .400 or win an MVP, but if you needed another bullet point for your Javier Baez Is Really Fun presentation, this will do. Fewer players share their baseball fun with you as much as Baez. It’s frustrating to watch when he’s flailing at sliders up the first-base line, but when he’s having fun, he shares. It’s entirely infectious.

5. That I just figured out that Kyle Schwarber is the same size as Baez

I mean, you don’t have to care, but it’s impressive to me.

I think of the guy on the left as an athletic, slappy, scrappy middle infielder from the new generation. I think of the guy on the right as the beef lord. This is the baseball version of the Muller-Lyer illusion, and I’m not sure if I buy it yet. Maybe it’s Schwarber’s beard.

Anyway, there are a few players that I’ll dive into the stands for when it comes to appreciating them. Adrian Beltre is one. Matt Chapman is another. Bartolo Colon is everyone’s. But Baez is somehow underrated as a pure fount of baseball joy, even if people talk about him all the time. Plays like this are why.

We’ve seen fans catch two balls in the same game. I seem to remember a fan catching two balls in the same inning, maybe in the same at-bat. But I’ve never seen it in back-to-back pitches.

I’m not smart enough to calculate the odds of this happening. But I am arrogant enough to pretend like I know how to calculate the odds.

We would need to know just how many seats are within striking distance of the average foul ball.

We would need to see a heat map of foul balls. The sections they frequent most often, along with percentages for each section.

We would need to know how many foul balls are hit into the stands in the average game. Then we would need to figure out how many foul balls Chad Pinder hits on average, then how many Scott Barlow allows.

Then, uh, we would need to figure out just how hard it is for someone to hit a pitch here ...

... in the exact same spot as here ...

... and then we would need to ... divide by ... the root constant ... and ... extrapolate from pi ... holy crap how is this possible, this shouldn’t be possible ...

I’m willing to suggest that the odds for something like this, the variables involved — the circumference of the bat, the velocity of the pitch, the size of the baseball — are in the billions. I wanted to write “trillions,” but I’ll stop before I embarrass myself.

If we assume that there are 20,000 seats in foul territory, then multiply by the likelihood of a foul ball on back-to-back pitches, then multiply by the likelihood of a batter hitting a foul ball in exactly the same place, a hundred feet away, we’re at least in Powerball territory. And it’s not like we have a Zach Hample situation, where the guy is leaping over rows of elderly Shriners to get his foul ball. This fan didn’t have to move at all.

Fine, I’ll guess. The odds of this happening are 1,482,694,993 to one, and we’ll never see it again. Also, I’m including the odds of one dude catching both balls with his bare hands, because that seems hard. Like, it would have been perfectly acceptable for this guy to have been on his phone, texting someone “GOT A FLUL BALL!!1”, and completely missing the next pitch. Instead, he was ready and capable.

These are the only foul balls that you don’t have to give to a nearby kid, by the way. It’s not against the unwritten fan rules to keep these. These are foul balls that suggest that you might be immortal.

shohei is broken, and this section is under construction, please leave me alone

If there’s any good news, it’s that Ohtani was dealing with an elbow sprain when the Angels signed him, and after careful consideration, they figured it wasn’t a big deal. Then he looked like one of the most electric pitchers in baseball. So if you’re looking for evidence that a player could be diagnosed with a scary malady in one month and dominate soon after, here you go. It happened with this exact player.

On the other hand, screw this.

If the worst comes to pass, here’s what we have: A 23-year-old hitter pitcher, with 129 plate appearances that suggest he’s a special hitter and nine starts that suggest he’s a special pitcher. It’s possible that the second season of this beloved drama won’t come out until 2020, and that would be an absolute shame.

I will still wait breathlessly until that season premiere, though. And I’ll soak up the trailers like a sponge.

I asked the editorial engineering manager at SB Nation if there was a way to put a black armband at the top right of this column, so that as you scrolled down, you would be followed by a black armband. He said, “do you know how much effort I would waste for your stupid throwaway joke, you absolute idiot?” Maybe you know Graham.

But I tried. Pretend that the armband is there because this is the dumbest news of the season so far. After an offseason of speculation and pining for this magical baseball griffon, he’s being put on the disabled list with a sprained talon. That’s not right.

A

TWO BASEBALL PLAYERS SCISSORING EACH OTHER IN THE BEANS

PART I.

Wherein the chief Cauſes of Pain and Unfortunate Events in the Baseball, with the Grounds of Zoinks, Nope Nope Nope, and LOL, are inquir’d into.

HOW?

Alright, don’t panic, we can figure this out, deep breaths.

Carlos Gomez slides in a position that makes us realize that most outfielders regularly leave themselves in a position to get hit in the beans by a teammate coming at them with a flying clothespin.

The real question is, then, just how often do infielders contort themselves into a flying clothespin?

My guess: Not often. This was Jake Bauers’ third game in the major leagues, and he immediately record-scratch-yep-that’s-me’d his way into Rays lore by diving for a foul ball like this:

Both players are alright, thank goodness, which means we can laugh about this. I’ll give this a 64 on the 1-to-10 BEANS™ scale, which is two 8s multiplied together. It’s an unprecedented grade, but, my stars, did you see what happened up there?

This is the new Riddle of the Sphinx. How do two two players catch one ball and hit four balls at the same time, even though they have no bat?

This is even rarer than one fan catching two foul balls on back-to-back pitches. This is two players catching four foul balls on back-on-back slides.

I have no idea if we live in a simulation, but it’s plays like this that make me wonder. Do you remember the time when Carlos Gomez caught a foul ball and a Jake Bauers? Yeah, it happened just like that, and I’m still not entirely sure how. Somebody run down to the clubhouse and get a couple bags of frozen peas, will you?

This is important. This is baseball evolving before our very eyes.

You might remember me as the pansy who complains about collisions at home plate or runners being too aggressive trying to break up double plays. I’m also the person who thinks that Alex Rodriguez should have been called out when he tried to swipe the baseball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

But I absolutely love this play by Tony Wolters, and I think the umpires got it exactly right. It wasn’t interference. From the official rule:

When sliding into a base in an attempt to break up a double play, a runner has to make a “bona fide slide.” Such is defined as the runner making contact with the ground before reaching the base, being able to reach the base with a hand or foot, being able to remain on the base at the completion of the slide (except at home plate) and not changing his path for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder. The slide rule prohibits runners from using a “roll block” or attempting to initiate contact with the fielder by elevating and kicking his leg above the fielder’s knee, throwing his arm or his upper body or grabbing the fielder. When a violation of the slide rule occurs, the offending runner and the batter-runner will be called out.

Accidental contact can occur in the course of a permissible slide, and a runner will not be called for interference if contact is caused by a fielder being in the runner’s legal pathway to the base.

These are boring words, but I keep coming back to this:

not changing his path for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder

Did Wolters change his path? Nope. Just did a pop-up slide, which would allow him to scamper to third if needed.

Was there anyone in danger on the play? Wolters, mostly. Could have gotten hit in the face with a baseball.

Was it a baseball play? It was absolutely a baseball play.

This is the frog DNA in the Jurassic Park dinosaurs. This is nature finding a way. This is a runner legally disrupting a double play in a way that other runners might adopt in the future.

Let me go on record as saying that I absolutely do not miss runners tumbling into second base. I don’t miss Chase Utley burying Ruben Tejada, I don’t miss Matt Holliday barrel-rolling into Marco Scutaro, and I certainly don’t miss whatever in the hell Hal McRae was doing.

Baseball is better without that.

But that doesn’t mean that baseball can’t be better with runners breaking up double plays in other ways.

Here’s a way. It’s the pop-up slide, and all the runner has to risk is his face. There’s no way for the umpires to complain, considering all the runner is trying to do is get in a better position to run, wink wink, and if his arms should fly ump to protect his face from the baseball, wink wink, that’s just a part of the game.

It’s all fun and games until it happens against your team, but it’s certainly more a part of the game than what Utley did in the NLDS. Just fella popping up after a slide to see what else is happening on the play. If the ball is thrown away, well, that’s on the fielder.

I’d like to see more of this. How can baseball players interfere with the fielder while doing completely normal baseball things? Let us count the ways.

Just go in and close the door behind you. There’s cheesecake back there, and a live band. Don’t go back on the field, there’s nothing for you there.

Well, they scored two runs and won on Sunday night, so things are looking up. But if you’re wondering how things are going for the Mets, they’re kind of going like a ball disappearing into an inexplicable chasm.

Except that probably would have been a triple for Aaron Hicks. So things are looking up?

When it’s the Dodgers and Mets again in the ALCS, we’ll laugh at the thought that we were skeptical about both teams. I won’t apologize. I’ll just think of a helpless Michael Conforto disappearing into a void where he should not be, as another Mets player raises his hands. They’ve earned this pennant, I’ll think. They’ve earned it.

On June 6, a guy wearing giant boots and a hooded sweatshirt under a Jonathan Papelbon jersey decided to run around on the Fenway Park field and get arrested. At some point, a pair of eyeglasses went flying, and it really doesn’t matter who they belong to. This is a blessed, pure image.

It doesn’t hurt that the Green Monster is framing it perfectly in the background.

The fine will probably be over $1,000. The time in a holding cell couldn’t have been fun. Would it have been worth it for you or me? Almost assuredly not.

For Frankie, here, it was worth it. In 20 years — in 40 years — this guy is going to be around an open flame, holding an alcoholic beverage in one hand and a tubed meat in the other, talking about the time he ran around the field at Fenway Park until he knocked the facking glasses off some jagoff’s head. Man, I almost wish I were him telling that story.

Was he proud at the time?

He was proud at the time. Will he be proud in the future?

And how. I’m not going to suggest this man is a hero — he did something that annoyed a million people in order to impress six — but I will suggest that he believes he did something heroic. That’s inspiring, in a way.

In a very, very, very small way.

McGwire
22 AB this week
207 AB for the season

3 HR this week
31 for the season

.227/.370/.636 this week
.314/.488/.816 for the season

That’s a cool 1304 OPS, with 31 homers and 71 walks in 281 plate appearances. I don’t think you realize just how cool that was to stat dorks at the turn of the century. This was Ken Phelps shot with gamma rays and tearing apart the fabric of the universe just because he could, and the dorks got to enjoy it more than anyone else.

Sosa
23 AB this week
253 AB for the season

2 HR this week
21 for the season

.174/.231/.435 this week
.328/.398/.621 for the season

Alright, show’s over. Go home. Sosa is coming back down to earth, and even though he’s been impressive, let’s all focus on McGwire, who just might be for real.

Let’s all thank Sosa for a great effort and some fun times. Because it’s not like he’s about to go absolutely bonkers and change the way we think about this home run race, right?

[dramatic music plays over credits]

You would think that we would spotlight the second-round pick of the Red Sox, Nick Decker, in this spot. That is not the case. Who do you think we are?

Instead, we’ll present a list of several spoonerisms from the 2018 MLB Draft that amused us.

Jack Perkins (11th, Phillies)
Korby Batesole (26th, Red Sox)
Pierson Gibis (39th, Cubs)
Gunnar Troutwine (9th, White Sox)
Kris Bubic (Competitive Balance, Royals)
Gio Dingcong (30th, A’s)
Jack Perkins (wait another one, 39th, Braves)

For the most part, these are just great names. It’s cool enough to be Gio Dingcong in the A’s organization. It’s another thing to be elven rock icon Dio Gingcong. And while troutwine seems like something sketchy, groutwine sounds like something I would find at Home Depot, unless I made it in a bathtub.

And I just like saying “Borby Katesole” out loud, ever and over again, please help me, this column has ruined my brain.

We’ll see you next week, when other stuff will have happened unless it didn’t. Until then, remember these parting words: The dude slid with his legs up to catch a ball, and he was clothespinned by a teammate, right in the beans.

This world is full of wonders. This game is full of wonders.