— Dodgers 6, Braves 5
Shohei Ohtani hit a walk-off home run on his Bobblehead Night.
Braves led this game 5-0 in second inning, 5-3 in 8th inning.
Dodgers are first defending champ EVER to start the next season 8-0.
Atlanta went 0-7 on its first road trip of the season.
Braves were 5-15 with runners in scoring position in this game; in their first six games, they were a combined 1-34 with RISP.
— Just spent an hour or so listening to a podcast about these new “torpedo bats”, which could very well be revolutionizing hitting. (they’re perfectly legal, by the way)
Wooden bats are only used at the professional level; there was a guy on TV explaining how they are now meeting with each specific player and design the bat to tailor it to that player’s swing, so what is good for one player might not be good for anyone else.
Some of the talk went over my head; the guy explaining it is a scientist, and I sucked at science, but it is possible that some players/teams will be ahead of the curve and will hit better than they have previously. The guy on TV said he’s been hired as a consultant by a major league team, but he wouldn’t say which team.
— On the Red Sox-Orioles telecast Wednesday night, Orioles TV guy Ben McDonald said that Mets’ SS Francisco Lindor used a torpedo bat last year, when he hit 33 home runs, had an OPS of .844. No one mentioned that last year.
— Cubs 10, A’s 2
Cubs swept this 3-game series, scoring 35 runs in the first three major league games played in Sacramento’s minor league ballpark.
— San Diego Padres are 7-0, but they’re still a half-game behind the Dodgers in the NL West; Padres gave 21-year old OF Jackson Merrill a nine-year contract extension worth $135M, after he hit .292 with an .826 OPS last year. Merrill turns 22 in two weeks.
— Arizona Diamondbacks gave 2B Ketel Marte a contract extension that adds $64M in new money to his current contract, and extends the contracts thru 2031.
— Boston Red Sox gave 22-year old rookie IF Kristian Campbell an 8-year old contract worth at least $60M— the kid has played only six major league games- he is 8-20 with five runs scored, and now he is also really rich.
— Current standings in the AL Central:
Twins 2-4
Royals 2-4
Tigers 2-4
Guardians 2-4
White Sox 2-4
— Famous birthdays, April 3rd:
Marsha Mason, 83
Alec Baldwin, 67
David Hyde Pierce, 66
Tim Conroy, 65
Eddie Murphy, 64
Pervis Ellison, 58
Rodney Hampton, 56
Jay Bruce, 38
Jason Kipnis, 38
Andrew Vaughn, 27
— NBA coaching staffs are huge; Golden State Warriors list ten assistant coaches, in addition to head coach Steve Kerr. NBA rosters have only 15 players; why do they need 11 coaches?
Read kind of a disturbing article this week about how/why the Memphis Grizzlies fired their coach, even though they’re having their fourth winning season in the least five years.
After last season’s 27-55 disaster, Memphis fired five assistant coaches, kept head coach Taylor Jenkins, but the handwriting was on the wall. They brought in assistant coach Tuomas Iisalo, a Finnish coach who’d had a quick rise in Europe coaching circles by implementing innovative offensive concepts around pick-and-roll schemes and playing fast.
The fly in the ointment here is that the Grizzlies’ key player is G Ja Morant, who doesn’t seem like the most dependable guy in the world, on or off the floor (he’s never played more than 67 games in a season, played in nine last year, when he was suspended 25 games for brandishing guns) and isn’t a great pick-and-roll player, according to NBA analytics.
Anyway, a coach who won a lot of games got fired; the whole situation seems like a mess; you want your best players to be dependable, hard workers, a good example for his teammates (think Jayson Tatum or Steph Curry)
— Tuesday night, Steph Curry scored 52 points against Memphis, grabbed 10 rebounds, dished out 8 assists, had five steals. Not a bad night.
Denver’s Nikola Jokic scored 61 points for Denver, had 10 assists, 10 rebounds; he was 19-24 on the foul line. Minnesota’s whole team was 17-25 on the line, but the T-Wolves won 140-139 in double overtime.
— There are rumblings that flag football might be an Olympic sport at the 2028 Summer games in Los Angeles, and that NFL players might participate.
— NIT played their semi-finals Tuesday night at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis:
Cal-Irvine 69, North Texas 67
North Texas led 24-9 midway thru the first half.
Mean Green was +12 in turnovers, but shot only 34.3% from the floor.
Anteaters won their last three games by a total of 11 points.
Chattanooga 80, Loyola Chicago 73
Ramblers led 38-34 at halftime.
5-10 G Huff played all 40:00, didn’t have any turnovers, shot 4-10 on the arc.
Chattanooga was 9-7 on January 10; they’re 19-2 since then.
Cal-Irvine/Chattanooga play for a championship Thursday night.
