Custom Card of the Night: Scherzer Edition

20 strikeouts. In one game.

And Max Scherzer's the guy that pulls it off.

(beat)

Yeah, that makes sense.

I don't know how he did it, but Max Scherzer managed to find his way onto two straight mega-rotations, and consistently become one of the most powerful arms on each one. He killed in Detroit, and now, surrounded by even deadlier pitchers like Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez, he's killing some more, which blows my mind.

And now this 20 strikeouts thing happens, which is even more huge than I could have imagined. This came at the exact right time, in my opinion, because I was worried Scherzer would get lost in the arms race in the NL. People like Clayton Kershaw, Noah Syndergaard, Madison Bumgarner and Jake Arrieta are ruling the stats this year, and since last year the Scherzer-hype got lost in the smoke of Arrieta's postseason prowess, I was worried he'd keep getting overshadowed every chance he got in the NL.

Thankfully, there's hope for him yet.

Not just because the Nationals have a stronger, more compact roster this year. Scherzer's gotten off to an amazing start, and he's looking to stay on top for a while. I think he can outdo his feats in the last 2 seasons just by working on the basis of that last start. He's got a killer arm, and he can move mountains with it. Here's hoping this isn't the end of the accolades.

Coming Tomorrow- His team's inexplicably ahead of the World Series champs in the standings, and he's pitching like a pro.

Papi Fields (for the last time)

(This post is brought to you by 'A Smidgen o' Pigeon', and the National Society of Dominican Foods)

It's incredibly weird when someone who's been playing since before you started collecting retires. It's even crazier when that person is David Ortiz.

It's hard to imagine baseball without him. I just picture Fenway...and he's there! It's just a fact of life. This is something that happens. Which is why the little 'farewell tour' he's doing is so alarming to me.

Like, he'll be in Houston and they'll give him a cute little cowboy hat, or somebody gives him a surfboard. It just feels eerie, like it shouldn't be happening. This is David Ortiz! He's the master of fun and not taking baseball seriously, just whomping home runs every few seconds. He shouldn't stoop to the level of letting the guys he beat down on give him little gifts! Jeter or Chipper I can see that happening to, but not Papi. He's ferocious! He shouldn't have any mercy!

He should take whatever little tchotchke they give him, and smash it with a bat. That's more Papi's style. Maybe instead of all those big space-takers, they should just get him some food or something.

It took me a while, but I've grown a ton of respect for David Ortiz. Sure, he hits a lot of home runs against the Yankees, maybe broke up a few too many NY no-hitters, but he still has the right idea about how baseball should be, and I'm gonna miss him. Not as much as Jeter or Mo, but still.

I'll be watching this farewell tour intently, and seeing if he does anything worthy of Papi himself.

Coming Today: Dude just threw 20 strikeouts the other day. Just reestablishing the fact that he's one of the best pitchers in baseball.

The Complete and Total Collapse in San Diego

When the Padres made their swarm of acquisitions last year, I kind of knew it wasn't going to work, mainly because contract-gobbling roster expanders like these rarely work, at least not immediately. You need to have a steady backbone of a team before you start adding people, and you can't just use these to rehaul the entire team, or else the established veterans are going to suffer hard.

Well, what happened to the Padres was worse than what I, or anyone really, could have imagined.

The base of veterans that the Padres kept in 2015, that was supposed to be buttressed by the onslaught of new players, did not survive. Some players, like Will Venable and Abraham Almonte, were traded midseason. Some players were dealt before the 2016 season, like Yonder Alonso and Jedd Gyorko. The guys the Padres have kept haven't been playing as regulars, and if they are, they're currently serving DL stints like Alexi Amarista and Yangervis Solarte.

So, the new wave of Padres has completely destroyed the old wave of Padres, save for the pitchers who were there like Tyson Ross and Andrew Cashner. The pre-established roster is gone, and now the Padres are hastily utilizing bench players and dropouts from other rosters, in an effort to at least win some games.

But what's even more alarming is that some of the guys the Padres brought in to help last season haven't stayed very long at all. Justin Upton, who was supposed to be the steady outfielder for years, is now playing for the Tigers. Craig Kimbrel is now closing games in Boston. Will Middlebrooks was DFA'd prior to the beginning of the season. Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Derek Norris and James Shields are the sole survivors, and I'm highly doubting all four will still be here in September, especially Shields.

This was a move that was supposed to bring the Padres into the forefront- instead it set them back another 5 years. Blows me away how horribly this worked out for them.

Coming Tomorrow- The man who will likely go down as the only Baseball Hall of Famer to be portrayed as a recurring character on Saturday Night Live.

Made in Taijuan

First Place Mariners. Man, you could have predicted a billion things for 2016, but you couldn't have called this one in a million years.

I couldn't be more overjoyed, too. This Mariners team has been the goat of the AL for a while now, and they almost got to the playoffs in 2014. They've been on the cusp for so long that the fact that they have a roster filled with bats like Robinson Cano, Seth Smith and Kyle Seager, all on at the same time, makes me very happy.

This also says a pretty big statement about the AL West. Last year, this was a pretty large, tough division, with the Astros, Rangers and Angels all racing for the finish. Right now only the Mariners and Rangers are staying afloat. It's not as much of an explosive division as it was, because the sure shots are depleting, the guys that were huge are losing their steam. And when something like that happens, somebody who's been waiting on the bottom for years, like the Mariners, can sneak their way to the top and make a stand.

Taijuan Walker is part of what's become a relatively strong rotation in Seattle this year. Aside from Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, who are strong at the top of the rotation as usual, people like Nate Karns and Wade Miley, plucked from AL East rosters, are doing some solid buttress work behind them, and while the rotation as a whole needs a bit of work (Iwakuma needs some more wins), this is a pretty solid start, and it's obviously getting work done. Walker's the biggest takeaway here- he's come up big in a breakout year with a low ERA and high strikeout levels. If it weren't for King Felix, he'd be the conversation starter there.

Another baseball story I want to keep going. Those Rangers are pretty tough down the stretch, but I hope the Mariners can stay hot.

Coming Tomorrow- Even in a pretty even NL West, they're still kind of pathetic. Anyway, here's their bearded pitcher.

On Inexplicability, Inevitability, and the Cubs

In 2014, the Cubs had a lineup that included Nate Schierholtz, Arismendy Alcantara, Junior Lake, Mike Olt and Darwin Barney, along with a pitching rotation that included Edwin Jackson and Tsuyoshi Wada. Not surprisingly, they came in last that year.

I'm finding it very hard believe that that Cubs team was able to turn it around to the point where, in 2015, they almost made it to the World Series, and now in 2016 they're off to a mammoth start and are leading the MLB in victories.

Under Joe Maddon, they've developed a goldmine of roster, including people like Jason Heyward, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist and Jon Lester, all plucked from other rosters, and all playing pretty damned well right now. The farm system has also flourished, with homegrown talents like Javier Baez,  Kyle Hendricks, and, yes, Kris Bryant, leading the pack. The fact that Maddon's leadership could turn a last place laughingstock of a team into a force to be reckoned with is pretty impressive.

The one thing I'm worried about with this Cubs team being so amazing, is the fact that something this inevitable in May usually has a hard time staying plausible by the time October hits. I'm hoping that everything that's being said right now isn't jinxing something that could potentially happen in October.

And I WANT this to happen. Desperately. If I had to wait 108 years for something, I'd be frantic. I feel for all these Cubs fans who've suffered through absolute shit for the longest time, and I want this to happen, and I want the Cubs to stay as amazing as they are right now for the rest of the damn season. Likeliness my ass. I want this to happen, and so what if everybody's jinxing it.

This squad, I think, has enough talent and power to beat the curse. The 2007 Red Sox had that power. The 2009 Saints had that power. And now I think these Cubs have it.

Coming Tomorrow- A star pitcher for the surprisingly-surging Mariners.

The Entirety of Chicago Says Hello

Last year I made it a point to see a city I'd never seen with my own eyes, and go to as much baseball as I could. When I arrived in Chicago, I already had tickets to see games on both sides of the city. Surprisingly, both teams won. Even the White Sox. They won on a pair of home runs from Melky Cabrera and Adam LaRoche.

Now that I'm home, and they're doing pretty damn well in the standings, I'm not exactly surprised. They had the makings of a good team last year. They just tightened the living hell out of the roster, and the success is rational.

Most of this is coming from pickups like Todd Frazier and Brent Lawrie, making up a pretty smooth infield with Jose Abreu and the surprise resurrection of Jimmy Rollins. The pitching staff is also doing a solid job, thanks to Chris Sale taking over the league, and people like Carlos Rodon and Jose Quintana steadily backing up.

This is also thanks to teams like the Royals and Tigers, once believed to be sure shots, not winning as many games as previously thought, and the Twins dropping to the bottom of the division like a brick in water, or anything, really. The Indians are keeping a bunch of these teams down as well, but their rise may not be as steady as the Sox'. The Sox have an impressive, well-rounded roster that's full of fierce bats like Avisail Garcia, Adam Eaton and, yes, Todd Frazier.

I'm also pretty surprised that Brett Lawrie's making some offensive progress, after being Milt Pappas'd to Oakland in exchange for Josh Donaldson last year (and we all know how well that went for the A's.)

Here's hoping the White Sox can stay on top for a little while longer. This is a pretty refreshing baseball story, as opposed to the usual crop of '1st Place Red Sox' stuff.

Coming Tonight: Meanwhile, on the other side of Chicago, one of the most impressive figures of 2015 lights up for year #2.

Phils of the Future?

...Great Scott, the Phillies are actually winning games!

I have no idea how this is happening, but half the team's gotten hot. This is looking like a legitimately sharp squad now, thanks to people like Odubel Herrera, Maikel Franco and Carlos Ruiz playing pretty damn well. It's sort of like a Cinderella situation, where nobody knows when this is going to end, but it obviously can't last forever, so I'm just thankful it's currently happening.

Vince Velasquez' stuff is the weirdest part of this equation. I was on hand to witness Vinny's MLB debut, as a pitcher for Houston against the White Sox. He pitched.....adequately. He wasn't good, bad, spectacular. He was just serviceable. He pitched a few innings, gave up one or two home runs, and was done. I didn't really think anything of it.

And then, a couple months later, the 'Stros trade him to my team for Ken Giles, which...stung...until Giles turned out to be not so great in Houston. Vince has been pretty amazing in Philly, striking out tons of batters and being one of our most impressive pitchers, even in a year when Jeremy Hellickson and Aaron Nola are doing pretty alright.

I'm holding out for the Phillies to be at least palatable this year. I'll be in town this summer, and I want to catch some games, and I'd rather not see really shitty baseball. But this Velasquez business is pretty promising.

Coming Tomorrow- The team that's leading the AL, and the second baseman who's finally delivering.