(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 Corey Kluber Appreciation Society peaked in 2014 and appeared to be struggling at the start of 2015 but now it has officially entered the annals of history as… the first pitcher to strike out 18 in a game since Anibal Sanchez did it in 2013. It’s a crazy impressive feat, made more crazy by the fact that it came against a Cardinals team that is below league average for strikeouts with 243 on the season. PECOTA had Kluber’s weighted mean projected strikouts as 189 for the season, and he hit nearly 10% of that projection in one start last night. He’s projected to have 26 more starts and 154 strikeouts ROS, which would be about 6 K’s per game. He struck out 269 last season for K/9 of 10.27. PECOTA is low on Kluber, but take the over and assume he has turned a corner.

One thing that’s NOT crazy– Mark Reynolds was DH for the Cardinals in this game and struck out 3 times. Reynolds ranks 7th on the active strikeout leaderboard with 1424 career strikeouts , and is the only player in the top 25 among active leaders with less than 10 years service time. R. According to PECOTA, Reynolds projects to strike out 77 more times this season which would give him more career strikouts than Adrian Beltre, Jorge Posada, or Pudge Rodgriguez. Reynolds, who is 31 right now and on a 1 year contract, is valuable enough in this era that he should stick around until, say, age 35 (2019). If he can hit his projected strikeouts for each year til 2019, he has a good chance to be in the top 5 career strikeout leaders behind Reggie Jackson, Jim Thome, Adam Dunn and Sammy Sosa (although A.Rod would have to disappear for that to happen, and now that Bud Selig is gone that may be less likely).

Oh also, the Cardinals basically shut out the Indians for 7 innings, despite Cleveland only striking out 3 times total. So, in total, there were 21 strikeouts for the game, just 3 of them came on the wrong side.

Bryce Harper has turned the corner so hard that he brought Michael Taylor with him. Taylor subbed in for Harper and hit a grand slam in the top of the 9th inning, his 3rd home run of the season. Michael Taylor is 20 months older than Bryce Harper.

The Blue Jays saw their playoff odds drop 5.9% in their 2-1 loss to Baltimore yesterday. They are now at 18% (adjusted) according to BP, despite being a game up on the Red Sox. The AL East as a whole has had bad luck with starting pitching, but did anyone expect this Yankees rotation to dominate that division?

Speaking of Playoff Odds, everyone expected the AL West to be a tight division heading into this year with Seattle and Los Angeles by way of Anaheim in contention, and maybe Oakland close behind. Houston continues to stay in the conversation, currently leading the division and sitting at 44.1% playoff odds despite projecting to be slightly below .500 going forward. Houston survived last night off of the backs of their bullpen after Brett Oberholtzer went 3 innings allowing 1 run and Sam Deduno allowed 2 runs in 2 innings. The Angels continued to survive on the back of Mike Trout, who robbed a Tulowitzki home run. If Seattle’s rotation can’t turn around, the AL West may turn into a two horse race soon.

Jonathan Papelbon recorded his 113th save as a Phillie, becoming the team’s all-time saves leader. Now everyone in history will always associate Papelbon with the Phillies forever and ever.

Also Jeff Francoeur had a Mike Trout-esque throw home to beat the runner and save the game for the Phillies, so Jonathan Papelbon owes at least 1/3 of one of his saves to Francoeur and in 15 years someone will discover this post and be reminded of the year that Jeff Francoeur was a productive everyday outfielder for an AL East team and then realize that they’re thinking about the Phillies in 2015 and cognitive dissonance will set in.

Shrimp alert last night in Chicago (see below)

TWEETS WE LIKED 

Aiiiieeeeee! Cogz for shrimps! Chris Coglan draws a free pass and the Cubs win on a walkoff walk!!! HIT THE MUSIC http://t.co/NBAG2BJpIw

— Shrimp Alert (@shrimpalert) May 14, 2015

Jeff Francoeur and Mike Trout weren’t the only outfielders to be really good last night

Giancarlo Stanton showed off his bat on Tuesday night. Tonight it was his arm. #Marlins #Dodgers https://t.co/JXAljkSZ4t

— Ryan Walton (@RyanCPWalton) May 14, 2015

And here’s a Facebook post we liked:

ARTICLES WE LIKED

Tony Rehagen profiles pitching coach Leo Mazzone for SB Nation

How many baseball writers have been calling for robot umpires, not realizing they were forecasting their own doom? Ed Sherman writes on the upcoming Robot Beat Writer Uprising.

Who’s side are you on in the Jorge Posada vs Umpire farting war?

TODAY’S BEST PITCHING MATCHUPS

Links to pitcher’s Brooks Baseball player card in the name.

Michael Wacha (StL) vs. Trevor Bauer (CLE) (12:10 ET)

As of press time this game has already started quick turn it on!

Vance Worley (PIT) vs. Aaron Harang (PHI) (1:10 ET)

Chad Bettis (COL) vs Brett Anderson (LAD) (10:10 ET)

Two matchups featuring players going back to face teams where they had been relatively successful, with Worley returning to Philadelphia and Anderson to Colorado. Colorado and Philly are in a race to the National League cellar.