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MLB 2017 Regular Season OT - 108 years in the making

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I'll be at the Mariners home opener tomorrow. First time in Safeco so I'm looking forward to it. Get ready to see some proper hotdogs with mustard and relish. I might get crazy and try a specialty dog.

p.s. After I bring Mariners GAF a win tomorrow, I'll gladly accept tickets to keep the good luck rolling.
 
Tragicomedy said:
I'll be at the Mariners home opener tomorrow. First time in Safeco so I'm looking forward to it. Get ready to see some proper hotdogs with mustard and relish. I might get crazy and try a specialty dog.

p.s. After I bring Mariners GAF a win tomorrow, I'll gladly accept tickets to keep the good luck rolling.
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Cool that you're going. Btw, you'll watch James Paxton pitch an amazing game and then chill to see how the ms bullpen will blow it and/or how the offense doesn't do shit.
 
Mortemis said:
Cool that you're going. Btw, you'll watch James Paxton pitch an amazing game and then chill to see how the ms bullpen will blow it and/or how the offense doesn't do shit.
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Yeah, I've been watching you guys on MLB.tv the past few games to get a feel for the full roster. It...seems like you should be scoring way more runs? Like on paper it's not a bad lineup. Bullpen does look rough.

We'll be cheering on Dyson. That's what speed do.
 
Setzer said:
YES!! Great comeback by the Angels!

Walks killed the M's in that inning.
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I was at the game yesterday with my son, my brother and his 2 sons. We were walking out in as the bottom of the 9th started, Albert came to plate so we stopped on field level and watch maybe the best half inning in baseball I've ever seen. People were going about as ape shit as after 2002 WS win. Grown men were pushing strangers, shoving and just wild. My son and his cousins were screaming too, all caught up in it.

Man, some baseball magic happened and it was cool my kid got to experience that.
 
new helmets for the braves. i would prefer the matte look. first game they will wear them is the suntrust park opener on friday. hopefully they look better in person than they do in the pictures.

edit: actually, looks like it will only be used for this weekend's games. /shrug

https://twitter.com/UniWatch/status/851436935050604544

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Hydro dipping, a high-tech graphic process that has provided a flashy look of many college football helmets, is coming to Major League Baseball.

When the Atlanta Braves play their first regular season game at their new stadium, SunTrust Park, this Friday, their batting helmets will feature a carbon fiber pattern -- an MLB first, and a move that may open a new frontier of baseball headwear design.

"We want to be cognizant of our history and what it stands for, but you've got to balance that with moving forward," said Braves general manager John Coppolella. "You can still innovate and do new things while staying true to your roots, and this helmet is a good example of that."

The special helmets are the brainchild of Braves equipment manager Ben Acree, who got the idea after several Atlanta players and coaches visited the United States Naval Academy's football program last year. "The guys came back from the trip talking about some of the special helmets they saw, which Navy had worn against Army a few years back," said Acree. "That got me thinking about whether we could do something like that, so I kind of did a deep dive on college football helmets. I saw what teams have been wearing the past few years and started to explore what it would be possible for us to do."
True carbon fiber helmets have a distinct, textured-looking exterior pattern and are common in motorcycle racing and auto racing. That pattern was brought to the football field in 2009, when the University of Oregon unveiled a new uniform set that included a helmet with a carbon fiber-themed shell. The pattern was applied to the helmet via hydro dipping, a process that applies printed graphic patterns to three-dimensional surfaces. Since then, several additional college football teams have used hydro dipping to create the carbon fiber look and other patterns on their helmets, but the Braves are the first MLB team to use the process on a batting helmet.

"We played around with a few different ideas, but we found that the carbon fiber look works well for us," said Acree. "The pattern fits on our navy helmet and doesn't really mess with the design too much. It's a subtle pattern, not too crazy. That's important because we wanted to walk a fine line between our very strong team tradition and being innovative."

The headgear was produced by MLB's official batting helmet provider, Rawlings. Mike Thompson, the company's executive vice president for marketing, confirmed that the helmets were hydro dipped but declined to discuss specifics of the process, citing trade secrecy. He said Rawlings has previously used hydro dipping for a few college baseball teams, including a camouflage pattern for the University of Virginia, but had never explored the process for a pro helmet until now.

"The helmet is a very sensitive piece of equipment, obviously, and MLB wanted to be sure that the process didn't compromise the integrity of the helmet," said Thompson. "So we worked closely with them to make sure we were compliant with their safety standards."
A team spokesperson said the Braves plan to wear the new helmets for their home opener on Friday and again on Sunday (but not on Saturday, out of respect for MLB's annual Jackie Robinson Day festivities). After that, the helmets will be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to charity. Acree and Coppolella both said the team has some additional helmet concepts in the works, but the carbon fiber design, at least in this iteration, will not be used again after this weekend.

The Atlanta helmet is the latest in a series of developments that have suddenly made batting helmets an unlikely hotbed of baseball uniform activity. Although there have been advances in helmet safety and technology over the years, the basic visual concept of the helmet as a solid-colored glossy shell with a flat logo decal has been the norm for half a century. Things are starting to change: Twelve of the 30 MLB teams are now using matte-finish helmets instead of the standard glossies (up from five last season), and six teams, including the Braves, are using custom-molded three-dimensional helmet logos instead of conventional decals (up from one last season). Similar changes can be seen in many of the top college programs.

Thompson, the Rawlings executive, expects hydro dipped helmets to spread throughout the game as well. "Once the other equipment guys see this thing, everyone's going to want it," he said. "And then it'll trickle down to college teams, youth teams. We see hydro taking off, so we're gearing up for that."

If that happens, the Braves will be only too happy to view imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. "I'll be proud that we did it first, but that doesn't mean others can't do it too," said Coppolella. "If it's good for the game, it's good for all of us, and I'm happy that we can help be that leading agent of change."
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http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19123701/braves-battling-helmet-gets-high-tech-makeover
 
One Eyed Willy said:
I was at the game yesterday with my son, my brother and his 2 sons. We were walking out in as the bottom of the 9th started, Albert came to plate so we stopped on field level and watch maybe the best half inning in baseball I've ever seen. People were going about as ape shit as after 2002 WS win. Grown men were pushing strangers, shoving and just wild. My son and his cousins were screaming too, all caught up in it.

Man, some baseball magic happened and it was cool my kid got to experience that.
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Love hearing stories like this.
 
So here's 19 year-old Mike Soroka making his AA debut:

5IP, 2H, 0R, 0BB, 7K, 80p-53s, 5:2 go:fo

Apparently he was getting a tiny strikezone and squeezed a lot, and one of the hits was an infield hit that could have been an error. Don't sleep on Mike Soroka.
 
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Not really feeling great about this series vs the Reds because our defense was terrible the last 2 games. But I can't complain about the pitching lineup. Still not sure Glasnow is really really ready but we'll see.

Fangraphs has an article today showing that K & BB rates are up slightly from 2016, and HR is holding steady. Umps maybe squeezing the bottom of the zone already.
 
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