(with apologies to Ogden Nash)

Hi, everyone! And welcome to Write-Up For Yesterday, BttP’s guide to what the heck happened yesterday in baseball. We’re not gonna just hand you some scores here, because we trust you know how to type the letters E-S-P-N into your internet machine. Instead, we hope to give you a fuller and richer understanding of important goings on from yesterday in baseball. The big stories, and the noteworthy performances-good and bad.

STORY LINES AND NEWS CYCLE EPHEMERA

The Mets have won five in a row! Last night Jarred Cosart of the Marlins gambled on a pitch to Wilmer Flores and lost, giving up a three-run home run. Lets hope Flores can hit enough this year to make the Mets choose to live with his awful defense at short. Because when you think about the Mets, they should always have a bad defensive shortstop, right? Giancarlo Stanton hit his first home run of the season, so the Marlins season is slightly less sad so far.

Overstuffed stat line of the day goes to Cole Hamels, who lost against Doug Fister and the Nationals.

Gosh, look at that thing. It’s beautiful in a slow-motion car crash sort of way.

I, uh, okay.

LOOKING AHEAD

He is risen! Kris Bryant will be called up today by the Chicago Cubs and you should expect to see plenty of him this weekend against the Padres. I expect his walk-up music will be “Ava Maria”. I didn’t actually think Theo would be brazen enough to call him up literally at the exact moment the Cubs would gain the extra year of team control, but that’s the hyper-masculine world of nerdy baseball executives for you.

The hot-start Rockies go into Los Angeles for a series with the Dodgers. It’s still so early, but if they can beat Kershaw and Greinke in LA, expect the chatter to heat up.

The inter-league series this weekend puts the Braves in Toronto. If the Jays sweep, you’ll probably hear something about the suspicious turf, but consider this: the Braves aren’t very good.

TWEETS WE LIKED

The review took 5 minutes, 44 seconds, but you know what? It was a HUGE play, it was extremely close, and they got it right.

— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) April 17, 2015

Is this possible @PurpleRow ? Wowza. pic.twitter.com/7EeGAn15lF

— Chris Roth (@COchrisroth) April 17, 2015

 

ARTICLES WE LIKED

Patrick Dubuque on April baseball.

Michael Baumann on Trevor Bauer.

Nathaniel Grow on MLB’s antitrust exemption. 

THE WEEKEND’S SIX BEST PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday:

Jeff Samardzija (CHW) vs. David Price (DET) (10:00 PT)

Two of the favorites for AL Cy Young face off in a game that will take place while you’re probably at work, because life is stupid.

Johnny Cueto (CIN) vs. Michael Wacha (STL) (5:15 PT)

This could be the year Cueto finally breaks through and wins the NL CY, but conquering the Cardinals is probably the first step.

Saturday:

Chris Sale (CHW) vs. Anibal Sanchez (DET) (10:00 PT)

Yeah, this White Sox-Tigers series is probably gonna be pretty good.

Masahiro Tanaka (NYY) vs. Jake Odorizzi (TBR) (4:10 PT)

Tanaka is trying to prove he’s returned to form, Odorizzi is trying to propel a breakout year.

Sunday:

Shelby Miller (ATL) vs. Daniel Norris (TOR) (10:00 PT)

Miller, who’s trying to be a post-hype sleeper, has a sub-1.00 ERA so far in two starts. Norris is still working to translate his stuff to the big leagues.

Andrew Cashner (SDP) vs. Jon Lester (CHC) (11;20 PT)

Enjoy Andrew Cashner while you can, everyone.