We’ve made it to the All Star Break and I for one cannot wait for the Home Run Derby. It’s one of my favorite games that celebrates the glories of the longball. In the first Sights and Sounds of the Game for this season, I attended my first game on the Fourth of July and discovered my love for scoring games. Time to look back and see how it’s going as we wrap up the first half of the 2025 season.
National Array
The Nationals cleaned house just one week before the MLB draft. And by cleaned house, I mean experimented in a Swedish Death Cleanse, getting rid of their manager Davey Martinez and president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo. Just six years removed from winning it all, the Nationals have mired themselves in a years long rebuild. It’s the right decision to find new voices, but in the middle of the season? Really?! Time will tell for how the Nationals rebuild from here, which if I’m being honest, is the only factor the Nationals have to look forward to. Well that, and the inevitable return for the James Wood trade at the Trade Deadline.
Big Dumper. Big Homers
Cal Raleigh. 38 home runs before the All Star Break. That is all. Here’s to hoping his iconic HR Derby performance making him the first catcher to win the swinging extravaganza doesn’t curse his swing.
All Star Snubs
Don’t you just love All Star discourse? No seriously, the endless articles and online discourse as to who got snubbed and who did not deserve to have their name on the All Star roster was a sight to behold. While I won’t touch on the did-Misorowski- deserve- a- spot- in-the- All- Star-Game discourse with a 10 foot pole, there is one silver lining for me as a Phillies fan. There are less Phillies players in the All Star Game, which hopefully gives the remainder of the team much needed rest time. Can’t collapse like year if you don’t have nearly half your team participating in the All Star Game!, I say as I watch my team yet again fail to score with the bases loaded. And speaking of the Phillies…
How About The Phightins?
The Phillies end the first half as a good team, albeit one that has holes it needs to fill when the Trade Deadline comes around. Of course they chose to lose when I saw them on the Fourth of July when facing the Reds (more on that later), but they consistently won series against the teams they faced. Why yes, they did get swept by the Astros, but I attribute that to the continual inability to capitalize with runners in scoring position and getting outpitched by the Astros.
Then they had to fly out to the West Coast to face the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres, where they completely imploded. The lowlights included a inside the park home run walk off (no, seriously, watch this), getting outpitched. At least the Phillies had the decency to take at least one game in both series, which featured annihilating an already cooked Justin Verlander as well as riding yet another great Christopher Sanchez start. The other good news stems from the Mets collapsing to within a half game back of the NL East division lead. I suspect the teams will go back and forth throughout the second half of the season, as they seem to be the only competently run teams in the division. Yes, you’re hearing from a Phillies fan that the NL East is NL Weak.
What are the holes the Phillies need to fill as the Trade Deadline approaches? Well we need a better bullpen, as has become standard as a Phillies fan. But this year, I have two pitchers I trust instead of my standard of four; Tanner Banks and (sometimes) Orion Kerkering. I do not trust anyone else in the bullpen to hold leads or perform with any consistency. Getting a closer like Emmanuel Clase would work, but in all honesty I would prefer trading for better set-up men1. The last time we got an supposedly elite closer in Craig Kimbrel, he blew back to back leads in the 2023 NLCS. I would like for that not to happen, please and thank you.
We also need a better right fielder. While Max Kepler has performed decently as an outfielder, he has struggled to produce offensively. He has not helped his image with Phillies fans2 by complaining about what his lack of consistent playing time. I’m not entirely sure who could replace him, but I’m hoping Dombrowski can find someone. Don’t you want another ring, Dombrowski? Please? 2022 seems so far away!
The Sights and Sounds of the Game
Baseball and the Fourth of July make an amazing combination. It was one that my mom and I could not help but indulge in as we went to see the Phillies take on the surprisingly decent3 Cincinnati Reds.
As we walked in the Bank (and after I took a picture next to the Roy Halladay monument, as is tradition for a fan of number 34 like myself), I saw the scorecard booth. I bought a scorecard, thinking that it would be fun to score the game. I did miss Nick Castellanos’s home run at the top of the first, but that’s because I needed to avoid getting hangry (hungry +angry). When my mom and I took our seats in right field, the Phillies led the Reds 3-0. The Reds scored a run in the top of the second, but that happens. And then the top of the third inning happened, an inning where foul tips were the only strikes Jesus Luzardo threw with any kind of consistency. The Reds scored five runs in their half of the inning, and while the Phillies did score once in the third on a fielder’s choice and in the sixth on a Schwarber double to cut the deficit to two, they could only get it to two. The Phillies can thank the numerous RISP opportunities they squandered for their inability to tie the game. My mom and I knew that the moment Bohm struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth that we didn’t need to stick around for the inevitable Phillies loss. The Phillies let my mom down again. And it’s not even the first time I’ve written these words in this newsletter. For shame.
Like A Rolling Stone, These Teams Have No Home: First Half Edition
The end of the first half leads to teams considering one’s place in the standings. And for the Rays and Oakland Athletics, they also have to contend with the fact that they do not have a permanent home where one can have a good ponder session about said standings. Let’s first start with the Rays, who, thanks to Hurricane Milton, are forced to use the Yankees Spring Training field, Steinbrenner Field.
The Rays have had great attendance in Steinbrenner Field, getting sellouts in 26 of their 27 games played there so far. It doesn’t hurt the attendance when the team has put themselves into the thick of the AL East playoff hunt.
When the Rays had to delay one of their games due to rain (something that wouldn’t happen in the indoor Tropicana Field), they gave out commemorative ponchos. Quite wholesome and useful.
Speaking of Tropicana Field, it will get repaired for a prospective reopening date of Opening Day 2026, as the Rays backed out of their St. Petersburg stadium deal. Good news for Rays fans: their penny pinching owners will finally sell the team in September to a Jacksonville area , if all goes to plan. Having new owners will give a stellar team even more resources (i.e. willingness to spend money) to net them a championship. Hopefully not any time soon because the Phillies need to win the World Series first.
The Athletics on the other hand wish that John Fisher could sell the team. He has steered the team into Year One of their three (?) year stay in Sutter Field Park, a minor league ballpark. Let me repeat this again: a major league team plays in a minor league ballpark. Not a spring training field like with the Rays, but a minor league ballpark that has a smaller capacity crowd. Now Fisher may say that it’s temporary while waiting for their stadium in Las Vegas to finish, but I trust his promises as much as I trust the team to stay away from ownership meddling4.
Any cheers that do emanate from the ballpark stem from opposing fans who make up the bulk of attendance to Sutter Field Park. As one business owner said in a piece by local newspaper SF Gate on the effects on the Athletics’ move to Sacramento: “‘There are quite a few A’s fans,’ ‘However, when the bigger teams like the Cubs came through, you definitely saw more saturation of Cubs fans than A’s fans — which we’re not complaining about.’” (Alex Simon, SF Gate). The business owner did not need to qualify the statement by saying there’s a good deal of A’s fans—I can see the scant population of green and gold on the stadium for myself. The article also pointed out that when the A’s took on the Twins at Sutter Field Park that twice the number of fans wore non A’s jerseys instead of the home teams.
When even the Sacramento business owners—the group that showed some level of excitement for the Athletics’ stay— state that the move did not bring more A’s fans to Sacramento as originally planned, that becomes a problem for John Fisher and co. And while the A’s did break ground on their Vegas stadium, who knows how long it will take for it to get built? Oh and to make matters worse, the August heat wave has yet to hit Sacramento. Prepare for attendance to plummet and heat stroke to increase. Well, among the visiting fans who brave the cloying conditions to see their team play.
And with that, this first half edition of the Weekly Wrapup has finished! I’m saving my analysis on Devers’ trade to San Francisco when I talk about the Trade Deadline, which is in *checks calendar* TWO WEEKS! WHAT? Time is weird. Also expect a post coming soon about my time at Camden Yards as I will watch yet another game in a Tank Series between the Orioles and the Rockies.
Thanks for reading Not Another Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.