As a guy who mostly knows what’s going on in NASCAR, I’m often asked to explain NASCAR-related things when they break through to the public consciousness.
Ok, I made that up.
Nobody ever asks me.
I always pretend they’re asking me, because I want to talk about NASCAR, but NASCAR isn’t actually breaking through into the public consciousness most of the time and when it is, I don’t get asked.
There. You happy?
NASCAR’s in Chicago this weekend, racing on a street course for the first time in its history. The thing’s happening at Grant Park, so assuming NBC has good camera angles—and I trust them to do that—there should be a mixture of cool shots of stock cars racing in front of the Chicago skyline and cool shots of stock cars racing beside Lake Michigan. Honestly, there’s not a lot more to it than that.
The one bad thing here—and it’s debatably bad—is that they might have made the course too hard. The word is that it is going to be very tricky to not get in a ton of wrecks. I know, I know: Wrecks are the coolest part of NASCAR. But the issue with them at these big in-person events are that they can slow things down a lot, and they can slow them down in two ways. The first way is direct: They can cause long cautions. Long cautions are boring. The second way is more indirect: They can make everyone so cautious that the race turns into an F1 grand prix. Ideally, we’ll get a few wrecks and some great rough passes and some late drama involving Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott, the kind of thing that makes for a great montage for the people who don’t watch (most of us, it’s not uncommon to have some social commitments this Sunday). Give us some fireworks and some roaring crowds and some sweet drone and/or blimp shots and we’ll call the thing a success. Turn it into a hot, dusty parade and we will be sad.
Joe Kelly Is Hot
Joe Kelly took the approach with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani yesterday where he limited each to one base and then got the next three guys out (well, two, because he was efficient, but the approach was three). This might be the optimal solution to the Anaheim Angels. Each team’s goal against the Angels should maybe be to just bank on the other seven guys in the order going a collective 1–for–28.
With Joe Kelly’s sixth straight scoreless appearance, people are noticing that Joe Kelly has six straight scoreless appearances. What they aren’t noticing just yet is how historic this Joe Kelly season is.
Joe Kelly has, since moving to the bullpen in July of 2016, been baseball’s best relief pitcher. Most successful? No. He’s only something like 56th-most successful out of the 425 qualified over that span. Most talented? Hard to say. The guy does throw gas. Best? Absolutely. Who among us has not watched a Joe Kelly outing and said, “That guy is the best.”? He is the best. Which makes this season—if it holds up—the best of the best.
This directly contradicts our prior definition of “best,” but Joe Kelly is having the best season of his career. He’s got a 2.85 FIP (previous best: 3.06 last year). He’s got a 2.46 xERA (previous best: 3.15, also last year, good god was Joe Kelly unlucky last year). He’s walking only 2.77 batters per nine innings (previous best: 3.07 in 2021). He’s up to 0.6 fWAR already, and his career high there is only 1.2, set back when he started 25 games as a full-time member of the 2015 Red Sox’ rotation. The man’s numbers are outstanding, he’s tearing up the American League, if he stays healthy through the second half he stands a pretty good chance of putting together the best season of his career statistically, and the man is 35. That is old to be having a career year. Which raises the question:
Is Joe Kelly going to keep getting better forever?
At the moment, the answer appears to be yes. It’s the simplest explanation. Joe Kelly has figured out aging, Joe Kelly will get better throughout the rest of time, Joe Kelly will never die.
Great news for the faithful.
The Sens Drafted Some Guys
Oh, shit, I meant to talk about this.
I don’t mind that Ryan Reynolds tried and failed to buy the Senators. I’m glad the NHL didn’t think he was so important that they had to make his bid win, but I don’t have a problem with how he went about it. My Ryan Reynolds issues are independent from his participation in the Ottawa Senators bidding process, though I’m definitely more aware of his activities because he was so publicly linked to the Sens.
Ok, the Sens’ draft picks. I know nothing about any of these guys, so we’re going to list their names, all nod collectively, and then head into the weekend.
Hoyt Stanley.
Matthew Andonovski.
Owen Beckner.
Vladimir Nikitin.
Nicholas VanTassell.
*nod collectively*
(We really should have had a bell ring between each of those. Or maybe a goal buzzer, so it doesn’t sound like All Saints Day. But what if one of them’s a goalie? Or two of them are goalies? Or three! If Pierre Dorion drafted three goalies, I think we go back to the bell. Otherwise I think we have to go with the noise of some dude slamming another dude into the boards. With a little grunt involved.)
