The Colorado Rockies probably won't be the very worst team in baseball history this season. But they will certainly be one of the worst teams ever.
At least this miserable season has yielded some entertaining facts. For example, pop open the current MLB standings and take a look at the last place teams.
As of this writing, the Rockies have 30 wins. The next worst team is the Chicago White Sox with 43 wins.
The White Sox are 19.5 games back of first place in their division. They are 13 games better than the Rockies.
Today:
- Are the Mariners the team of the moment in 2025? And does it matter?
- How happy will it make MLB if someone else makes hard decisions about sports gambling?
- How well do you know the team with the best record in baseball?
Ichiro, the Big Unit, and the Big Dumper
You know, seeing as I'm in the early days of this newsletter, I hesitated to go with that headline. Talk about the potential for misunderstanding, especially among non-baseball fans.
Let's get to what happened in Seattle on Sunday. Before the game, two Mariners legends took the field for the first pitch ceremony.
Recently inducted into the Hall of Fame, Ichiro Suzuki took the mound. Fellow Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, left-handed and almost seven feet tall, settled in behind the plate.
I have to imagine this is about as good as it gets for Mariners fans.
Ichiro also had his number retired this weekend. If there was any justice after the joy and emotions of those moments for Mariners fans, the home team would pull out the win.
As if it didn't already feel like it was meant to be in Seattle on Sunday, Cal Raleigh picked things up from there and hit his league-leading 45th home run in the first inning.
That all starts to add up to feel like something special, doesn't it?
It's not just that one day. It's been the year of celebrating Ichiro in Seattle, as it should be. Raleigh is one of the big stories in all of baseball this season. He won the home run derby. He might be the American League MVP. The team around him is on the rise and within a game of first place in the AL West. They added a number of key players at the trade deadline.
Whether you just focus on the game Sunday or the general momentum of the team headed into the last months of the season, I think the Mariners are starting to feel like the team of the moment. It's the bandwagon that I've got my eyes on as 2025 hits the playoff stretch.
Lest you think I'm jinxing the Mariners, no need to worry. Part of what makes baseball great is what also makes it cruel. It can be fun to be the team of the moment. It can be memorable. But even if it feels it should be fate for that team to reach great heights, it's doesn't always happen that way.
The first team that comes to mind for that harsh truth is my Colorado Rockies. They went on an incredible winning streak to end the 2007 season, reaching the playoffs in their final regular season game. The streak was kicked off by their franchise player.
Certainly they were the team of the moment. They were a team of destiny as they charged to a National League pennant.
Then they were swept by the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 World Series.
So yes, maybe the Mariners are the team of the moment. They feel like they could be a team of destiny, or at least they did on Sunday. It would certainly be fun for a memorable season to lead to postseason glory. But it's no guarantee.
Don't let Rob off the hook
The Cleveland Guardians have two pitchers under investigation for suspicious pitches tied to gambling activity. As those players are on leave and the investigations continue apace, the league and its partners are encouraging everyone to shrug past the news without thinking too much about it. They want everyone to move on quickly.
Well, not too quickly. They want you to watch that whole Draft Kings ad first.
The hypocrisy is obvious. The problems like this one are inevitable. The league insists that it's able to regulate issues like these questionable pitches, issues that could affect the credibility of the games.
We'll see if these situations in Cleveland force real action by Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball in regards to gambling and their partnerships with companies like Draft Kings. But I'm not expecting much.
In the meantime, Ohio regulators have taken notices and are looking into the issue. Specifically, they are considering a ban on prop bets, or "micro bets."
Kari Anderson
It's a common sense step to mitigate some of the trouble with legalized sports gambling. If a ban like this one were in place league-wide, bettors could still gamble on the games, just not on individual at-bats or pitches or whatever. If players were still inclined to participate in shady schemes with gambling, it's a lot harder to throw an entire game than it is to flub a single pitch.
It would be a good step in the right direction if Ohio regulators implement that ban. But it's also a little annoying, because it continues to give Rob Manfred permission to sidestep the issue and pretend everything is fine.
I imagine that he's pretty darn happy to have someone do this work for him. If these bans come to fruition and gambling companies are grumpy about the change, he can just shrug and point the finger at someone else.
Even if he can stubbornly keeps MLB on this path for now, I have to think Manfred's day of reckoning is coming. Because it sure is silly to think these are the last of the sad stories we will hear involving players and gambling.
How many Brewers can you name?
If you aren't persuaded by my case that the Mariners are starting to feel like the team of the moment in 2025, it might be because you think that spot has already been taken by the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Brewers have won nine straight games as I write this. They have a +137 run differential and the best record in baseball. They certainly had people buzzing after a comeback victory over the New York Mets on Sunday.
Final: Brewers 7, Mets 6 Isaac Collins walks it off with a homer off Edwin Diaz. The Milwaukee Brewers have won 9 in a row. They might just be inevitable. Holy bleep. The record: 73-44
— Curt Hogg (@cyrthogg.bsky.social) 2025-08-10T21:03:29.871Z
Knowing all of that, it's a simple question: how many Brewers players can you name?
I think I would know a solid majority of the roster if you let me look. But I'm not going to cheat. I will try this exercise right along with you.
I can name Freddy Peralta, Jackson Chourio, William Contreras, Christian Yelich, and Sal Frelich.
Five players. Not bad. But, for better or for worse, I know I can name so many more players on the Yankees or the Dodgers or the Phillies. And I also know I can only name Sal Frelich because he's on one of my fantasy teams.
Odds and ends
- Hidden ball tricks are fun. Sometimes they are funny. Now we know that a failed hidden ball trick is also funny, thanks to Manny Machado and the Padres (CBS Sports).
- I'm mostly unaware of these things, and blissfully so, but I imagine the internet is going to break in a couple days. That will include corners of the internet that overlap with sports coverage, because Taylor Swift is going to be on the 'New Heights' podcast with Travis Kelce (BlueSky).
- Joe Posnanski wrote about those first place Brewers. Among other things, he noted that they are in the midst of the best 64-game stretch in franchise history (JoeBlogs).
For today's video send-off, let's revisit the moment when the Rockies announced themselves as the team of almost-destiny in 2007: Todd Helton's walk-off home run. It's still one of my all-time favorite sports moments.
