*The Masked Marvel reviewed last year's trades.
*The Rangers beat the Royals. The Mariners beat the piss out of the Blue Jays. The A's beat the Rays.
*So the Astros are still 2.5 GB of Northeast Cleburne. The Red Sox and Blue Jays both lost, so the Astros are 2.0 GB of Boston and 0.5 GB of Toronto for a Wild Card spot.
*FanGraphs has the Astros at 50.4% to win the division (Ramgers at 38.4%) and 67.5% to make the playoffs.
*Why does Evan Gattis hit better when he's at catcher than at DH? Hinch:
I'm sure someone smarter than me can figure it out. I don't know if it's actually true in the numbers...
Note: It is. It absolutely is true in the numbers. In 22 games where Gattis has caught, he's hitting .310/.337/.702. In 46 games at DH, he's hitting .175/.260/.319.
I think it's the result of keeping him occupied, keeping his mind occupied, keeping his mind in the game.
*With his 36th career home run, Carlos Correa is now the Astros' all-time home run leader for shortstops. Correa:
It's a great accomplishment, I guess, but the focus is to win ballgames every single day.
*Fresno manager Tony DeFrancesco, on left fielder Alex Bregman:It took Adam Everett 635 games to reach 35 home runs as a shortstop.— Jordan Ray (@JordanLRay) July 24, 2016
It took Correa 191 to get 36.
The way the Astros are now with (Correa and Altuve) in the middle of their infield, for Alex to impact the game, it's going to be at a different position. And the way Bregman is swinging the bat real well right now, hopefully he can help them out real soon.
*Tommy Stokke has the details of Chris Sale's grounding. One-word version: Unbelievable.
*Ken Rosenthal writes that this unreal turn of events won't cause the White Sox to slash Sale's price. The Rangers and White Sox haven't made much progress towards a deal.
*Jon Heyman talked to a GM who called this starting pitcher market "the worst" he'd ever seen it.
*Jarred Cosart is coming up from Triple-A to start for the Marlins on Monday.
*Ichiro Suzuki is a big fan of the Hall of Fame.
