2026 MLB Season

Griffin was demoted all the way to the eight spot in the batting order today. He's played all of three major league games, this can't be good for his confidence. . . does anyone have patience anymore?
At least he's still in the starting lineup. Sometimes batting at the back of the order is a good thing to take some pressure off. A good example is Royals CF Kyle Isbel. He's a tremendous defensive player but was struggling at the plate. The Royals moved him to the 8th-9th spot last year and he became one of the most reliable hitters for the team. Made it so that the back of the order was still dangerous.
 
At least he's still in the starting lineup. Sometimes batting at the back of the order is a good thing to take some pressure off. A good example is Royals CF Kyle Isbel. He's a tremendous defensive player but was struggling at the plate. The Royals moved him to the 8th-9th spot last year and he became one of the most reliable hitters for the team. Made it so that the back of the order was still dangerous.

You probably nailed it; reason he was likely moved back is to take the pressure off him. Mets young, top prospect Carson Benge is also batting at the bottom of the order, after a torrid spring training. He's currently batting about .100 and could be demoted to AAA if it doesn't turn around. Benge's issue is he hit a deep HR in his first game and is probably swinging for the fences every at bat. Not good, for an average sized player! I'd assume Griffin will have similar pressure on him, if his average continues to drop. Hopefully he turns it around soon, as I'd like to see the Bucs do well.

By the way, the Dodgers are currently batting .299 as a team. The other 29 teams combine are batting .232 thus far. Since, about the 2nd half of the 2015 season**, batting anywhere close to .300 has become very rare, even for the best MLB players. It's basically 3 outcomes: Walk, Strikeout or HR. As even small players swing for the fence -- around that time, Scotter Gennett hit 4 HR's in a game. When he came up with Milwaukee, 4 HR's in a month would've been a pleasant surprise.

**Early 2015 there was a lot of grumbling (probably from ESPN and Fox (((execs))) that there was not enough offense in baseball. Come 2nd half of that season, balls started to fly out of parks with much greater frequency: 2015 mlb juiced balls - Google Search
 
24 year old second baseman Colt Keith hitting .364 to start the season. Here’s an excerpt from some fantasy geek…

Keith is another player I covered in that article this week on hitters who have changed their stance or approach. The 24-year-old has had the second-biggest jump in bat speed, up 2.8 mph from 70.7 mph to 73.5 mph. Keith has also made some changes to his batting stance, closing his stance off by eight degrees. He has also improved his Ideal Angle Attack Rate significantly, which might be why Keith has seen his line drive rate improve by almost 3%, and his hard-hit rate is up from 43.7% to 56.5%. I don’t love that he sits versus lefties and can also be removed mid-game when a lefty comes in, but this is a former top prospect who is playing nearly every day and hitting the ball well. I think that’s worth buying into.
 
Mason Miller pushes scoreless streak to 28 2/3 innings

Miller extended his overall scoreless streak to 28 2/3 innings, dating back to last August. It’s the longest active streak in baseball and five shy of Cla Meredith’s franchise record. Only Meredith (33 2/3) and Randy Jones (30) have posted longer scoreless streaks as Padres.
Beyond that, Miller is striking out just about everyone he faces. This season 24 hitters have come to the plate. He’s punched out 19 of them. That 79.2% strikeout rate is the highest by a pitcher in his first seven appearances of a season since at least 1900.
 
This fast-rising prospect just homered farther than any Tiger in the Statcast Era
2024 first-rounder Rainer clubs 477-foot moonshot at 116.2 mph off the bat
Rainer's roundtripper, his first of the year, was truly historic. Since the start of the Statcast era (in 2015), it's both the longest measured homer by a Tigers Major or Minor Leaguer (surpassing Colt Keith's 473-footer for Triple-A Toledo on June 30, 2023) and the hardest hit (surpassing Chris Meyers' 115.7 mph for Lakeland on April 8, 2022).
 
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