After his inside the park homer and a blistering offensive week overall, Bobby Witt Jr was named the AL Player of the Week.
Witt collected 11 hits during the week, which included a four-hit performance against the Guardians on Thursday. It was one of three multi-hit games last week for Witt, who raised his batting average more than 20 points last week to .302, and raised his OPS by 82 points to .847. Witt is now at 2.8 bWAR for the season, tied for the MLB lead among position players.
Tod Palmer writes
about Bridget Howard’s journey as the first female full-time broadcaster for Royals TV.
She remembers watching as female broadcasters broke into the sports world and made a mark — Erin Andrews, Jenny Dell, Taylor McGregor, et al. — and that fueled her desire to do the same.
“Those were women that I looked up to, and I saw them in roles like this and was like, ‘Hey, I can do this, too,’” Bridget said.
Now, she’s one of those inspirational women whom little girls with big dreams watch during Royals games.
Baseball America has mock draft 3.0.
LHP Gio Rojas A high school player feels most likely for the Royals. They have been all over Rojas this spring, and he’s pitched excellently. He has terrific arm speed, a big fastball and a chance for a wipeout breaking ball. If Lombard isn’t taken by now, he probably doesn’t last much longer than this, and it’s also hard to rule out Booth and his top-of-the-scale speed.
Eno Sarris wonders why left-handers aren’t throwing splitters as much despite the pitch being more popular than ever.
One of the first things that always comes up with splitters is the impact the pitch has on a pitcher’s health. Does the split-finger grip lead to injury?
“The reason that I don’t throw the splitter anymore is I did blow out my elbow when I was throwing it,” said San Francisco Giants left-handed starter Robbie Ray. “I don’t think there’s any correlation between the two, but it just happened. I was throwing it a lot in spring training, I was working on it, and never had any issue. I think my elbow was just ready to go.”
Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs covers the Giants trade of Patrick Bailey to the Guardians.
Texas Rangers pitcher Nathan Eovaldi was scratched from his start last night due to left side tightness.
Blue Jays outfielder Addison Barger goes right back to the IL after just returning.
Mookie Betts makes his return from the IL.
Kevin Gausman reached 2000 career strikeouts last night.
The Mets are calling up one of their top prospects, A.J. Ewing.
Batters tapping their helmets as part of their in-between pitch routine can cause accidental challenges.
A deep-dive film review of Chiefs fifth-round draft pick, RB Emmett Johnson from Nebraska.
The Milwaukee Bucks are seeking offers for star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Buffalo Bills will have the first Prime Video Thursday Night Football to open their new stadium.
The full NFL schedule release is coming later this week.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are being sued by police officers in Florida because of their movie The Rip.
J. Craig Venter, who helped decode the human genome, died at 79 years old.
Your song of the day is Typhoons by Royal Blood.
