Dog Days of Summer
Happy August. This is the eighth issue of Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit — it’s just like all those other email newsletters, except with more swamp butt.
So far, it’s been a hot, humid, rainy, gross summer in Brooklyn. But I’m writing this en route to Bend, Oregon, for a family vacation. Hopeful that the Pacific Northwest is not as icky as the scuzzy Northeast.
Underdogs
At the start of the month, with 56 games in the regular season left to play, the Red Sox are just 2.5 games behind the Blue Jays, who currently occupy the American League’s third (and lowliest) wild card spot. But a playoff spot is a playoff spot. And that means there are still plenty of warm summer days on the calendar for the Sox to make up that deficit and play themselves into October baseball. But altogether, it feels like a bigger reach than that.
For one thing, a bunch of other .500-ish teams are hovering in contention and crowding the AL’s best-of-the-rest standings. Along with the Red Sox and Jays, there are the Angels (3 games behind the Jays), Yankees (3.5 back), and Mariners (also 3.5 back). That’s five average teams all stumbling over each other to see who can overachieve their rosters and scrape their way into one of the last available postseason berths. (And the Astros and Rangers are not so far from the fray, with the Astros only one game ahead of the Jays in the wild card standings and only a half game behind the Rangers for the division lead.)
None of this is surprising and all of it is pretty much just like MLB drew it up when they added the two playoff spots to each league in 2022. More playoff spots means more teams fighting for golden tickets means fanbases are engaged for longer, even if the odds are longer, too. When no one’s any good that means everyone still has a fighting chance. As postseason chases go, this could be a tight one — but also a dreary one.
And as far as the Sox’s chances go, their own GM labeled them “underdogs”. The team’s inconsistent, hot-cold-hot-cold play has been a real confidence zapper all season long. Lately, things have been looking up — with injured players coming back, Kiké returning to the Dodgers (loved the guy, but I will not miss his air mails to first base), and Tristan Casas becoming a beast. But Yoshida and Verdugo are slumping. Devers hasn’t been Devers most of the season. And I’ve never gotten a handle on the pitching rotation — couldn’t tell you who is pitching tonight or who will pitch tomorrow — which is kinda wild.
Three recent base running plays that capture the team in all its infamy/glory:
Exhibit A: This atrocity on the base paths. They won this game!
Exhibit B: Last night against the Mariners, speedster Jarren Duran worked a leadoff walk and turned it into a run, pretty much all by himself. As exciting as that was (and as well as Pivetta pitched), this hitless run was the only time the Sox would have the lead. They lost this game!
Exhibit C: Raffy hasn’t been mashing like he should, but he’s still a hoot to watch. Man plays the game the right way.
So, it’s not pretty, but it’s wacky and it’s baseball. What can you do but keep watching. And hope for a little luck.
Caterpillars
Back in March, Sam Miller decided to make opening day of the baseball season “the best day of baseball possible” by skipping around the TV constantly — “trying to get the best matchups, the best hitters, the major league debuts, the closest games, the bases loaded.” After watching seven hours and over 250 plate appearances, he wrote about nine things he loved seeing that day. Number seven on the list was “Mike Yastrzemski swinging at a high Gerrit Cole fastball” — not because Yaz crushes that fastball, but because he shouldn’t swing at it, knows he shouldn’t swing at it, but can’t help himself from swinging at it:
Last year Mike Yastrzemski couldn’t really hit high fastballs and he couldn’t really lay off high fastballs. That’s was the diminishment of an otherwise very good baseball player. But six months is a long time. In less time than that, I’ve recently learned, a caterpillar’s body completely dissolves inside a hardened shell. Completely dissolves. “Then, from bundles of cells, a new body takes form. The creature that emerges retains almost nothing of its juvenile self except, weirdly, its memories.” Our faith in the power of time to produce great change is extraordinary. We all show up in spring thinking that what was immutable in a player in September might have been extremely mutable over the course of a long winter. “Don’t swing at high fastballs” might have been his New Year’s resolution…
Spoiler alert: Cole throws a high fastball. Yaz chases it.
It was opening day, the day when hope springs eternal, anything can happen. But maybe we can’t really change, we just dissolve, turn into goo. No transformation occurs.
Other rabbit holes
Indy. Matt Zoller Seitz writes an appreciation of Harrison Ford’s grand old actor phase.
Pee-wee. I did not love Pee-wee Herman growing up, note even sure I’ve seen Big Adventure all the way through, but he was still a huge influence. The good kind of weird.
Sinéad. I remember the fallout of shock and confusion following that SNL moment. Forgot that Dylan stood by, doing nothing. She was a real badass — and recognized evil more clearly than any of us.
And that’s it for this month’s West Coast edition. Have a good one.
jf