Tag: baseball

Minor League Baseball Adapts the California Rule: Extra Innings Will Start With a Runner On 2nd Base With No Outs

The old California rule. The rule that says extra innings will begin with a runner on 2nd base with no outs in order to speed up the pace of play. That runner does not affect the ERA of the pitcher and is treated as if he reached base on an error.

This is exciting for minor league baseball. Some baseball purists might say that the game isn’t meant to be played this way and it is unfair for the pitcher to come into a new inning under pressure immediately. Just look at these mentions on the Twitter dot com.

So many angry old white people acting like this is going to affect Game 7 of the World Series. Just give this a week and people will forget that it even happened. How many people actually watch minor league baseball on TV all summer? It won’t affect the MLB and it just makes a game more exciting for the fans in the stadium that day. Just constant drama where just one bad pitch can change the lead or even give a team a walk-off victory. It’s great.

This is a business and the MLB wants their minor league affiliates to give their fans an entertaining product on the field. So those people who are freaking out have no idea what the hell their talking about and probably only watch one or two minor league baseball games a season.

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Kyle Schwarber Sent to Iowa

The Cubs sent down struggling slugger Kyle Schwarber to Triple-A Iowa. After batting a league-worst .171, it’s about time Kyle gets away from the major league roster. Even if it’s for a little bit, going down to Iowa could help Schwarber clear his head and focus more on fundamentals and making contact. 

If you asked me, a known baseball mastermind, I would say Kyle going to Iowa could turn his season around. Minor league life is much simpler than life at the major league level. If he goes 0-4 with Chicago, he has to hear about it from 1,000 people on how he stinks. Newspaper headlines. Tons of blogs. All of these writers just focusing on what he is doing poorly. 0-4 down in Iowa will maybe generate 1 or 2 newspapers asking what he could do better. That’s it. He can just take that and move on, focusing on his game more than focusing on his critics. 


Even though I’m sure he’s already tried it this year, but a story that I heard last year is that when Schwarber learned that he was cleared to bat in the World Series, he went to the batting cages and just watched 100 mph go to the glove. He said he just wanted to get back to seeing the ball to the glove. Picking it up early and getting his timing down. It’s fundamental drills like this that I believe could get Schwarber back in the grove. Go back to your roots. We’ve all seen the movies. A struggling pro goes back to his roots and realizes that he went astray from what got him to the pros. But in this case, Schwarber’s home roots is Iowa and focusing on fundamentals. 

Make more contact. Watch more film. Come back to the majors for our defending run in October. It’s always calm before the storm. Get ready MLB, Hurricane Kyle is coming and it will be dangerous. 

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