For people who don't watch baseball
Everything happening in the sport right now, explained from scratch — and then last night's games. Read it in five minutes and hold your own in the conversation.
The standing stories. Read these first — last night's scores don't mean much without them.
Six divisions, and the winner of each goes to the playoffs. Of the 30 clubs, the Brewers have won the most: 103-59. The two tightest races right now: AL Central: Guardians (85-77) lead the White Sox by 1; AL West: Astros (81-81) lead the Rangers by 1.
Say this “The Brewers have more wins than any of the other 29 clubs and it’s barely being discussed.”
Jacob Misiorowski throws a baseball harder than anyone else alive. Of the 25 fastest pitches thrown in the major leagues this season, 19 are his. He topped out at 105.5 mph, and the fastest pitch by anybody else all year was 104.5. He has reached that shelf in 8 different games. There is one nuance worth having: Mason Miller averages more (101.4 mph) — but he is a RELIEVER, throwing 555 pitches all season, one inning at a time. Misiorowski is a starter who averages 100.6 mph across 1677 pitches. Holding that for six innings is the harder thing by a distance. And he is not merely wild: 252 strikeouts against only 44 walks, with a 1.80 ERA against a league average near 4.00.
Say this “The thing about Misiorowski isn’t the 105.5 — it’s that he’s a starter holding 100.6 average over 1677 pitches. Relievers do that for one inning.”
Thirty home runs and thirty stolen bases in the same season is called 30/30. It is rare for a simple reason: the players with enough power to hit thirty are usually too big to steal thirty, and the players fast enough to steal thirty usually cannot hit thirty. Pete Crow-Armstrong sits at 45 and 41 — he is already there. He plays for the Chicago Cubs.
Say this “Crow-Armstrong’s about to go 30/30 and nobody’s talking about it.”
Jacob Misiorowski has allowed 96 hits all season, which is very few. Of those, 14 were home runs — 15%, against 13% for starters generally, so about the ordinary share. That matters because it tells you HOW he loses: when he is beaten it tends to be one swing rather than a rally, which is the profile of a pitcher nobody strings hits together against.
Say this “What gets him isn’t rallies — 14 of the 96 hits he’s allowed left the park.”
Baseball is played nearly every day, so form swings hard and fast. Right now the Brewers have won 5 in a row, the Giants have lost 5 straight and Nolan Arenado has got a hit in 13 consecutive games (the record is 56, set in 1941, and is considered unbreakable).
Say this “Brewers are the hottest team in baseball right now.”
0 results worth knowing, and the individual performances people will mention.
Both are genuinely open — that's what makes them good questions rather than a quiz.
Only the terms this page actually leaned on tonight. The list changes with the news.