Boy oh boy, I sure am still adjusting to having a job. I worked this weekend, and it kicked my ass. Managed to fit a band practice and a trip home in there, too. It was a long weekend, but still, way too busy a three days. So between that and my continued headphone trouble, I didn't get a whole lot of music listening done. I did do some cursory listening. Expect reviews of the new Strokes, Ariana Grande, and Rico Nasty albums next week, alongside whatever else catches my eye between now and then. Coverage of the new Mountain Goats album coming on Friday might have to wait for the following week, though, as it comes out on the day I leave with my partner and two of our closest friends for a road trip to Toronto. We're going to see a Blue Jays game for my birthday, an experience I will certainly be writing about on this blog. So look forward to all of that, and my apologies for a lean and late post this week.
Well, the Tigers and the Reds. This isn’t the last one of these I’m doing, but it sorta feels like it is, because I already have pretty robust opinions on the Blue Jays and Dodgers, who I’ll be writing about next week to cap this thing off. I think the fact that I’m running out of steam with this series is going to be incredibly apparent here, which is helping to lend it that note of finality. I started a new job recently, and have been adjusting to that. So I watched...a little bit of Baseball, these past two weeks? Enough that I can say I like the Tigers and the Reds both fine.
I recognize in the Tigers a cursed team much like my own Blue Jays. It’s hard, coming from the outside, to point at any glaring issue, and yet the team is several games out of wild card contention. They’ve got Dillon Dingler and Kevin McGonigle’s bats, they’ve got Tarik Skubal (or, well, they HAD Tarik Skubal) and Framber Valdez on the mound, you’d think that would make for a pretty good team.
I think that Tarik Skubal’s last game as a Tiger is a pretty good example of whatever the hell is going on. I only half watched this game, so my experience was as follows: looking over every fifteen minutes or so to see Tarik Skubal cruising, pitching incredibly with his overwhelming stuff, while the offense piled up 7 runs. Then Skubal left the game, to roaring applause from fans who knew it might be the last time seeing him in a Tigers uniform. Then the next time I looked over it was tied and the game was going to extras. They ended up losing!
I’m drawn to a tragic hero, so I do enjoy a team prone to this sort of total late game collapse. And I really enjoyed Tarik Skubal, every time I got to see him. He is not a Tiger anymore, though. He has joined the Dodgers, something the ramifications of which I will reflect on next week.
The other things I like about the Tigers are all aesthetic. I love the colour scheme they’ve got going on. The use of orange against that grey and/or black really pops. They’ve also just got some incredible Baseball names. There are the aforementioned Dingler and McGonigle. Then there’s the likes of Spencer Torkelson and Kenley Jansen. My favourite, though, is James Outman. “Outman” is such a funny name for a Baseball player to have. And he’s currently rocking a .219 OBP, so nominative determinism might actually be at work here.
So yeah, I don’t know, the Tigers are solidly middle of the pack on the how much I like them rankings.
The Cincinnati Reds...I have so little to say about the Cincinnati Reds. I actually do not think I can remember the name of a single player on this team other than Elly De La Cruz off the top of my head, and I did watch a couple of their games! Elly De La Cruz is really cool, though, so that’s something.
But man, this team has just the worst branding and iconography. It’s just nothing. Their logo is a red “C.” They aren’t even the only Baseball team whose logo is a red “C.” They are in fact one of three teams whose logo is a red “C.” Unlike the Guardians and Cubs, though, the Reds don’t have any secondary logo to save them, no winged Baseball or funny little bear. It’s just 100% “C.” The only teams that need a rebrand more than the Reds are the Braves and the Rangers.
So these guys are landing relatively low on the list. But don’t get me wrong, Elly De La Cruz rules.
1. Seattle Mariners
2. Milwaukee Brewers
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
4. Kansas City Royals
5. Athletics
6. Washington Nationals
7. Chicago White Sox
8. Pittsburgh Pirates
9. San Diego Padres
10. Cleveland Guardians
11. Boston Red Sox
12. Detroit Tigers
13. Philadelphia Phillies
14. Minnesota Twins
15. New York Mets
16. Chicago Cubs
17. Baltimore Orioles
18. Cincinnati Reds
19. Tampa Bay Rays
20. San Fransisco Giants
21. St. Louis Cardinals
22. Houston Astros
23. Los Angeles Angels
24. Atlanta Braves
25. Colorado Rockies
26. Miami Marlins
27. New York Yankees
28. Texas Rangers
Next week I’ll be talking about the Blue Jays and the Dodgers, and making some final adjustments to the rankings, as my feelings on some of these teams have developed a little more since writing about them. Then this series will be done, and Baseball Corner can start being about more specific stuff.
In other Baseball related news, this weekend the Women’s Professional Baseball League started playing their inaugural season. Games are streaming for free on YouTube for international viewers, so I caught some of the Boston/San Fransisco game on Sunday. I’m enjoying it a lot already, and I think it’s great that it exists. I don’t have a ton to say about it as of now, but I’ll be writing about it more in future Baseball Corner installments. I’m a Boston Hunters fan, I think.