Monday, July 27

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Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.

You’ve heard of being traded for a bag of baseballs. But how about being traded for a bucket of beers?  

OK, it was for a lot of buckets of beer. Sixty cases of beer, to be exact. That’s 1,440 cold ones. But yes, it really happened.

Let’s take you back to the 2005 Golden Baseball League, a now-defunct Independent league where — fun fact — a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson played his final season for a team named the “Surf Dawgs.” 

It was there that the Schaumburg Flyers traded pitcher Nigel Thatch to the Fullerton Flyers for 60 cases of Budweiser. (Yes, both teams were named the Flyers.)

Matt Monagan tells the story here — including an interview with former Fullerton GM Ed Hart, the architect of the sudsy swap. 

What gave him the idea? Well, Thatch was no ordinary pitcher. He was also an actor, who at that time was famously starring as “Leon” — a cocky athlete in early-2000s Budweiser commercials who loved nothing more than himself.

Sixty cases of ice-cold Budweiser for the most well-known Budweiser spokesman? The trade was only natural. 

It was Hart’s idea to drum up some publicity for his Flyers. Thatch wasn’t exactly an ace pitcher — he threw in the mid-80s and had a 10.22 ERA for Schaumburg. Trading for him was about acquiring his celebrity, his ability to attract fans to the ballpark. 

Schaumburg was just as game for the publicity stunt, too. When Hart went to the other Flyers to propose the deal, they were all-in. 

Soon enough, the beer was on its way. 

As Hart remembers with a laugh: “We contacted our distributor in Southern California, told them what we were doing and they said, ‘Where do we send it?'”

But what happened to Thatch? Well, it turned out, he wasn’t too happy about being traded for beers. So much so that he quit!

“I seem to recall that he didn’t take too kindly to it,” Hart said. “He came out right at the beginning of Spring Training, we had a conversation, and then he didn’t come back.”

Read the whole story here >> 

 

1 WEEK TO THE TRADE DEADLINE

There’s just one week left until the Trade Deadline. Here’s where things stand. 

A lot more rumors — and, hopefully, deals — are coming between now and next Monday, when the Deadline hits at 6 p.m. ET. For now, we’ve put together the latest on these eight key players, who are some of the buzziest names on the trade market: 

• Tarik Skubal — What will happen with the Tigers ace is the No. 1 storyline of the Trade Deadline. 

• Mason Miller — Will the Padres really deal the best closer in baseball just a year after their blockbuster trade to get him?

• CJ Abrams — The Nats All-Star would be a great fit for a couple of contenders in need of more offense at shortstop. 

• Francisco Lindor — So would the Mets star — and New York is expected to be an active seller, with lots of other trade candidates on the roster.

• Ryan Jeffers — With Shea Langeliers now potentially out for the season, a lot of the catching market attention could be focused on the Twins backstop.

• Luis Arraez — You know what you’re getting at the plate from the three-time batting champion, but Arraez’s much-improved defense at second base could make him a fit for a lot more teams.

• Zach Neto — Right-handed bats are in short supply, so a young slugger like Neto could fetch a premium for the Angels.

• Kevin Gausman — Pitching-needy clubs — and there are always plenty of those — will surely be interested in someone like Gausman with a history of being a frontline starter.    

See what’s going on with those players here >> 

GAMES OF THE NIGHT

Here are three games to watch tonight. Go to MLB.com/Watch for info on how to watch every game this season. 

Phillies at Marlins (6:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV) 

Zack Wheeler is on the verge of qualifying for league leaderboards, and once he does, he’s going to rank right near the top of the NL in a lot of key numbers. Right now, if he had enough innings, he’d rank second in ERA (2.16), WHIP (0.88) and batting average against (.149), behind only Jacob Misiorowski. Wheeler isn’t the pitcher you want to be facing when you’re on a 12-game losing streak like the Marlins are.

Blue Jays at Nationals (6:45 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)

Happy 42nd birthday to Max Scherzer, who’s returning from the injured list today to face the team he won back-to-back Cy Young Awards with. Scherzer last pitched on June 10, a game in which he recorded his 3,500th career strikeout. He’s just a dozen K’s away from reaching Walter Johnson and entering the top 10 all-time. Mad Max is also pretty darn good on his birthday — in six career birthday starts, he has a 1.35 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 40 innings, including an 11-K game for Toronto last year against a different one of his former teams, the Tigers.

Yankees at White Sox (7:40 p.m ET, MLB.TV) 

Entering a big four-game series against the upstart White Sox, who lead the AL Central at 55-49, the Yankees’ starting rotation is finally rounding into form. For the first three games, they’ll roll out their trio of aces in Max Fried, Gerrit Cole and Cam Schlittler. Fried was lights-out in his return from the injured list last week, throwing five innings of one-hit baseballagainst the Pirates. 

THE TRADE ACTION GETS GOING

The Red Sox and Nationals swung the most interesting trade of Deadline season so farover the weekend, with Boston sending left-hander Connelly Early to Washington for infielder Curtis Mead.

The Red Sox trading Early was a surprise, since the 24-year-old has looked very promising ever since he was called up during last year’s playoff race. But right-handed bats are a scarce commodity at this year’s Trade Deadline, and Boston believes in Mead’s breakout season at the plate. 

Plus, the Red Sox are deeper on the pitching side than they are on the hitting side. They’re tied for last in the Majors with 98 home runs this season, and Mead has slugged 17 of them. Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow explains what Boston likes about Mead here.   

Washington was facing the opposite situation— the Nats had a ton of offense, but their starting rotation was very thin, with a 4.78 ERA that’s fourth highest in the Majors. There’s also been buzz that they might trade their best starter, Foster Griffin. Either way, Early will fill a clear need. The rookie southpaw has a diverse pitch arsenal and promising stuff.

Hear from Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni on why the team made this deal here. 

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Here’s the news and notes from around the Majors. 

• Ronald Acuña Jr. is back. The Braves star is leading off and playing right field in tonight’s series opener against the Mets at Citi Field. Acuña missed about a month and a half with a left hamstring strain.

• Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones and Jeff Kent were inducted into the Hall of Fame yesterday. See how the Cooperstown Class of 2026 stacks up against all the other Hall of Fame classes here.

• What a day for Munetaka Murakami. Yesterday was his bobblehead day … his parents were in the house to throw out his first pitch … and he mashed two home runs. The legend grows for the White Sox rookie sensation.

• At some point, Jacob Misiorowski is going to run out of velocity records to set, right? But that day hasn’t come yet. In yesterday’s start against the Rockies, all 66 fastballs that the Brewers ace threw were at least 100 mph. He also struck out 12 of the first 13 batters he faced. The Miz isn’t just missing more bats this season, he’s missing bats by more — read about that here.

• In today’s latest trade buzz, we’ve got updates on how Cody Bellinger’s injury might affect the Yankees’ Trade Deadline plans, which teams are pursuing some big arms, the state of the catching market and the Astros’ priorities as buyers. 

HOW MUCH TWINNING IS TOO MUCH?

We’re going to have to rename them the Quadruplets after this. 

The Twins are going to have quite the dilemma this November thanks to an absolutely crazy coincidence: Four Twins players … yes, four … are all getting married on the exact same day. And it was completely by accident. 

Somehow, Ryan Kreidler, Brooks Lee, Luke Keaschall and Cole Sands ALL scheduled their weddings for Saturday, Nov. 14. 

Again, these weddings were all planned separately. The four players didn’t learn about the shared date until Spring Training. 

Lee’s explanation: Baseball players just don’t have a big window to get married.

“You don’t want to be too close to the end of October, and don’t want to be too far [into November] because Thanksgiving is coming up,” he said. “Seemed like everyone is going to choose that date.” 

 

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