(BASEBALL)—We hit the all-star break and take a look at where our teams are and who they have picked to shape their futures.
(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals are five games above .500, third in the division, but 4½ games behind the Mariners in the fight for a playoff spot. Nobody on the team is dominating the squad. Sonny Gray and Steven Matz are a combined 14-5. Ryan Helsley has 19 saves in 33 appearances. Offensively, Wilson Contreras and Lars Nootbar each have a dozen home runs. Contreras is hitting .253 but Noot is only hitting .235. Victor Scott II has 23 stolen bases but would have a whole lot more if he was hitting better than .235. Jordan Walker is in at only .210.
(ROYALS)— The Kansas City Royals are three games under .500 at 47-50 with one of last year’s star pitchers dealing with a rotator cuff problem. Cole Ragans is on the IL with a 2-3 record and a 5.18 ERA after having 21 quality starts last year and going 11-9.
An emerging star is rookie Noah Cameron who struck out eight in six and two-thirds innings Sunday to lower his ERA to 2.31. But he’s only 2-3, a record that underline how much the Royals struggle to score. He’s carving a place in the Royals record book, though. He has tied Steve Busby’s record of five quality starts to begin a career—five. He and LA’s Fernando Valenzuela are the only pitchers in the history of the major leagues to pitch at least six innings and allow one or fewer runs in their first five starts.
Michael Wacha, after a solid year in ’24, is 4-9 despite a presentable 3.94 ERA and All-Star Kris Bubic is only 7-6 despite a 2.48 ERA. Seth Lugo is only 6-5 while giving up only 2.67 earned runs per nine innings.
Power is coming from three guys—Vinnie Pasquantino with 15 homers; Bobby Witt with 14, and Salvador Perez with 13. Rookie Joe Caglianone, brought up in hopes he’d add some offensive lightning, is hitting only .140 although he’s hit some tape-measure home runs.
(FUTURE)—In three or four or five years, we might be hearing some of these names in the starting lineups for our major league teams.
The Cardinals first draft pick was Tennessee’s lefty Liam Doyle who helped his team defend its college championship and led Division 1 in strikeouts for a lot of the season. He’s a fastballer (95-97 mph) who can get it as fast as 99-100. He averaged 15.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
The Cardinals reached down to a high school for their second choice, shortstop Ryan Mitchell from Houston, Texas. There are questions about his hitting style and it’s not clear whether he’s better at short or second.
The Redbirds returned to Tennessee for their third pick, right hander Tanner Franklin, who has a fast ball that can touch 102. He also has a low 90s cutter. Franklin is seen as a reliever.
Jack Gurevitch from the University of San Diego is a first baseman with a lot of raw power but scouts say he needs to improve his discipline at the plate.
One player from Missouri was picked by the Cardinals, catcher Chase Heath from the University of Central Missouri. He was picked in the 20th round, the 600th pick.
(ROYALS—The Royals had five picks on the first day, with outfielder Sean Gamble of IMG Academy as their number one. He’s a Des Moines native, left handed contact hitter. Their second choice was infielder Josh Hammond, also in high school—at Wesleyan Christian Academy in North Carolina. He’s been drafted as a shortstop although he pitched for USA Baseball’s U18 team. His bat is what drew interest—.471, six homers and 29 RBIs in 19 game.s
The second round pick was Tulane relief pitcher Michael Lombardi who had 73 Ks in 42 innings.
Although Texas A&M lefty Justin Lamkin was 5-7 this year in 15 starts, the Royals liked his control and his three-pitch repertoire. He had 98 strikeouts and just 19 walks in 84.1 innings.
The last draftee for KC is righty Cameron Millar, a high schooler from Martinez, California. He’s 6-2, fastball-changeup guy. He has signed to play college ball at Arizona.
(MIZ—DRAFT)—Two Missouri Tigers were taken in late rounds of the baseball draft. Infielder Jason Lovich was picked in the 14th round by the Yankees and Sam Horn—once considered a leading candidate as a football quarterback at Mizzou—went in the 16th round to the Dodgers. Horn is a redshirt sophomore at MU.
Lovich, in three years at Mizzou, hit .311 in 108 games and ranked sixth in the SEC with a .357 average this year.
Horn, who came to Missouri as a two-sport athlete, only played five games for the Tigers this year after missing all of 2024 after Tommy John surgery. This year he struck out 14 batters in 10.2 innings.
If he stays at Mizzou, he will be one of four competitors for quarterback. Drew Pyne, who filled in for a couple of games last year, is back. Beau Pribula has been brought in at a good price to be the leading contender. Freshman Matt Zellers also is listed in the depth chart.
Moving along—very fast
(INDYCAR)—Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou picked up wins at the Iowa Speedway last weekend and Penske Racing saw a weekend of promise turn to ashes.
In Saturday’s race, Penske’s Josef Newgarden started from pole and led the first 232 of the race’s 275 laps only to see O’Ward seize the lead because of a pit stop bobble by Newgarden’s crew and hold on for the win.
But the race was the best of the year for the Penske team as its driver finished 2-3-4.Will Power joined Newgarden on the podium and Scott McLaughlin, who started 27th after wrecking in qualifying, worked his way to fourth. Points leader Alex Palou came home fifth.
O’Ward, who has three second place finishes this year, became the sixth driver in Indycar history to win in his 100th career race. The last driver to do that in the series was Patrick Carpenter in 2002. The first four are Indycar Legends—Rodger Ward, A. J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, and Bobby Unser. O’Ward also won his 50th start.
His win is the first for a Chevrolet-powered car this year.
Things fell apart early for Penske cars on Sunday. McLaughlin was knocked out on the fifth lap in a tangle with Devlin DeFrancesco and finished 26th. Power left with mechanical issues and finished 24th. Newgarden led some laps but could only make it to 10th.
The Sunday race produced a seventh winner’s trophy for the year for Alex Palou, who saw his points lead build. Palou had a dominant day, running in front for 192 laps and finished just ahead of Scott Dixon. Marcus Armstrong tied his best career finish by crossing the line third.
Saturday’s winner, Pato O’Ward, could only muster a fifth-place finish.
Palou has a 129-point lead on O’Ward as the Indycar season heads into the last third of its schedule. Kyle Kirkwood, who has three wins this year, and went into the weekend in second place, had disappointing results and dropped to fourth in the points behind Dixon.
The series moves to the streets of Toronto next weekend.
(NASCAR)—-Another road course. Another dominating win for Shane von Gisbergen. His win at Sonoma is his third of the year and puts him as the number four seed for the playoffs. Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, and Christopher Bell won their third races earlier.
Van Ginsbergen started from the pole and established solid leads throughout in a record-setting or tying performance, leading a record 97 of the 110 laps around the 1.99-mile course and finishing more than 1.1 seconds ahead of Chase Briscoe.
It is his third straight win from the pole on a road course, equaling Jeff Gordon’s string stretching over the 1998 and 1999 seasons. The win in his 34th start is the fourth of his Cup career, the fastest a driver has won four to start his career since Parnelli Jones did it in 1967 in start number 31. He broke Jeff Gordon’s record of 92 laps led set in 2004.
Nobody else led more than four laps.
Only six races are left before the 16-driver playoffs. Competition for the 16th spot is fierce after twenty races. A. J. Allmendinger has it but five drivers are within twenty points, three within ten.
Next up for NASCAR is the short track at Dover.
(photo credits: O’Ward and Palou—Bob Priddy; von Ginsbergen—NASCAR (Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)