I’ve been having a bad day. Not feeling great. Then, this video came across my Instagram explore page, and I started feeling a whole lot better. Didn’t even know he was talking to Brewers fans! Love Joc Pederson. Forever. I wouldn’t support Joc Pederson if he started supporting Xi Jinping but I would think about it for at least a couple seconds.
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Joe Kelly dominated his rehab appearance in Charlotte, guys.
He dominated it in the baseball sense—scoreless inning, struck a batter out.
He dominated it in the physical sense—he hit Nick Fortes with a pitch and seemed to knock him out of the game (Confession: I was watching the gamecast while frantically searching for updates on Twitter; and speaking of frantic Twitter searches for updates, I’ve seen nothing indicating Fortes isn’t ok and also Willians Astudillo pinch ran for him, which is great casting by the baseball universe).
He dominated it emotionally—his fastball was consistently around 96 mph, showing that while times may be grim in this world, we have cause to lift our chins and look evil in the eye, because our hero is, at long last, making his return.
What’s this?
The White Sox are making Joe Kelly do two or three more rehab appearances in the minors?
I knew Chicago was a corrupt city, but I’m shocked that it’s bad enough the White Sox are even taking bribes from Charlotte city council folks who want to up their minor league attendance as part of their doomed MLB expansion push (if expansion does come to Charlotte, I hope they’ll honor yesterday by naming the team the Charlotte Kellys).
It’s either true, or Tony La Russa is wrong, and hopefully it’s the latter but I fear it’s the former. La Russa evidently said today the Sox are hoping to have Joe Kelly back by early next week, which sucks because 1) We don’t get Joe Kelly in the Majors for another week and 2) I’m going to have to do the Twitter search thing again or buy MiLB TV [which I now don’t want to do because hell I should’ve just bought it yesterday] and 3) This almost guarantees the White Sox won’t make the playoffs, meaning we’ll be robbed of a Joe Kelly postseason for the first time since 2015. The White Sox are playing terribly, their best player is languishing in the minors as the victim of a kickback scheme, and I am stuck finding out that after I used the Jacksonville Buttholes joke last week, it turns out they’re the Jumbo Shrimp. I could’ve called someone else the Buttholes! Jumbo Shrimp’s a great name!
I knew our guy going to the White Sox was bad news.
What else we need to talk about:
Fire, Ice, and Burnley
Things were grim for the Burnleys. Perhaps the grimmest they’ve been in the last ten days. Watford (you should hear what the British call ‘em) led our lads one to nil late in the game. The entire island of England was set to sink into the sea in despair. Then…Jack Cork?!
There’s a lot that can be said about Jack Cork, but the two things we need to acknowledge here are that one of his middle names is Porteous and he has some great past Burnley folks often reference but I, having become a Burnley fan in 2019, don’t understand those references.
Saturday, I understood. Not really, actually. Still only a vague idea about Cork’s past. But he did header home a Chuck Taylor pass (they call them crosses in soccer, but that’s messed up because crosses are what killed God), it tied the game, and then Josh Brownhill netted the winner in what I can only imagine was a grave cosmic injustice to Watford fans’ souls, should they have souls down there in Watford (I’m being told Watford is not actually in London and is its own town, but they said that about Paris too).
Then, on Sunday, Everton upset Chelsea and now I’m all fuckin’ nervous again. At least Leeds is in the relegation mix. Leeds getting relegated would feel just and good. Maybe they’d make Patrick Bamford go play in Jacksonville or something.
Brady Tkachuk’s Offseason Has Begun
There are two things to know about the Ottawa Senators (lot of things-to-know today, weird, if you’re new here don’t worry we usually don’t require you to know anything):
First, they won their season finale in Philadelphia, and I haven’t personally seen Gritty in the days since so it’s possible we successfully kidnapped him and he’s a Sens guy now. (Can Gritty be described as a guy?)
Second, Brady Tkachuk opened the offseason thusly:
One last helmet video. Just wish ABBA was playing.
NASCAR BEEF
This has potential.
Chase Elliott won today’s rain makeup at Dover. That’s not important. Dover isn’t a major, Elliott wins a couple races each season, it’s early enough that we don’t care about the playoff implications, we did bet on him but he was our lowest-payout guy.
What’s important is that Martin Truex Jr. and Ross Chastain, two guys who both don’t really back down, may have some beef now. Here’s the video of the last-lap contact (they were racing for second), they did seem to patch it up (Chastain apologized), but you know, what if they didn’t? What if they didn’t patch it up? Or what if I didn’t tell you that they did? What if I didn’t think to check after I’d written “This has potential.” and just kept going with it? How many of you watch NASCAR, anyway? I could spin a tail of Truex bringing a loaded gun to pit road next week at (I’m not checking the schedule I’m gonna guess here) Darlington (I think it actually is Darlington I’m pretty sure it’s the throwback race in “honor” of Mother’s Day, which is the funniest Mother’s Day prank in a long line of funny Mother’s Day pranks by dudes), and if it was subtle enough I’m pretty sure some of you would buy it.
Pato!
Did that deserve an exclamation point? Honestly, it was probably either two exclamation points or zero, since Pato O’Ward’s native language is Spanish. Here we are now, though.
Pato O’Ward, who F1-fans-who-know-IndyCar-exists often like because they like McLaren and Pato O’Ward drives for McLaren’s IndyCar team and is #UpAndComing, won the Indy Grand Prix of Alabama yesterday. Not a lot to add. That says it all (there isn’t much to say, guys, I wish I’d gone with zero exclamation points).
Are the Heat Screwed?
Here’s a fun fact for you: Back when I built our NIT-NBA Playoff database a few weeks back, nobody on the Heat had played in the NIT. Guessing that hasn’t changed (would only change by someone getting added to the Heat’s roster who’d already played in an NIT, don’t worry you didn’t miss an NIT).
I would talk about how that’s likely to impact their conference semifinal matchup, but here’s another fun fact for you: I cannot, for the life of me, remember who the hell the Heat play.
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Viewing schedule tonight:
Oh duh it’s the Sixers.
7:30 PM EDT: Tampa Bay Lightning @ Toronto Maple Leafs (ESPN2)
Playoff hockey is a riot, and so is Toronto Maple Leafs heartbreak if you’re a Sens fan, which I am now. Enough of one to know that Toronto Maple Leafs heartbreak is a riot, anyway.
10:00 PM EDT: Mavericks @ Suns (TNT)
Dwight Powell is an NIT Champion. Sterling Brown made an NIT Championship. Dorian Finney-Smith both fouled out and recorded a double double in NIT games. Marquese Chriss is designated in our database as an “NIT Stud.” Too much for the Camerons (Payne, Johnson), the Suns’ only NIT pedigreed players? Presumably, yes.
