HotCuts & Bridges

You called me this morning, again, and again I missed your call.  You didn't let that phase you.  By 12:22 central daylight you were ready to let bygones be HotCuts:  TwinCityHotCut. HotCut Preview Berríos?  Colón?  No, it's Ervin Santana for the Minnesota Twins and Zack Godley for the visiting AriZona Diamondbacks.  Minnesota is a game away from the second Wild Card in the American League.  Arizona once again has identical records with Colorado, each team four-and-a-half games clear of Milwaukee for National League Wild Card bids. Friday Afternoon Baseball at Wrigley Field Meanwhile, this is a special Friday.  It's a type of Friday afternoon that comes along but thirteen times this year.  The Chicago Cubs are hosting a Friday afternoon baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL at 13:20 central daylight. Confession:  I missed the first fifteen minutes of this game.  I consider this blasphe...

I have sat down with hopes of typing up some recent game logs.  By way of the MLB At Bat app I am listening to the Diamondbacks at the Astros, opting for the Houston feed on KBME.  It's the top of the third, AriZona holds a 1-0 lead. The Jose Ramírez HBP Alarm Clock Earlier I tried to snooze, once again attempting to sleep through Tom Hamilton calling an Indians game and once again I failed.  It wasn't due to Tom's needle-spike inflections but instead I happened to open my eyes just in time to see Jose Ramírez take a Kyle Gibson pitch off his right wrist.  Ramírez didn't make it very far down the first base line before he dropped to a knee in pain.  It struck me that he was in so much discomfort that he had become nauseous, and that in turn made me a little sick to my stomach.  Other forces chimed in to rouse me, too:  the heavy haulers chugging up and down Hanley Road to take the dirt of Clayton away; a neighbor's lawn guy using an insidious leaf ...

I trashed MLB TV in these pages last night but as I sat to explore the nature of the problems we have experienced with our internet and WiFi it began to appear the problems might not be MLB's fault.  I haven't typed that post and I will probably not type the part where I complained about the streaming product and offered at least one conspiracy theory as the root of the problem.  But I do plan to do a post specifically concerning the steps I have taken in an effort to solve the problems we have experienced while trying to stream MLB TV on certain night.  In the midst of my dual-band router crash course I discovered, via text, something else:  BrewCrew HotCut. Pirates at Brewers: Topsy-Turvy HotCut My routine has gone off the rails again.  There is no HotCut preview because the game is already over.  Gerrit Cole and the Pirates played a matinee in Milwaukee against Jimmy Nelson and the Brewers.  I watched snippets of the first half of the game and t...

[Editors' Note: In an effort to be fair to Major League Baseball Advanced Media, now a Disney-controlled company, I want to be clear that the account of my dreadful experience attempting to stream baseball on the night of August 15, 2017 led me to draw conclusions that later appeared to be faulty.  However, I believe there could be some historical value in reproducing my account, flawed as its conclusions might have been, en toto, uncensored and non-redacted.  I will include at the end of this entry an epilogue that explains what I did to fix my problems, which probably weren't the fault of MLB.TV.] The 'Cut Has Landed I was at my parents' place this morning but the HotCut knew where to find me:  NY HotCut. The Early Game, Astros at Diamondbacks There was one early game, Astros at Diamondbacks.  I missed the first fifteen minutes but I heard the rest.  It started at 14:40 central daylight.  I was on the highway then, driving from Illinois back to...

At 12:47 central daylight the sky suddenly darkened.  No, it wasn't an eclipse—that's next week.  It was an enormous airship toting a banner that read:  AriZona HotCut. HotCut Preview Tonight, the desert, the HotCut.  It's Snapdragon 2, Collin McHugh, on the mound for the Houston Astros set to face Zack Greinke and the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first game of a four game home-and-home series (two in Phoenix, two in Houston). Greinke is 13-5 with a 3.14 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP over 23 starts, a remarkable bounceback from his woeful first year in Arizona.  McHugh has started only four games after having spent much of the year on the disabled list with an elbow impingement.  He has a 5.32 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP over 22 innings. Houston leads the American League West by 12 games but are a curious 3-7 over their last ten games.  Arizona are one of two National League Wild Card leaders, holding the exact same record as Colorado.  St Louis trails each...

It was early this morning, at 00:54 central daylight, that you bore the bad news: Harper injured. Doesn't look good. I read the text a couple hours later and never really got back to sleep.  My eyes were bleeding. Then today at 8:32 you helped to get things back on track:  SaleCut. Expansion Game In his last 33 games, Giancarlo Stanton has 21 home runs.  But here he looks at strike three, at the knees from Antonio SenZatela.  It's 5-3 Miami Marlins leading the Colorado Rockies, bottom of the seventh, two out, Christian Yelich facing a 1-and-2 count.  The Marlins have three more victories than the Rockies, all-time.  SenZatela throws a breaking ball that Yelich can't lay off and can't get any of, K.  Inning over.  If Charlie Blackmon is coming up soon, I'll stick around.  Nolan Arenado, by the way, left this game after taking a pitch off his left hand.  There is no update yet, per the Rockies broadcast.  I did not reali...