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Buster Olney
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Shohei Ohtani has zero interest in bells and whistles, in accoutrements. After his first HR, the Angels offered to give him framed picture of the moment. He politely declined, and asked if he could get a picture of the Angels' ballpark, from any day.

Relief pitchers being used at what must be a record pass. Several teams, especially Phillies and Angels, with pitchers who have worked in more than half their team's games. Maybe the wear and tear is starting to show already. Took a look at the box scores for games in this morning's papers and the relievers tallied 99 2/3 innings and allowed 56 runs. It's not just with Miller-less Cleveland pen. [even including the 8 shutout innings by Yankee relievers the composite ERA is a whopping 5.06 Siri computes]

• Justus Sheffield, LHP, Yankees. Sheffield struck out nine in six scoreless innings for Double-A Trenton. Sheffield has been remarkably consistent in piling up strikeouts. He has either eight or nine strikeouts in each of his past four starts.

Orioles optioned Anthony Santander to AAA meaning that they have fully complied with his major league service time requirement under Rule 5 and he's there's to keep now. He obviously wasn't ready for the majors but now with some time to develop he may well turn out to be a very solid big leaguer. I remain sorry we let him get away when we didn't have to.

Really?

Aaron Laffey - R - Mets
Mets signed LHP Aaron Laffey to a minor league contract.

Laffey had been pitching for the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic League. The 33-year-old left-hander last appeared in a major league game in 2015.

Laffey is only 33? Seems like he pitched for the Tribe 33 years ago.

Yeah he must be pretty bad to have been dumped that long ago. Luckily for him he's left handed so he ain't dead quite yet.

Here's another former almost Tribeseman who I liked, but never fulfilled early hopes. But now that he's with the Woeful Tigers he should finally some big league time.

With a 10:30 a.m. first pitch scheduled for Wednesday, Triple-A Toledo manager Doug Mientkiewicz and his hitting coach, Brian Harper, huddled before Tuesday night's game against Syracuse -- an eventual 10-2 loss -- to decide who should have the evening off in anticipation of the quick turnaround.

The brain trust decided that Ronny Rodriguez, who'd played in 47 of the Mud Hens' 50 games this season, deserved a breather. The choice paid dividends Wednesday in his 48th game of the year, a 12-7 victory over Syracuse at NBT Bank Stadium, where the 26-year-old hit for the cycle, adding an extra homer to finish with five hits, five RBIs and four runs scored.

He's really kind of the guy who makes our team click," Harper said. "He's a fun guy to coach because he loves to play the game," the hitting coach added. "He's very aggressive with the bat. He's been on fire lately."

Rodriguez led off the game against Chiefs starter Cesar Vargas by doubling to left on a 1-2 pitch. With one out, the Dominican Republic native tried to tag from third for the game's first run, but was thrown out at the plate to end the first inning.
Leading off the third, Rodriguez deposited Vargas' first pitch of the frame over the left-field wall for his seventh homer of the season. In the fourth, Harold Castro led off with a single and Rodriguez went to the opposite field for a two-run homer, again jumping all over the first offering of the at-bat from Vargas.

"Ronny's just an aggressive kid," Harper said. "He plays defense aggressive. He runs the bases aggressive. He swings the bat aggressive. That's just his personality. He gives off a lot of energy, which is contagious for the team. He really has fun playing baseball and it's fun to watch."

Facing Syracuse right-hander Phillips Valdez with one out in the sixth, Rodriguez found himself in an 0-2 count. He scorched a ball to to shortstop, where Bengie Gonzalez made a nice diving play to get a glove on it and keep it in the infield, but Rodriguez easily reached first for an infield single. The 6-foot, 170-pound prospect was retired for the only time by a fielder's choice in the eighth.

"The only [ball] that wasn't hit hard was the triple," Harper said.
A Mud Hens rally in the ninth brought Rodriguez to the plate one more time with a chance to complete the cycle. With two runners on base, Rodriguez skied a popup to shallow right field. The ball deflected off Syracuse second baseman Jacob Wilson, who made a lunging attempt at the ball after lost the ball in the sun, and ricocheted away from the fielders toward the bullpen down the first-base line, giving the runners opportunities to score and allowing Rodriguez to slide into third on a close play and complete the first cycle of his career.

"You saw him slide into third and get called safe and we're going 'Wait a second, he's got the cycle. That's right!'" Harper recalled. "Everybody got excited after that. "He's one of those players who always hustles and plays hard. Most guys probably would have just gotten a double on that."

The performance raised Rodriguez's batting average to .318 with eight homers and 35 RBIs. He's never hit higher than .291 in the Minors and his current home run pace will challenge his career high of 19, which he set with Class A Advanced Carolina in 2012.

The 2017 MiLB.com Organizational All-Star elected free agency after last season and signed a Minor League deal with Detroit in December with an invitation to Spring Training, where he went 11-for-37 with three doubles and three RBIs.

Between Rordriguez's ability to play almost every position in the field and what he brings to the lineup, Harper couldn't be happier with the acquisition. The hitting coach said Rodriguez's demeanor on and off the field reminds him of his former Minnesota Twins teammate Kirby Puckett.

"Even though he's been playing for six, seven years, he's still only 25 years old," Harper said. "It's not like he's a 30-year-old veteran or anything like that. I think he got stuck in Cleveland, where they've obviously had a pretty good team the last couple years. It probably wasn't as good a fit for him. I think with us, it's a pretty good fit. Hopefully, good things will happen for him. I know we like him in our lineup, put it that way. ... He just exudes energy."

Wilson racked up four hits, including a two-run homer, and four RBIs -- coming a triple shy of the cycle -- for Syracuse.

Ronny's gets the call from the Tigers. Good luck RRod.

Another really bad outing by Bryan Shaw. He took his 5th loss; charged with 6 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks; his own double error made 5 of the runs unearned but they're still His Fault! ERA now at 7.03

Colorado = pitcher Kiss of Death

Shaw's much worse in Denver than on the road, but his road ERA is well over four; and yesterday, at least, his 6 runs had nothing to do with home runs. He's been used even more often than in Cleveland and could well be wearing out.

Could be but also could be that the Coors effect does no good for a pitcher's confidence.

Could be Tito wore him out.

Following Shaw's two errors and meltdown that gave up the lead the Colorado fans boo'd him like I have never heard them do before.