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Greetings, fellow baseball enjoyers! And welcome to our thrice-weekly newsletter/blog.
This time out it’s a controversial glove change in Chicago, a memorable debut for Pete Crow-Armstrong, and thoughts on the MLB front office rankings.
My name’s AJ… and this is Two-Strike Count.
Don’t fire until you see the whites of their… gloves?
Cubs reliever Luke Little got himself in hot water during Wednesday’s game against the Astros. Umpire Andy Fletcher told Little he wasn’t allowed to have an American flag patch (because of an MLB rule about glove colors) on his glove, and told him to change it. They got him a glove that passed inspection, Little retired Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, the Cubbies won the game and everyone went home happy.
Except Little.
He posted a GIF of Hulk Hogan and wrote “Proud to be an American. Go Cubs Go.”
Good for him… but he still broke the rules. MLB has a pretty reasonable and straightforward rule about pitchers’ gloves. They can’t have the color white anywhere on them as it could distract the hitters.
Little told reporters he knew the rule but didn’t think the umpire would make him change his glove, adding “It’s not like it’s an advantage in the game. It’s not like it blinds the hitters. Just representing my country.”
Someone should tell him there are other (and better, non rule breaking) ways to do that. And he shouldn’t get special treatment just because it’s an American flag. I’d expect an umpire to make the same call for any flag containing the color white.
Sorry, dude… rules are rules. And you got caught.
Welcome to The Show, PCA!
With Cody Bellinger stuck on the IL, the Cubs called up highly touted prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong. Known by his initials PCA, he has a .203/.241/.392 slash line with 7 RBIs, five stolen bases, and two homers in Triple-A this year. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but Crow-Armstrong can help the Cubs in other ways.
Like hitting a two-run homer for his first Major League hit. Not bad, kid… not bad at all.
Crow-Armstrong also brings highlight reel defense (he’s by far the Cubs best defensive outfielder) and a better-than-decent set of wheels on the basepaths to the table… so expect to see lots of late-game defensive substitutions and pinch-running appearances in his future.
Despite struggling (0 for 19) in his first stint in Chicago, Crow-Armstrong is the Cubs top prospect for a reason. And while Bellinger’s on the shelf, I’d expect him to help the Cubs win some ball games.
MLB execs rate themselves
Forty executives across MLB voted on which team they thought has the league’s best front office and the results were… interesting.
The Dodgers took the top spot, followed by the Rays, Braves, Guardians, and Orioles rounding out the top five. The Dodgers? For what? All they did was drop over a billion dollars this winter and did some, uh, creative accounting to defer 99.9 percent of their 2024 salary. The only award they should win is the one named after Bernie Madoff.
Not sure why the Rays are ranked so high, either. They let Tyler Glasnow go to the aforementioned Dodgers and their roster’s a shell of its former self. I’ll agree with the Braves. There’s no question they’ve built one of the most feared lineups in all of baseball. No argument with the Guardians (they’ve currently got the best record in baseball) or the Orioles (they look even better than last year with Corbin Burnes in the fold) either.
But as I scrolled down the list, it started to make more sense. Sorta. The Brewers were a little too high for me after letting Burnes go to Baltimore. Behind them were the Diamondbacks who made a splash by getting Joc Pederson, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Jordan Montgomery.
Then we have the defending World Series Champion Texas Rangers tied for 8th with the Minnesota Twins. Kinda high for the Rangers if you ask me. Sure they’ve still got most of their championship core, but they refused to pay Montgomery and didn’t do much despite knowing how thin their pitching depth was headed into this year.
Like I said, interesting results. Some teams feel too high (Rays and Rangers), some too low (Diamondbacks), and some feel like they got votes because of who they are… not what they did (Dodgers).
But hey, these were MLB execs voting. And I’m just a baseball geek and content creator. What the heck do I know anyway?
That’s it for this edition of Two-Strike Count, baseball fans. Until next time!
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