I had a big week for being disorganized and unable to concentrate on anything. I had to lock in very late in the week to get this blog post written. As a result, I have no gas left in the tank for introductory musings. Enjoy some chatter about the Athletics and the Brewers, and a review of a dance album.
This was a good week for Baseball Corner, because the Athletics and the Milwaukee Brewers are both a lot of fun to watch. The Brewers have a tenacious lineup and great pitching, and the Athletics have a ton of really exciting bats. I appreciated the less game related aspects a lot this week, too: the Brewers have some of the best graphic design in the league, and the Athletics have maybe my favourite broadcast booth (aside from Sportsnet’s Dan Shulman and Joe Siddall, towards whom I am naturally very biased).
I’ll start with the Athletics, since it is at this point routine to cover the AL first. My Athletics viewing this week was concentrated primarily on their series against the Phillies. Athletics star Nick Kurtz was born near Philadelphia, which made for a fun little narrative thread. This was his first time playing in Philadelphia, and his family was in attendance. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff (Trey Yesavage’s dad tearing up during one of his early starts, for instance, was one of my favourite moments of last year’s incredible Jays run).
Kurtz is a fun guy to watch, in a lineup full of them. He’s a little bit funny to look at, for one thing, since he looks (and is) quite young, but is also roughly one million feet tall. He looks like the world’s largest fifteen year old; it rules. But he’s also just a really impressive and exciting player. He can hit for power but he also walks with the best of them, which had him working on something like a 30 game on base streak while I was watching. That’s a cool achievement.
Some other guys who stood out: Shea Langeliers, who came back from paternity leave for the final game against the Phillies and homered in his first at bat, which media people keep attributing to “dad strength.” That’s fun. I was familiar with Langeliers already from the Jays’ series against the Athletics at the start of the season, where he was an absolute menace. He’s having a really impressive season so far. Zack Gelof is a fun guy to watch. He’s just sort of always moving around in the batter’s box. Brent Rooker is a guy who I didn’t catch any cool moments from (he hit a home run in the Athletics’ 12-1 win over the Phillies, but I hopped on that game late and missed it), but who appeared on an episode of Effectively Wild I listened to a while ago, alongside Vinnie Pasquantino. Both of them seemed really friendly and normal, and it’s great to be able to say that about a Baseball player with real confidence. Finally I’ll mention Lawrence Butler, who made a very nice slide into home during Wednesday’s game, and who colour commentator Dallas Braden routinely refers to as “The Law Dog,” which made me laugh.
Speaking of Dallas Braden, the broadcast booth was really a huge part of the A’s experience for me. Braden and play by play commentator Jenny Cavnar (the first female primary play by play commentator in Major League Baseball!) have great chemistry. One of the ways a play by play/colour commentator dynamic can work is as sort of a straight man/funny guy thing, and Cavnar and Braden sort of have this going on. Braden cracked me up a few times, and Cavnar is great at playing off of him. She’s also just a really solid play by play commentator: she doesn’t get too far off track and is never annoying, both of which are rarer qualities than you’d expect.
Now I’ve meant to talk about broadcast booths in pretty much every one of these segments, and I have forgotten every time until now. It really is a big part of how you experience the team as a TV viewer, though. So, here’s the broadcast booth ranking so far: Athletics > Diamondbacks > Giants > Mariners > Cubs > Brewers > White Sox > Royals > Yankees > Mets. (Massive tangent: it is a huge feat that the Mets’ broadcast managed to piss me off more than the Yankees’. I complained about the audio mixing when I wrote about the Mets, but even when I could hear them, man those guys were irritating. They just didn’t seem interested in the game, at all. At least the Yankees commentators are invested, in so far as they need to be in order to connect everything that happens in the game to trivia about some dead Yankee or another).
Okay, now I’ll talk about the Brewers, before I risk wandering any father off topic. Let me start by saying, the Brewers logo and the colour scheme are both delightful. I love that shade of yellow and that shade of blue, and it’s a real two great tastes that taste great together situation. And, man, the “MB” that is also a Baseball glove? *Chef’s kiss*
As an actual Baseball team, the Brewers just kick ass. On offense their MO is to draw out long at bats and swing for a lot of contact, and that’s a really exciting style of Baseball to watch. They’re a fundamentals team, and a put the ball in play team. I love that stuff. My favourite moment I caught watching the team this week was the bottom of the eighth in Saturday’s game. With two outs, Brice Turang hit a single. Then he stole second base. Then William Contreras hit another single, and Turang scored from second, rocket sprinting home to barely beat the throw, tying the game up 2-2. This is a way more exciting, way more satisfying way to score one run than a solo homer, at least for me, personally.
Saturday’s game was really great in general. It was a tense, low scoring pitching duel, with the Yankees holding a narrow lead for a long time behind an oppressive Cam Schlittler performance. Once Milwaukee got into the bullpen though they were able to open it up a little. It ended up going to extras, before the Brewers walked it off with a sac fly in the 10th. Very exciting stuff.
The Brewers’ pitching staff is really impressive, also. I thought losing Freddy Peralta would be a big blow for them, but they seem to just churn out excellent pitchers at a wild rate. Jacob Misiorowski is an amazing freak of nature: on Friday he threw over 90 pitches, and was still scraping triple digit velocity on his fastball at the end of his outing. He’s lanky, too; looking at him you would not expect him to throw like that. Kyle Harrison had a good showing on Saturday. He looked more mortal than Misiorowski, but that’s to be expected against the Yankees’ offense. Still, he got out of multiple jams in four tough innings and only let two runs in. That kind of stressful, grinding pitching performance is almost as impressive to me as a wall to wall shutout. Aaron Ashby looked great closing out Saturday’s game, too, and I love his bright yellow shoes.
So really the Brewers are just a great Baseball team. They’re fun to watch and easy to root for. The Athletics aren’t quite as complete a squad, but they have an exciting offense and are similarly fun to watch. Both are landing high on the ranking, which as of now is:
1. Seattle Mariners
2. Milwaukee Brewers
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
4. Kansas City Royals
5. Athletics
6. Chicago White Sox
7. New York Mets
8. Chicago Cubs
9. San Fransisco Giants
10. New York Yankees
I might have to switch to a tierlist format for this at some point. The ranking of the first four teams here feels basically arbitrary -- don’t be surprised if I change it around next week. The Mariners, Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Royals are all in “could be my ride or die if the Blue Jays stopped existing” territory. Next week I’ll be following the Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia Phillies.
Continuing my streak of wandering out of my lane, into territory where I risk making an ass of myself, this week I spent a lot of time listening to “Fold,” a new album by Montreal EDM duo Jump Source. Now, I’ve been enjoying the hell out of this album, but I fear all my observations will be shallow due to my lack of familiarity with the genre. That didn’t stop me from discussing a jazz fusion album last week, though, and I won’t let it stop me now.
So I’ll start with the shallowest observation of all: these beats, they’re good. They’re very good. They’re “doing stupid little dances alone in my desk chair” good. Just solid dance grooves and incredibly smooth basslines all around. I also love the way this album uses vocal samples, and all the little instrumental details throughout.
Jump Source worked with a variety of artists on these tracks; there are five songs that are strictly instrumental, but the other six all have one or more guest vocalists, and two of the instrumentals have guest producers. I love this aspect of the album. It makes for wonderful variety, and all of the vocalists turn in excellent performances. An album like this also serves as a sort of sampler for a particular music scene, in this case Montreal’s. I’ve already fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole with Helena Deland, who performs on two of this albums tracks, the infectious and catchy “Shattered” and the wacky, groovy title track. I’ve been listening to a bit of her solo stuff, as well as her work as one half of the duo Hildegard, and it’s great! I plan on checking out Billy Woods next, who delivers a captivating rap performance on “Empty Bars” that really makes that track stand out from the rest of the album.
The risk with a long-ish album of dance music like this is always that it will get boring for the headphoned solo listener. “Fold” is never at risk of this. Every song is danceable, but still carries a distinct vibe and energy level. The album also consistently bounces back and forth between instrumentals and vocal tracks, which keeps it feeling constantly fresh, as the vocal tracks lean into hooks and melodies, while the instrumentals are pure groove.
On a strucutral level, I love how the last three tracks on here sort of downshift after how generally upbeat and active the rest of the album is. These three songs are shorter and lower-key, making for a very nice cool down. Particularly, the closer, “Close,” is perfect, bringing the album to a nice, delicate finish. It contrasts nicely with the opener “Nice & Edgy,” which really throws you in the deep end immediately, hitting you with a big bassline the moment you press play.
So yeah, if you like electronic and/or dance music, you should check this one out. It’s going to be in my regular rotation for a while.
Rating: ☆☆