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“Bad Baseball-Seems to Be Everywhere”

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Attendance is down.

TV Ratings are down.

Strikeouts are up.

Elbow ligament surgeries seem ready to set an all time record.

More than 1200-players have appeared in games this season, threatening the all time record of 1300 a year ago, and we are not even at the All Star break.

For every great team out there, the Red Sox, the Astros, the Yankees, for every surprise team like the Mariners, Milwaukee or Atlanta, there are plenty of really bad teams.

Yes, you can subscribe to the theory the Padres last place season was part of a game plan to take this to ground zero, and wait for the plethora of young talent to get to the big leagues. But losing is losing, another lost summer.

But even with all the young kids having good seasons at different levels in the minors, there’s no guarantee Logan Allen, Fernando Tatis, Cal Quantrill will be ready to star in San Diego immediately, once they get here..

You look across the baseball landscape, and you see some really awful teams.

As we approach the All Star break, don’t blink, don’t let your eyes water, you are seeing things properly, both the Orioles and Royals are 40-games under .500, and it’s July. That’s right, 40-games under .500.

The misery that is Mets baseball is probably more about bad pitching injuries, than anything, but the everyday lineup has lots of age on it.

The plunge of the Washington Nationals has to do with an ailing ace pitcher, Stephen Strasburg, a leaky bullpen, and a (.211) hitting season from superstar about to be free agent Bryce Harper. This was supposed to be a great franchise, but it never got there, and now seems going in the wrong direction.

Miami has had a better than expected season with little payroll. Tampa Bay has gotten better as the season has gone on, to be a mid-pack team. But is there real joy to be chasing the .500-mark as some kind of real accomplishment?

The Reds wee awful early, but have ripped off a (15-6) stretch to give hope better days might be coming.

Detroit is in rebuild mode. The White Sox are jamming a lot down the throats of young players, and are 30-games under .500 already.

You wonder with the amount of money pouring into all these clubs, via TV deals, and MLB media, why it is as bad as it seems to be. Bad scouting, bad drafts, bad signings, failing free agents.

It’s a mess out there right now.

You’ll get excited to watch the (64-29) Red Sox…the 62-win Astros…or the (59-31) Yankees.

But as of this morning…there are 13-teams below .500…..and 8-clubs that could lose 100-games this season.

The grand old game, not very good right now …is it?

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“Baseball-So Where Are We?”

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These are truly the dog days of summer in baseball.

July grinds into August and spills into September, for cities and teams already out of the playoffs.

The Dodgers have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, and have put themselves into the wildcard playoff race, with still plenty of time to chase down first place in the NL-West.

That is amazing when you consider, the top five starting pitchers have all been on the disabled list, some multiple times. And they lost their key guys in the infield, 2nd-SS-3B for extended periods of time with injuries.

Who could have forecast rookie Max Muncy would hit 20-home runs, Joc Pederson would find his hitting stroke again, and Yasiel Puig would go thru the first half of the season without any discipline issues.

So LA fans have something to look forward too, even if 60-percent of the fans still cannot see their games on TV in the LA market.

Down the 405, it has been one injury after another to the Angels, who are staggering in a very tough AL-West, the division owed by the Houston Astros.

No one cold forecast the Seattle Mariners would have this type of season, putting themselves in the wildcard race, and the very young Oakland A’s would be so competitive.

Mike Trout is a superstar by himself, but seems to be wasting away another year, on a team that isn’t hitting, and has more hurt pitchers than healthy arms.

When you pay 46-million this season and see a combined (.245) batting average from Justin Upton-Albert Pujols. 4-other starters in the lineup are hitting (.215) or worse.

And to compound it, the pitching staff is ailing again. Garrett Richards cannot do it by himself, and 3-other starters on the disabled list, won’t be coming back this season.

Another lost year under the Arte Moreno-Mike Scoscia banner.

In San Diego, send the Padres mail in care of last place baseball.

You see flashes of specialness from the kid pitchers Joey Luchessi and Eric Lauer. They have a quality bullpen that is now borderline burned out. It’s been a lost season for starters Luis Perdomo and Danilson Lamet.

Journeyman starters Clayton Richard and Tyson Ross sometimes don’t get out of the 5th inning, other times do well without run support, and lose.

There’s no one to protect first baseman Eric Hosmer in the batting order.

There is more streak hitting that trust-worthy hitting from Will Myers, Hunter Renfroe, Manny Margot.

The rest of the batting order shows little consistency. So all Padres fans can do is wait and hope more quality kids are coming from a blossoming minor league farm system.

But what is there to guarantee that the next young bat will be any more consistent than the other young bats, who struggle on Monday-Wednesday-Friday.

A low batting average, and a likely record setting strikeout mark, with few home run threats in the lineup. Doesn’t sound like a playoff contender.of a franchise anytime in the near future.

Hot-humid summer weather, and the dogs days of the baseball season. Another summer in Southern California.

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“Lakers-The Day After”

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What the NBA columnists in different cities are saying-writing about the Lakers signing of LeBron James.

..Team chemistry…King James…young kids…and some goofballs”

..LeBron….all about basketball now and the business of his future career”

..Michael Jordan (6-2) in NBA finals…LeBron James (2-6)”

..Who coaches this team…..LeBron James or Luke Walton?”

..Can you really have 2-head coaches on a team?”

..LeBron-this ain’t the NBA East anymore”

..The NBA rich get richer…the poor are in purgatory…it’s life in NBA now.”

..The stars run the league….Jordan Rules…LeBron’s bylaws”

..Lakers-brilliant move followed by bombastic mistakes.”

..Who coaches the Lakers….Luke or LeBron?”

..Anybody heard from LaVar Ball lately?”

..Cleveland must be sick-took on big salaries of Larry Nance and Jared Clarkson to help the Lakers-who then used that cap space to take the Cavaliers icon.”

..Circus coming to town….LeBron and his clown roster.”

..Lakers are still not comparable to Golden State.”

..Best 1-on-1 game coming up….LeBron-vs-LaVar.”

..LeBron and Magic….basketball and business partners”

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“Lakers Get their Star–Get Problems Too?”

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King James has landed with the Lakers, and the return to glory is just around the corner.

He wanted to come to LA, they wanted him, and a 4-year 154M-deal cemented the arrival of LeBron James.

But it came at a price, and probably questions worth asking, ones now tied to team chemistry.

LeBron gives the Lakers what they have solely lacked thru the five non-playoff seasons they have endured. Leadership, fire, passion, physicality, durability.

Not since the Kobe Bryant heyday has there been this buzz about this franchise. Not Phil Jackson, not Lonzo Ball, not anyone, can take over the team, the market and games, like LeBron will.

But it comes with a price.

In a stunning move, the Lakers backed off a trade for Kawhi Leonard for now. Either the asking price from San Antonio was too steep, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and a number one?

Or maybe it was the uncertainty about the longterm health of Leonard after his missing of one full year with a quad injury that did not heal.

The Lakers said goodbye for quality forward-center Julius Randle, coming off a workman like 16-point a game season. He may not have been flashy. He was consistent. He was rugged. He was a good solid soldier.

Letting him go may have subtracted something strong at the talent level, though Kyle Kouzma, Hart and Ingram are back as cornerstones.

The Lakers wanted to change the personna of the team. They did that, and may have tampered with some team chemistry too.

You add the feistiness of Lance Stephenson on defense, but you also add a sometime headache type player, who scrapped with opponents officials, and his own teammates at various NBA spots.

Javale McGee, the jumping jack center, comes from Golden State, with defensive abilities, but a reputation for erratic performances on the floor and foolish things off the floor.

And then there’s Lonzo Ball, coming off 3-injuries, the most serious being meniscus surgery. Of course there still is lots of upside to him.

But you still have all the noise off the court, and outside the arena, from father LaVar, whom no-one wants to hear from. How does the on-court chemistry of Lonzo fit with LeBron? Will James make Ball an even better player going forward?

What is to the rumor that LaVar Ball leaked the Lonzo Ball knee surgery issue, to deter LA from including his son in any possible Kawhi Leonard trade?

And how will Luke Walton do as head coach staring, glaring, preaching into the eyes of LeBron James? You know there was a lot of coaching turmoil and turnover during the King James-Cleveland days.

The Lakers have yet to move on retaining free agent center Brooke Lopez, who had a strong statistical season on a bad young Lakers club. Cap space now becomes part of the argument going forward with any acquisition. They did keep shooting guard Kantavious Pope, last year’s pleasant surprise player.

So as Lakers fans celebrate, some should think about, do they have enough outside shooting aside from the starting five? Do they have trustworthy off the bench players? Will guys who acted like knuckleheads other places, be quality teammates in LA? Will the Ball family become a distraction again?

Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka got one star signing done. Maybe they wait till next off season to see if Kawhi gets healthy, who else opts out, and how year one one of this chemistry experiment in LA does.

But the burning question going forward, they go the star they wanted, but they give up talent and team chemistry with some of the other questionable acquisitions? Only a full season will tell us that.

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Followers-Viewers-Listeners

On vacation this week.
Back on next Monday
Thanks for your support

Lee ‘Hacksaw’ Hamilton