(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 news is not good, baseball fans, I don’t know how else to explain it. The ongoing civil unrest in Baltimore forced the Orioles to postpone yet another against the White Sox on Tuesday. The teams will play on 2 pm ET Wednesday afternoon, at a game closed to the public. It will be the first major league game without paid fans in attendance. Scheduled home games later in the week will be moved to Tampa. The postponed games against the White Sox have been moved to a double-header on May 28^th.

Times for #orioles games at Trop this weekend: 7:05 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1:35 p.m. Sunday.
— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) April 29, 2015

The Orioles – White Sox contest is the MLB.tv free game of the day, unless you live in the White Sox or Orioles blackout regions.

MLB Advanced Media confirmed to me — no changes to blackout rules for tomorrow’s O’s-White Sox game. Broadcast on MASN. — Wendy Thurm (@hangingsliders) April 28, 2015

In more awful news, Kirk Gibson revealed he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Gibson had been scheduled to work 60 games this season from the Fox Sports Detroit broadcast booth but has been missing from broadcasts since opening day. Thankfully, modern medicine makes it possible to live lots of productive years with Parkinson’s Disease but it will certainly be difficult to watch the physical decline of someone who amazed us with his physical feats for much of the 80’s.

In the most shameful news of the day, SBNation was forced to remove content from and later fire the editor of Halos Heaven. The editor, identified for years only as Rev Halofan, accused Josh Hamilton of taking no accountability for his problems with substance abuse, calling Hamilton a “coddled hillbilly”, and commenting that “…when you finally die of a drug related matter, it won’t be Arte Moreno’s fault.” The post was taken down by SB Nation sometime Tuesday morning for violating community guidelines but not before it was widely read and criticized. Unfortunately for SB Nation, no one thought it would be a bad idea to let Rev Halofan post one last time. The long rambling good bye is… eh… you can read it for yourself thanks to Deadspin.  

Injury Report

Carl Crawford (torn oblique), Masahiro Tanaka (mild forearm strain), and Jed Lowrie (thumb surgery) all hit the DL yesterday. The Crawford injury is significant as it may make room for red-hot Alex Guerrero to play every day. The Tanaka injury is significant as the Yankees don’t have a lot of pitching depth and Lowrie’s injury is significant because the Astros don’t have a lot of players on multi-year deals and one of them won’t be on the field for a few weeks

On a scary note, Archie Bradley took a batted ball off the side of his face in last night’s game. There is no word as of the time of writing on how long Bradley will need to recover but he did leave the field on his feet.

Notable Transactions and Highlights

The Rays officially released Grant Balfour. Balfour’s fastball was averaging just over 89 mph.

A.J. Cole, the Nationals’ 2nd best pitching prospect, made his major league debut Tuesday night for the Nationals and it wasn’t pretty. The Braves scored 9 runs on 9 hits in 2 innings off Cole. Cole also dropped a ball at first base with two outs which meant 5 of the 9 runs were unearned. The game was salvaged for the Nationals by the highest paid Brave at the game, though:

Also, this was the largest come-from-behind victory in Nationals’ history (post-Expos years category).  

Rafael Montero was recalled by the Mets to make a spot-start against the Marlins. The 24 year-old Montero allowed 3 runs on 5 hits but struck out 6 against only 1 walk in 5 2/3 innings pitched. Michael Morse drove in the go-ahed run in the bottom of the 8th inning, leading to the Headline of the Night:  

Links we liked:

Sam Miller is working on a list of all 30 MLB teams’ emergency catchers (meaning the guy who gets thrown behind the plate when both catchers are unable to play for some reason). Sam also covered the efforts of some teams to end minor league relief specialty roles.  

Tweets We Liked

Why is AJ Pierzynski? 4-4? WTF?? — Paul Sporer (@sporer) April 29, 2015

Puig, Pederson, Crawford, Ethier. Man, what are the Dodgers going to do with their surplus of outfielders? pic.twitter.com/xTIpOeDVgy — Ben Badler (@BenBadler) April 29, 2015

Carlos Quentin, who never played a game for the Braves, gets paid more by the Braves this year than all but three active Braves.

— Jesse Spector (@jessespector) April 29, 2015

I wish we could play the Brewers forever. #Reds — Eric Roseberry (@Ericdroseberry) April 29, 2015

Today’s Best Pitching Match-ups

Dallas Keuchel (HOU) vs. Andrew Cashner (SD) (3:40 ET) Imagine a battle between a pitcher who is trying to prove that last year wasn’t a fluke vs. a player who’s trying to prove his injuries are a fluke. This is that battle.

Yordano Ventura (KC) vs. Danny Salazar (CLE) (6:10 ET) Maybe the fact that Salazar throws almost as hard as Ventura will make Ventura think twice before endangering his teammates? I doubt it.

Jordan Zimmerman (WAS) vs. Alex Wood (ATL) (7:10 ET) Alex Wood might be the best pitcher on the Braves roster and he’ll match-up against a pitcher who could be the best pitcher on most rosters, except not the roster he’s on.

Aaron Harang (PHI) vs. Carlos Martinez (STL) (8:15 ET) Hear me out: Aaron Harang has a 1.87 ERA so far this season. Aaron. Harang. And he’s pitching against Carlos Martinez who throws really really hard. You should watch this match-up.