Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the podcast’s semi-official new nickname for Yandy Díaz, what Mookie Betts playing shortstop says about the Dodgers, and Andrew McCutchen’s hot start, then (15:29) answer emails about the Reds’ many mascots, why we stop at “Quadruple-A,” how good today’s 26th men would be if they traveled back in time, sticky stuff on a tacky ball, and whether MLB would ever privatize publicly accessible Statcast data, followed (47:48) by a Stat Blast about Ross Stripling and the ultimate swingmen, the longest identical sequences of team wins and losses, and whether working the count to get pitchers out of games is still all it’s cracked up to be, plus a recap (1:23:03) of the first time the A’s played MLB games in Las Vegas and a Past Blast (1:30:27) from 1997.

Audio outro: Jacket Thor, “My Patron Saint”

Link to FG post on Mookie

Link to Mookie’s play at short

Link to Eric Stephen on Mookie

Link to Smyly/Gomes play

Link to MLB mascots wiki

Link to Reds mascots page

Link to Ben on Triple-A strength

Link to Clay D. on league strength

Link to Ben on caliber of play

Link to MLBTR on pre-tacked balls

Link to Topps NOW cards

Link to Seinfeld clip

Link to Stripling on EW

Link to MLBTR on Stripling

Link to Slusser tweet about Stripling

Link to swingmen GS/GR ratio

Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter

Link to travelling salesman problem

Link to Graham’s tweet

Link to Turner’s quotes

Link to Tango on 3-2 counts

Link to article on pitch counts/TTOP

Link to WP when SP doesn’t go 5

Link to 2018 opener article

Link to 1996 articles on A’s in Vegas

Link to Cashman Field wiki

Link to 1997 Past Blast source

Link to NYT on radical realignment

Link to Tribune on radical realignment

Link to Grant on radical realignment

Link to B-Ref on radical realignment

Link to Hendriks announcement

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