Kuzul

1. Yankees vs. Schedule-Makers

Not that the Yankees are holding open auditions these days, but 52 times this season, Joe Girardi has handed the ball to a rookie starter and steered him toward the mound.

No other team in the majors has started rookie hurlers as often this summer, and only three times since rookie rules were established in 1958 have the Yankees entrusted a larger number of their games to those classified as such: 1991 (54 times), 1986 (54) and 2007 (52).

Click Ahead to Other Topics

• Numbers not adding up for the Orioles
• Finally, the Dodgers find some late-inning magic
• Joey Bats shows his not-so-glamorous side
• The numbers crunch is growing in the Bronx
• Mariners make dizzying history in Boston
• Stephen Strasburg keeps the Nationals guessing
• Is Billy Butler’s glove key to Royals’ renaissance?
• It’s time to start planning for next year for a few teams

Yet each time this seeming pinstriped version of Christians-Lions threatens to become gory (especially with Masahiro Tanaka, who has started 18 times, out)…it doesn’t. The Yankees steal a few wins, the Orioles get swept by a bad Cubs team in Wrigley Field, and, presto, the Yankees’ pulse quickens.

That the Yankees started this week in second place in the AL East, only six games behind Baltimore, is either a testament to their steely resolve and fortitude, or an enormous indictment of the Blue Jays, Rays and Red Sox.

Debate that as you may (correct answer: A lot of both), but now comes the next round of heavy lifting for the Yankees: A key stretch of schedule in which 21 of their next 30 games, taking them through Sept. 25, is against clubs with winning records.

Starting Tuesday, nine of their next 12 are against winning clubs: the Royals, Tigers and Blue Jays. Throw in Tanaka‘s scheduled simulated game Thursday in Detroit, and this is the latest week that could make or break the 2014 Yankees.

What we’re watching is Girardi‘s best job of managing yet and a Yankees club that should leave even the most ardent optimists scratching the stadium giveaway caps sitting atop their heads.

A “future” with Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran really is more of a past. CC Sabathia did what he was supposed to, helping to bring another World Series title to the Bronx (2009), but he’s not going to be leading a staff in his twilight years. And just think, only six more months remain before Alex Rodriguez pops his head out in Tampa like Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania.

What general manager Brian Cashman has been unable to do in the years since the latest dynasty ended in 2000 is establish a pipeline of prospects that replenishes the major league club.

As Derek Jeter enters the final month of his career, the roaring question is: When will the next Jeter emerge from the Yankees’ system? That “Core Four”—Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera…all were drafted or signed and developed in the Yankees’ system.

As for the present, the Yankees have used a franchise-record 31 pitchers so far this season. Only the Texas Rangers (36), hit by a Noah’s Ark-sized flood of injuries, have employed more.

Still, including old warhorses Brandon McCarthy and Chris Capuano, Yankees starters were 6-4 with a 2.77 ERA over their past 18 games heading into Michael Pineda’s start in Kansas City on Monday.

That’s a far better reality for this group than the Yankees had any right to expect. Now strength of schedule comes into play with the force of a USC linebacker.

Of course, the Orioles have helped New York remain alive. No sooner had the Birds opened a commanding nine-game lead in the AL East before they ran smack into the Javier Baez Wrigley Field Wrecking Co.

The result was a 4-5 road trip. Chris Davis is now down to a .190 batting average, the lowest mark of any major leaguer with at least 400 at-bats. And Manny Machado is lost for the season to knee surgery.

So can the Yankees erase the rest of the Orioles’ lead? Or even wipe out a 2.5-game deficit in the wild-card standings, where they trail both the Seattle Mariners and Tigers (emphasizing the magnitude of this week’s series)?

A lot may hinge on the one game this week that doesn’t count, a simulated game scheduled for Thursday that will see Tanaka test his injured elbow, which has had him on the DL since July.

2. The Orioles By the Numbers

Just when the Orioles appeared to be running away from the pack in the AL East, they were whacked by the Cubs and sideswiped by news that Manny Machado will be lost for the year due to surgery on his right knee. Last summer, his season ended early with the same procedure on his left knee.

It’s the end of a bizarre season for Machado, who lost it during a series against the A’s in June, was suspended and now says he has abnormal knees, which left them vulnerable to injuries. By having this surgery now, he says, he hopes his knee issues will become a thing of the past. 

You can’t help but wonder whether Machado’s knees now will compromise his future. He arrived in the majors as such a supreme talent at 19 in 2012. With him and catcher Matt Wieters both out for the season, the Orioles have taken a huge hit.

Meantime, Nelson Cruz leads the majors with 34 homers after Chris Davis’ 53 topped the majors last summer. If Cruz maintains his lead, the Orioles will become only the fourth team since 1920 to have two different players win homer titles in back-to-back seasons, according to STATS, LLC.

The others: The 1936-37 Yankees (Lou Gehrig 49, Joe DiMaggio 46), the 1987-88 Athletics (Mark McGwire 49, Jose Canseco 42) and the 1993-94 Giants (Barry Bonds 46, Matt Williams 43).

3. Dodging the Late-Inning Heroics

That the Dodgers beat the Padres 2-1 last Thursday in Dodger Stadium on its own wasn’t a big deal.

That they did it when Justin Turner bashed a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning? That made it kind of a big deal.

Until then, the Dodgers were 0-46 in games in which they trailed after seven innings this season. They were the only team in the majors without a victory in that situation.

Big deal? Well, to hear radio talkers in Los Angeles, it at times showed a lack of heart, courage, fortitude and guts.

The truth of the matter is the zero wins was the weird part. You’d think that the Dodgers would have snatched one or two by late August. But it’s not like successful clubs always thrive in those situations. The Nationals, leading the NL East, were 6-44 at the time when trailing after seven. The Brewers, leading the NL Central, were 5-41.

Closest to the Dodgers in the NL was the Cardinals, who were 1-43 in those situations (they’re 2-45 now).

4. This Week With the Blue Jays

Toronto was supposed to be contending for a playoff slot right about now. Instead, the Blue Jays this month have made spectacles of themselves.

They’re contesting a new logo introduced by the Creighton University Bluejays because, get this, it looks like a Blue Jay.

And as if losing nine of their past 12 isn’t enough to put a damper on any October hopes, Jose Bautista is showing the opposite of leadership skills. After Bautista was ejected by plate ump Bill Welke in the sixth inning of Sunday’s 2-1, 10-inning loss to Tampa Bay, manager John Gibbons let him have it.

“Bottom line is, we needed him in the game,” Gibbons told reporters. “Say your piece and get the hell out of there. We’re trying to get in the playoffs, we need you on the field. He’s a marked man in this game. Bill Welke? I thought he had a pretty good zone today. It was steady, he was calling strikes. He was looking to call strikes. But we need you in the game.”

5. The Yankees By the Numbers

It was nice to see the final residue of hard feelings between Joe Torre and the Yankees melt away Saturday as they retired his No. 6. His was the 18th number the Yankees have retired, and at this rate, maybe they could use a few bitter breakups with legends in the near future (like the way the Red Sox always seem to roll!).

They’re going to run out of numbers eventually, and assuming it is a slam dunk that Derek Jeter’s No. 2 eventually will be retired, they’re already out of single-digit numbers in the Bronx:

1. Billy Martin
2. Derek Jeter (will be retired eventually)
3. Babe Ruth
4. Lou Gehrig
5. Joe DiMaggio
6. Joe Torre
7. Mickey Mantle
8. Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey
9. Roger Maris

By the way, for those who don’t know, way back when numbers were first placed onto uniforms, they signified the slot in the batting order that player occupied. Thus, Ruth wore No. 3 and Gehrig No. 4.

6. Dizzying Heights for Mariners

Not to make light of Robinson Cano leaving Sunday’s game in Boston because of dizziness—he later said he thought it might be a touch of the flu—but has anyone considered that Cano’s condition might have been results-induced?

7. Nationals Alert

Winners of 12 of 14 and hotter than anybody this side of the Kansas City Royals, the Nationals are playing well enough that manager Matt Williams probably is going to have the luxury of arranging his playoff rotation sooner rather than later.

And his Game 1 starter at this point has to be…Jordan Zimmermann? Doug Fister?

There was a time the quick answer would have been Stephen Strasburg. But Strasburg‘s mysterious inconsistency this summer peaked Sunday during the Nationals’ 14-6 laugher over the Giants.

The game became a laugher only after Washington was able to erase the 5-0 deficit Strasburg dug them in the first three innings. Strasburg, who has struggled with fastball location off and on all summer, inexplicably grooved pitches to Travis Ishikawa and Gregor Blanco, both of which turned into home runs.

Already this season, Strasburg has surrendered a career-high 21 homers, five more than he served up all of last year in only 7.2 fewer innings (175.1, as compared to 183 in 2013).

On the flip side, Strasburg leads the NL with 202 strikeouts.

He is an exceptionally hard worker. He cares. And the strikeouts tell you his stuff is still there.

Simply put, he is an ongoing example that this game is nearly impossible to tame, even by the uber-talented. Strasburg still has not lived up to the overwhelming hype that trumpeted his arrival back in 2010. But at 26, there is still time.

Heck, there’s still time for him to tune things up enough this year to start Game 1.

8. To DH or Not to DH?

We all know the glory days of the designated hitter—way back when thumpers like Don Baylor, Chili Davis, Edgar Martinez and Brian Downing roamed the earth—have long since passed.

But check out the profile of a guy this summer whom you would think would be the perfect DH, Billy Butler.

As pointed out by stats guru Bill Chuck, in 93 games as a DH this year, Butler is hitting .261/.310/.336 with three homers and 35 RBI.

In 29 games as a first baseman, Butler is at .308/.351/.523 with five homers and 16 RBI.

Oh, and most important: Before July 20, Butler essentially was a full-time DH. Since he’s moved to first base, the Royals had compiled baseball’s best record at 24-8.

9. Cool Standings? You Bet

With September drawing near, a check at what used to be coolstandings.com and now is on the FanGraphs.com website:

The current division leader with the greatest probability of winning its division is the Nationals (at 98.9 percent), followed by the Dodgers (92.5), Orioles (89.5), A’s (56.8) and Royals (46.5).

The NL Central? That’s the most fascinating division, according to the probabilities: The Brewers currently lead the Cardinals by 1.5 games…yet the Cardinals (48 percent) have a higher probability of winning the division than the Brewers (47.2).

According to FanGraphs‘ Cool Standings, nine teams can begin looking to next summer, with a zero percent chance at this year’s wild-card slots: The Red Sox, White Sox, Twins, Astros, Rangers, Phillies, Cubs, Diamondbacks and Rockies.

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

A prayer for Ferguson, Missouri, and for the greater good to be done throughout our land….

“Mother, mother

“There’s too many of you crying

“Brother, brother, brother

“There’s far too many of you dying

“You know we’ve got to find a way

“To bring some lovin‘ here today, ya

“Father, father

“We don’t need to escalate

“You see, war is not the answer

“For only love can conquer hate

“You know we’ve got to find a way

“To bring some lovin‘ here today”

— Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Charlie Hustle, for 25 years now, has been waiting for a second chance that continues to outsprint him.

When is a lifetime ban long enough?

When that life ends? At an arbitrary juncture sometime before? Perhaps when that life has reasonably passed the point where the man can do much more with the tools of his trade other than sit and reminisce?

Now, 25 years to the day (Sunday) Pete Rose was suspended for life by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti, the stars are realigning and the rows of corn are rearranging in baseball’s Field of Dreams. Two upcoming events now are positioned for what probably will be Rose’s last, best chance for reinstatement:

• Commissioner-elect Rob Manfred is set to replace Bud Selig on Jan. 25.
• The All-Star Game is scheduled for Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park on July 14.

So maybe right now is the time to begin the discussion surrounding whether Rose has done his time, enough time, and maybe the game should move toward some sort of reinstatement.

Mr. Manfred, tear down that wall.

While Selig would not offer details of what might happen in Cincinnati next July, he hinted that Rose will be allowed on the fringes.

“That will be up to the Cincinnati club, and they know what they can do and can’t do,” Selig said last month during his annual All-Star Game meeting with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. “It’s sort of been subjective. They’ve done some things with Pete, but they’ve been very, very thoughtful and limited. But that’s a subject that I’m sure they’ll discuss next year.”

So let’s begin that discussion.

First, understand: Rose broke baseball’s most sacred rule—no betting on the game—and he should have been harshly punished. He has been. No man who is still living has been iced for as long as Rose. Life with the Ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson surely has been interminable.

So let’s all agree on that. And from here, if you want to keep Rose locked up in solitary until he ascends (or descends, your pick) to meet Ty Cobb in the Great Hereafter, I respect that.

Rose long ago wrote his own future first by committing the crime, then by lying about it for 15 years. Even after voluntarily accepting the ban from Giamatti on Aug. 24, 1989, he still denied that he bet on the game. This surely killed any chance he had at leniency.

That Giamatti stunningly died of a heart attack just eight days after sentencing Rose further complicated things. Had he lived, would Giamatti eventually have commuted Rose’s lifetime ban? We’ll never know.

What we do know is that in the NFL, in 1963, then-commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended the Lions’ Alex Karras and the Packers’ Paul Hornung for one season for gambling crimes that included betting on their own teams.

Looking back, those suspensions were shockingly light.

But they do make you wonder: Is 25 years enough?

Understandably, baseball has carried a zero-tolerance policy where gambling is concerned since the Black Sox Scandal that fixed the 1919 World Series (the Sox’s opponents, interestingly, were the Cincinnati Reds).

Unlike the Black Sox, Rose never was accused of fixing games. The Dowd Report documented that he gambled on Reds games between 1985 and 1987. He was a player-manager in 1985-86, then retired as a player and solely managed in ’87.

He did the crime.

And he hasn’t been allowed in the game on an official basis since.

At 73, Pete Rose is not going to manage. He’s not going to pull on a uniform and affect the outcome of games. He’s been away for far too long. Besides, baseball can bend and twist rules as it sees fit (see the Giants’ protest from Chicago this week involving the rain and the tarp).

What about at least taking him off the permanently ineligible list and, even if you tell clubs he’s off-limits as a manager, allowing him to, say, work as a guest hitting coach for the Reds during spring training (if they’ll have him)? Or volunteer during the season?

As things stand right now, Rose is barred from going anywhere in a ballpark that a regular fan cannot go.

Except, and here is where hypocrisy steps to the plate, MLB allowed him to participate in an All-Century Team celebration at the 1999 World Series. It also permitted Rose to take part in festivities at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park in 2010 marking the 25th anniversary of his record-setting 4,192nd hit.

But he is conspicuously missing in other celebrations, such as when the Reds closed Riverfront Stadium, or when the Phillies closed Veterans Stadium.

There comes a point where it is unconscionable to trot Rose out like a show horse for some occasions and keep him locked in the barn like a glue horse for others.

One of Manfred’s biggest challenges will be to reconnect with a generation of young fans who slept through the World Series games of their youth because baseball long ago sold its soul to television.

Yes, Rose was well before their time. He’s been in the hole for so long that he was from their grandparents’ time.

Still, at this point, Rose can be an asset for baseball. As he will be the first to tell you, nobody can sell baseball like Pete Rose (well, maybe after he’s done selling Pete Rose).

His enthusiasm remains contagious. The first question he asked a couple of writers when at Cooperstown, New York, last month was whether they thought there was any chance Derek Jeter would be elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously.

Manfred, so far, has not tipped his hand as to how he will approach the application for reinstatement Rose filed way back in 2002, the one Selig has just let sit there like a piece of junk mail. There are those who believe Manfred will keep Rose on ice because, after 20 years working in the commissioner’s office, he’s been conditioned to lean that way.

Then again, unlike Selig, who was very close with Giamatti, Manfred has no personal ties to Giamatti and 1989.

It’s difficult to predict how he will play it, and so far, there are no tea leaves to read.

But can you imagine the scene in Cincinnati next July if an apologetic and rehabilitated Rose is reinstated back into baseball’s clubhouse?

It is one of sports’ longest-running and most enduring tragedies, how a man with the most hits (4,256), games played (3,562), at-bats (14,053) and times on base (5,929) of anybody in baseball history is locked out of the game for good.

As he told ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap recently for an Outside the Lines special on the 25th anniversary of his lifetime suspension, “I’ve been led to believe America is a forgiving country, and if you do the right things—keep your nose clean, be a good citizen, pay your taxes, do all the things you’re supposed to do—eventually you’ll get a second chance.”

Now is a good time for eventually.

Forgiveness can be an incredibly complicated concept. As a Hall of Fame voter, I do not vote for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire or any of the suspected performance-enhancing drug cheaters.

Granted, the PED scandal is totally different from that of Rose.

Still, though, I wonder: In a quarter of a century, will I change my mind?

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Jackie Robinson Park is a relatively idyllic multipurpose green space in the middle of Washington Heights, a working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.

There are parks everywhere in Chicago, a product of the post-World War II initiative of the Parks District to green up the city. And although JRP is more well manicured than its neighboring parks and houses newer facilities, what sets it apart—especially in these summer months—are the hordes of black kids playing baseball there.

JRP is home to Jackie Robinson West Little League, a program Joseph Haley started in 1971 when his son, Bill, now the program’s director, asked to join a team after watching the Little League World Series. 

It is now a South Chicago institution, and this week it begins play in the Little League World Series as the Illinois state champion, after coming just one win short of a trip last year. The team will stand out for obvious reasons.

Black kids playing baseball? You let some tell it, that’s akin to a Yeti sighting. But on one recent brisk July evening at JRP, there were four diamonds full of black kids either playing or practicing baseball—not to mention parents filling the stands to watch the 10-and-under team win a district game and a couple dozen coaches and volunteers putting in work.

Chicago, as much or perhaps more than any other city in this nation, is inextricably linked to the history of black participation in baseball. It was in this city, right here on the South Side, where Andrew “Rube” Foster pioneered the Negro National League. He and Hall of Fame shortstop John Henry “Pop” Lloyd led the Chicago American Giants. Chicago is the city of Ernie Banks and Andre Dawson. Curtis Granderson is a native son. 

Black folks have always played and still play baseball in this city. It is contrary to the incessant narrative of the dwindling number of black Major League Baseball baseball players and fans. That narrative, of course, is supported by hard data. African-Americans made up just 8.2 percent of MLB Opening Day rosters this season, according to Richard Lapchick’s diversity report, about half what they held as recently as the late ’90s. 

Historic data compiled by the SABR Baseball Biography Project shows that in the decades prior to Lapchick’s report card, African-American participation had held steady.

Past polling has shown a lack of interest on the fan level as well.

These numbers worry the keepers of the game.

Haley, however, looks out at the scores of precocious kids playing at JRP and could not care less about MLB’s brow-furrowing trend. For the past several years, Chicago has been under a violent siege more acute than its major peer cities. On this day, the recent Fourth of July weekend shooting sprees—82 shootings, 14 of them fatal—was still consuming the community.

“I don’t do this to put people in Major League Baseball,” Haley says flatly. “I don’t know if we have the luxury to be concerned with that.”

And who could argue with him? Still, the dwindling number of African-American players in the majors is of concern to commissioner Bud Selig and MLB brass, and they are taking steps to address it.

Last year, after announcing the creation of a 17-member On-Field Diversity Task Force, Selig released the following statement: 

As a social institution, Major League Baseball has an enormous social responsibility to provide equal opportunities for all people, both on and off the field. I am proud of the work we have done thus far with the RBI program and the MLB Urban Youth Academies, but there is more that we must accomplish. We have seen a number of successful efforts with existing MLB task forces, and I believe we have selected the right people to effectively address the many factors associated with diversity in baseball.

Selig clarified the task force’s goal to The New York Times: “I don’t want to miss any opportunity here. We want to find out if we’re not doing well, why not, and what we need to do better. We’ll meet as many times as we need to to come to meaningful decisions.”

This won’t be easy.

The suggested reasons for the “disappearing black baseball player” are numerous.

• Baseball equipment and field upkeep are more expensive than sports like basketball and football.

• Youth baseball has moved more toward the travel-team model, which can price out lower-income kids, of whom there are higher percentages among African-Americans.

• Showcases for teenage prospects are also expensive, effectively pricing out some potentially future African-American pros (ESPN.com’s Tim Keown likened the travel-team/showcase model to red-lining).

• Baseball is a father-son sport, and according to recent U.S. census figures, about 49 percent of black children grow up in single-mother households.

• Because pitching is such a premium, many baseball rosters are now made up of almost two-thirds pitchers and catchers, two positions where African-Americans are either rare or virtually nonexistent.

• Integration killed the Negro Leagues, which slowly led to the disappearance of organized baseball in black communities.

• The majority of American-born draftees now come from the college ranks, but college baseball programs only offer partial scholarships, perhaps further motivating lower-income black kids to choose the full scholarships of basketball and/or football in this age of specialization.

• Baseball is football and basketball’s (and increasingly soccer’s) ugly cousin in the world of high school sports.

• Toiling in the minor leagues for years is an unattractive option for the elite black athlete (as Jimmy Rollins once told The New York Daily News, “You get drafted, and you go to the jungle.”).

• Some say baseball doesn’t effectively market its black stars (a situation that irritates Granderson).

• Baseball is a difficult sport to master.

• Baseball is boring.

We could go on and on.

“Whatever we’re doing now, it ain’t good enough,” says Dmitri Young, who was twice an All-Star in a 13-year major league career that ended in 2008. “We—I mean Major League Baseball and our black communities—need to do more.”

That was Young’s charge as he dodged the California sun on a bench at MLB’s Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California. Young—aka “Da Meat Hook”—now startlingly trim, is here serving as a coach and mentor for MLB’s Breakthrough Series, a joint venture with USA Baseball.

The MLB event looks to address the rising costs of private baseball showcases (which can cost as much as $500 to enter, plus any travel and lodging costs), by subsidizing its own showcases targeting African-American high school prospects, with the expressed interest of getting them in front of college and pro scouts.

The prospects run through drills and play a couple games—almost like a mini-combine—and get some one-on-one time with former pros like Young and South Central L.A.’s own Eric Davis. They also get a chance to soak in some wisdom from legend Frank Robinson, who, not coincidentally, serves as MLB’s executive vice president of baseball development, with broad oversight over the diversity issue. 

This year, the Breakthrough Series was expanded to four cities, with Cincinnati, Brooklyn, New York, and Bradenton, Florida, joining Compton. The Compton series—a subdued event soundtracked by Motown singles that doesn’t resemble anything like, say, an AAU basketball event of a similar vein—featured about 35 kids from all over California and a few from Texas and Arizona. USA Baseball covered all expenses.

About 20 players who participated in past Breakthrough Series were drafted over the past three years. That’s not a sea change, but it can be considered an inroads. Some of the recent draftees—like Carl Crawford’s cousin J.P. or Gary Sheffield’s nephew Justus—might not have been as reliant on the series for exposure. But many others are kids who otherwise might not have had the means to enter the well-scouted-but-expensive Perfect Game and East Coast Pro showcases or the Area Code Games.

The series is an extension of MLB’s two major initiatives: Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) and its Urban Youth Academies (UYA). 

RBI began in 1989 when one man, John Young—a former first baseman who had a brief career with the Detroit Tigers and grew up in an America where baseball was king—witnessed Southern California’s elite black athletes deserting baseball for basketball and football and tried to halt that trend. 

MLB took over the operation in 1991. Although players like Crawford, CC Sabathia and James Loney have passed through RBI on their way to the bigs, MLB maintains that RBI’s core mission is ultimately to give young people from underserved and diverse communities the opportunity to play baseball.

It’s designated $30 million worth of resources to the RBI program, which currently serves more than 220,000 kids in more than 300 programs established in about 200 cities worldwide.

In the 25 years since RBI’s inception, though, the number of black players in MLB has only dwindled.

Rich Souto is the chief operating officer of Harlem RBI. It has a $13 million budget, 80 full-time employees, 250 part-time workers and about 200 volunteers. It maintains a modest but pristine office and field in East Harlem that serves hundreds of kids each summer. 

Harlem RBI is not, however, a pro prospect factory.

“RBI hasn’t moved the metrics,” says Souto. “Changing the numbers, in terms of black players in the pros, was and is one aspect of the overall mission of providing inner-city kids the opportunity to play baseball. And you can see the potential for that to happen with the increased focus from the league office. 

“But, for us, on the ground floor, the focus is more about serving the community. We try to create and develop that love for the game, and we try to identify the kids with potential and desire to continue and steer them down the proper path. But I think that’s more what MLB is trying to do with academies.”

MLB celebrated the opening of its first stateside Urban Youth Academy in 2006, when it opened the doors to its Compton location at the end of February prior to spring training. Major league teams, beginning with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays, had long before established baseball academies in Latin America and the Caribbean—specifically in the Dominican Republic.

Because these Latin and Caribbean players weren’t subject to the draft like American players, they were cheaper. And with baseball retaining its status as king of all sports in countries like the D.R., the talent pool was deep.

Anyone with eyes can see the dividends that these foreign academies have paid. Just look at the overwhelmingly Latin and Caribbean origin of the league’s All-Stars over the last 15 years. MLB is hoping for similar domestic results.

There are now four UYAs—in Compton, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Houston—with plans for more sites in Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia, Cleveland and South Florida.

“For kids that have the ability and desire, we want the academies to be the place that gives them the tools to keep pursuing a baseball career,” is how Ben Baroody, MLB’s senior director of baseball development and Urban Youth Academies, explains it. UYA has former major and minor league pros—like Dave Frost, Lorenzo Gray and Jimmy Wynn—in both staff and volunteer roles.

“Our goal is to develop major league players,” Baroody says, marking the difference between UYA and RBI’s more community-based mission.

Specifically, UYA is beginning to seek to address the dearth of black pitchers and catchers in the bigs.

“Frank Robinson, [UYA director] Darrell Miller and I have certainly discussed this as a need of the academies to develop ‘up the middle’ players,” Baroody wrote in an email. “In Compton we have specific pitching and catching programming several times a week and encourage all players to attend. At the other academies nothing official is in place, but we have stressed the need on our instructors to get our most promising players pitching, catching and playing short.

“We are far from where we want or need to be, but we recognize the need and have taken steps to further facilitate getting the UYA top athletes on the mound or behind the plate.”

Overall, since 2007, Khris Davis (Milwaukee Brewers), Anthony Gose (Toronto Blue Jays), Aaron Hicks (Minnesota Twins), Trayvon Robinson (currently in the Los Angeles Dodgers system) and Jon Singleton (Houston Astros) have made it to the majors. MLB hopes that with more academies and greater collaboration between UYA, RBI and their host-city MLB teams, the numbers will turn around.

While you can’t necessarily view RBI and UYA as a manifestation of MLB altruism, to its credit, MLB’s largesse funds these programs that are seeking to address the structural issues that hinder unfettered participation from, at least, a critical mass of black kids in this country.

But there’s still the more abstract concern that, frankly, baseball has lost its cachet in the black community, especially with Millennials.

“[Major League Baseball] has disconnected from the culture,” admits Jerry Manuel, a former major league player and manager who was appointed to oversee the day-to-day efforts of MLB’s recently formed diversity task force. “And [African-Americans] are not watching the game. We’re not participating as fans. [African-American] kids—they’re doing other things. We’re trying to figure out why.”

Manuel remembers baseball as an integral part of his childhood. His pops would play with some of the Negro League players when they would come barnstorming through Georgia in the Jim Crow South.

“On Sundays you’d go to church, then go watch some baseball and eat some good Southern fried chicken,” he says. “That’s what we did.”

Most baseball men born prior to the 1980s mention the same themes in their origin stories: the ubiquity of the game in its sandlot variation, the influence of iconic black MLB stars like Hank Aaron, Banks, Willie Mays, Robinson, Ozzie Smith and Barry Bonds and, for many, their fathers.

But when talking to young players who have “chosen” to stick with baseball through their teenage years, they all tell similar stories too. Similar in that there’s either always some peculiarity to the story arc or an inability to articulate what pulled them in.

Take Brendon Davis, for example. He participated in the Breakthrough Series at the Compton UYA. He’s the third-ranked third baseman in his class, son of former NFL running back Gary Davis and on his way to college baseball powerhouse Cal State Fullerton. He’s also about 6’5″ and lithe.

If you didn’t see him in cleats snagging ground balls in the gap, you’d almost surely expect for him to be on his way to some D-I school as a wide receiver or 2-guard. Why baseball, though?

“I don’t know why I chose baseball, to be honest with you,” he says. “I started on T-ball when I was about five and for a few years I wasn’t very good. I was the worst, stuck out in right field, batting ninth. There was just something about the game, though.”

He says his student body is diverse, but that he was one of just two black kids on the baseball team.

“All the black kids play basketball and football,” he said. 

Chauncey Thomas is a promising young prospect in the Jackie Robinson West program. He has theories.

“What’s the most exciting play in baseball? The home run, right? But that doesn’t happen a lot. I haven’t hit a home run since I was 12,” says the 15-year-old Thomas, who—in JRW’s black and yellow with braids down to his shoulders—can’t help but evoke Andrew McCutchen.

“But now think about a dunk, or someone getting crossed over, or how many times you hear that sound of a hard hit in football or watch a long run. There’s just more easy stuff to grab onto and get excited about in the other sports.”

“But,” and here comes the peculiarity, “for some reason my favorite play was always the bunt.”

Austin Alexis was born in New Orleans’ Third Ward and had to flee to Houston with his family in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He’s a center fielder/second baseman with enough potential to get invited to Compton’s Breakthrough Series. Alexis says many of his incredulous classmates actually ask him why he even plays baseball.

His answer?

“I don’t know…hmmm,” he ponders. “I guess I just like it.”

He’s also a slot receiver and says he will likely choose the sport that gives him the best scholarship. So, in that case, it’s not looking good for baseball.

Souto explains that for the bulk of the kids who come through his Harlem RBI program, baseball lags in recognition.

“These kids don’t talk about Andrew McCutchen the way they talk about Kevin Durant,” he says.

This is not something baseball can remedy with subsidies. This needs outreach.

Back in April, Manuel told The New York Times: “You might see me at places where you see [University of Kentucky basketball coach] John Calipari. That’s what we have to do. We’ve got to keep the pulse of the culture and be able to say to that culture, ‘Hey, baseball is an option.’”

Outreach might mean poaching/stealing elite athletes away from what has become the Millennial generation’s glamour sports of basketball and football. Manuel says he attended the Youth Basketball of America tournament in Orlando in early July and was blown away by the talent pool.

And when he’s not a covetous spectator at other sports’ national tournaments, he’s traversing the country—mainly the Southeast, for now—looking for grassroots programs, typically run by former players, that can help increase MLB’s reach on the ground level, connecting them with prospects and raw talent.

“We’re getting involved with grassroots efforts other than just RBI and UYA,” he says. “These are programs that, in order to compete, just need a little structure and some funding. So, if we can help lift them up, they’ve already targeted the talent.” 

He mentioned former White Sox and Tigers All-Star Chet Lemon’s academy in Central Florida and a program former Expos/Braves star Marquis Grissom is running out of his native Atlanta.

These days, Grissom, a two-time All-Star with the Montreal Expos who caught the last out as an outfielder for Atlanta’s 1995 World Series champs, runs the Marquis Grissom Baseball Association, an academy/travel club of sorts that targets mostly African-American prospects, many with pro potential.

They offer what amounts to scholarships to defray the costs associated with the travel ball they compete in. Since 2006, MGBA has sent almost 150 kids to play college ball, and seven have been drafted.

“We start at eight years old and go all the way to 18 and through college,” Grissom says. “We’re year-round. We give them info, we give them reps. And as you get older, the game gets more mental, so we teach them IQ. There’s so much underdeveloped talent out here waiting for that push, that knowledge, that encouragement.”

Manuel says these are the types of private organizations and talent hubs that MLB will begin aggressively courting.

There’s always the possibility that this might be a fool’s errand for MLB, that the black community, by and large, has moved on. That a wholesale love and reverence for the sport and the league is not merely dormant, but it no longer exists. That a critical mass of folks who feel a personal and communal responsibility to revive a visceral connect to baseball and MLB (non-former players, that is) are far rarer than folks like Jackie Robinson West’s Haley and Harlem RBI’s Souto, who grew up loving the sport but now use it more as a tool to save kids from treacherous streets and give others a recreational outlet.

But there are still zealots like J.R. Gamble, head coach of the eight-and-under and 10-and-under Duke’s Baseball Club based in Queens, New York. He fields an ethnically diverse team that’s unique everywhere they compete because of the six to seven black kids who suit up. 

In late June, with the aid of crowd-sourced funds from a GoFundMe campaign that helped supplement the coffers, he took his club to the Youth Nationals in Myrtle Beach, Florida, where he saw, “like two other black kids…out of about 75 teams.”

“I’m doing this because I love the game and I miss that flair that black players brought the game. The swag. The cerebral part of the game when it came to base-stealing and manufacturing runs. So, I just said I’m going to go out and find the few black kids that I know are playing and invest in them and teach them.

“And believe me, I’m going to get my two or three in bigs and then I’ll be done. I’ll have done my part,” he says.

He’s not letting MLB off the hook, though.

“Come on, let’s be real. You got these rosters full of pitchers and catchers, with no brothers. So the league needs to take some of all that money they’re making and build some pitching and catching academies in the hood. Quit playin’.”

Vincent Thomas is a writer living in Brooklyn. He is the former editor-in-chief of The Shadow League. His work has frequently appeared in SLAM, ESPN.com, Fox Sports, NBA.com and various newspapers. Follow him @vincecathomas.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

1. Tigers, Tigers, not burning so bright

Just when Motown was grooving on David Price, CLANK! Detroit’s assembly line of victories and good fortune suddenly came screeching to a halt.

Not that the past 48 hours have been a Tabby Nightmare, but it’s as if that giant statue of Joe Louis’ fist downtown suddenly clocked the Tigers in the chops. The Kansas City Royals, winners of eight in a row and 16 of 19, seized first place Monday night. Really? Are you kidding?

‘Fraid not.

The Tigers suffered terrible twin blows with the losses of starter Anibal Sanchez (strained pectoral muscle) and reliever Joakim Soria (strained muscle in left side). Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Justin Verlander walked off in Pittsburgh Monday night with a sore shoulder after just one inning.

Both Sanchez and Soria could miss a month, which could present a crown-jewel sized problem in Detroit given the hard-charging Royals. And that’s even before Verlander has been fully diagnosed. He is scheduled for an MRI exam Tuesday in Detroit.

Add to that a 19-inning loss to Toronto on Sunday that shredded the pitching staff, and it’s high-alert-status time in Detroit. The Tigers desperately needed help from Verlander on Monday after that to give their bullpen a blow. Instead, he turned in the shortest start of his career.

Is it really pawsable—er, plausible—that the Tigers’ run of AL Central titles could come to an end? And, right now they’re only one game ahead of the Mariners for the second AL wild-card slot. Yikes!

There is a lot of hardball left to play before leaping to conclusions, but there is no question it’s all hands on deck now for manager Brad Ausmus’ team. And while the Tigers scuffle, the Royals brightened themselves up quite a bit by acquiring slugger Josh Willingham from the Twins on Monday.

Willingham is expected to serve mostly as Kansas City’s designated hitter now that Billy Butler is playing first base in the absence of Eric Hosmer (fractured right hand). Hosmer likely will not return until next month.

“Veteran guy, good bat, good guy in the clubhouse,” Colorado first baseman Justin Morneau, Willingham’s former teammate in Minnesota, says of Kansas City’s new find.

As for the Tigers after the past few days, their pitching at the moment is more scrambled than the eggs at your favorite breakfast joint. Lefty Robbie Ray will start Tuesday in Pittsburgh in place of Rick Porcello, whose scheduled start was scratched when he was called on for two-plus innings of emergency relief Sunday.

Ray originally was scheduled to start Wednesday. Now Buck Farmer, who sounds like either a rock singer or cartoon character, will start Wednesday. Max Scherzer goes Thursday, Porcello Friday, Price Saturday and it’s all TBD after that.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous,” Verlander told reporters Monday night. “I’ve never been through this before.”

Compounding matters is a sluggish lineup that, since the All-Star break into this week, ranked tied for 15th in the majors in batting average (.250), 20th in on-base percentage (.306) and 22nd in slugging percentage (.363). Through the first eight games of Detroit’s current nine-game trip, Miguel Cabrera was hitting .219 (7-for-32) with no homers.

Yes, it’s an endurance test now for the Tigers, whose six-hour, 37-minute game in Toronto on Sunday was their second-longest since 1914, according to baseball-reference.com, trailing only a 22-inning game at Yankee Stadium on June 24, 1962, that lasted seven hours.

The Tigers schedule over the final seven weeks ranks as the second-toughest in the American League behind the Orioles, measured by games against opponents whose record is above .500.

At this rate, you can circle two September series included in that: the Royals in Detroit Sept. 8-10, and the Tigers in Kansas City Sept. 19-21.

2. Will Javier Baez, the Cubs and World Series belong in same sentence one day?

Opening week of the season. Press box dining room at Angel Stadium. Dinner at a table with five or six scouts, most of whom covered Cactus League spring training.

Simple question: “What was the most impressive thing you saw this spring?”

Immediately, the words barely out of my mouth, two of the scouts gave the exact same answer: Javier Baez.

On and on they went. His bat. His presence. His ceiling.

To hear them talk, this guy will be ticketed for the Hall of Fame by the time he’s through.

Then came his debut last Tuesday, when he belted a 12th-inning, game-winning home run in Colorado.

It was only the fourth time in history that a player smashed a go-ahead or game-winning homer in extra innings in his major league debut: The Marlins’ Miguel Cabrera did it in 2003, the Twins’ Kent Hrbek in 1981 and the Angels’ Billy Parker in 1971.

Not to put too fine a point on the hype, but you’ll notice two of those three, Cabrera and Hrbek, wound up as centerpieces for World Series-winning teams (Cabrera’s Marlins in 2003, Hrbek’s Twins in 1987 and 1991).

Whether or not Baez can help bring a World Series title to Wrigley Field for the first time ever—and to the Cubs for the first time since 1908—remains an awfully tall order. But it is easy to see why, during a discussion on Chicago’s WGN radio recently, hosts Glen Kozlowski and Andy Masur told me that Cubs fans this summer have been paying closer attention to what’s happening in Triple-A Iowa than in Wrigley Field.

And they were speaking lucidly enough that I don’t think their tongues were in cheek even a little bit.

Reduce the buzz around the Iowa Cubs even by half when factoring in excessive hype, and it’s still not difficult to see great things happening in this organization by 2016.

We’ve seen a touch of Arismendy Alcantara already, who was moved from second base to center field last week to make room for Baez. Meantime, third baseman Kris Bryant and right fielder Jorge Soler continue raking at Iowa. And shortstop Addison Russell (obtained from Oakland in the Jeff Samardzija/Jason Hammel deal), starting pitcher C.J. Edwards (obtained from the Rangers in last summer’s Matt Garza trade) and center fielder Albert Almora are on deck at Double-A Tennessee.

Alcantara was rated as the 100th-best prospect in the game entering 2014 by Baseball America. The other six all ranked among the top 41 prospects: Baez fifth, Bryant eighth, Russell 14th, Edwards 28th, Almora 36th and Soler 41st. For more on them, check out Mike Rosenbaum’s piece here. 

Add them to Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo, and the biggest question that pops up is what kind of pitching will they be playing behind? With the debuts of Baez and Alcantara, and with the rest of the pipeline starting to flow, you could see the wheels turning when the Cubs acquired Jacob Turner, 23, a former first-round pick (9th overall to Tigers in 2009) from the Marlins.

Not that Turner, who was 4-7 with a 5.97 ERA in 20 games (12 starts) for the Marlins, is the answer. But clearly, it is time for the Cubs to begin searching in earnest for starting pitchers who could be part of the answer.

Baez, through his first six games, is hitting .273 (9-for-33) with three homers and six RBI.

It’s enough to dream on, especially on a sunny afternoon, this summer in Wrigley Field.

3. Now taking the baton from Bud Selig…

Circle Thursday as perhaps one of the most historic days in major league history: It is then, on the final day of this week’s owners meetings in Baltimore, that Bud Selig’s successor is expected to be named.

Owners are scheduled to vote Thursday, and assuming one of the candidates receives a minimum of 23 votes (of the 30 club owners), then the game’s first commissioner not named Selig in 22 years officially will be on deck.

The three finalists, first reported by Bob Nightengale of USA Today:

Rob Manfred, who has spent the past 15 years as executive vice-president of labor relations and quarterbacked, from the owner’s side, the past three labor agreements.

Tim Brosnan, a 23-year veteran of the commissioner’s office who has been involved in the business of baseball outside of the lines: every major broadcasting, licensing and sponsorship issue for the past several years, as well as being instrumental in working toward globalizing the game.

Tom Werner, a Red Sox owner for the past 12 years who previously owned, disastrously, the Padres.

Manfred widely has been viewed as Selig’s personal choice to succeed him and the odds-on favorite.

Meantime, given the way Werner systematically dismantled the early 1990s Padres and was the guy who brought Roseanne Barr in for the infamous screeching and crotch-grabbing rendition of the national anthem, it will be an outrage if he squeezes into the post.

4. The skinny on the Padres’ new GM

It is a bold, calculated risk, and good for the Padres.

A.J. Preller, 37, does not exactly have a household name. But San Diego’s new general manager has fingerprints all over the Texas Rangers’ farm system, particularly in the fertile, international pipeline the club has established into Latin America.

What the Padres wanted was a point man in the baseball operations department with cred in both evaluating talent and in international scouting. Preller, who comes with a reputation as one of the most maniacal, hardest-working men in the game, brings that.

He is not cut from the same GM-to-be cloth as so many of the game’s other young executives. More at home in Bermuda shorts and a floppy hat in the hot Dominican Republic sun than in the coats and ties of the front office, Preller helped land, among others, Jurickson Profar, Leonys Martin and Rougned Odor for the Rangers. He helped bring Yu Darvish over from Japan.

For a San Diego team with a farm system just getting back up to speed, and an organization that has seen zero production from its Dominican academy, Preller should be just what the doctor ordered.

“I want Padres fans to understand that it’s not going to be smooth sailing from Day 1,” Preller said at last Wednesday’s introductory press conference. “But I can promise you we’re going to have the hungriest, hard-working group of employees in the game. I feel pretty confident that once we get going in that direction, we’re going to be doing some pretty special things here.”

5. The re-arming of the Mets

Jacob deGrom’s sore shoulder is only the latest reminder that you never know how things will turn out. With any dose of good luck at all, the Mets will find that it is just a minor scare, especially after losing Matt Harvey to Tommy John surgery.

But there are enough good things happening here that a scout offered this, unsolicited, the other day: “Watch the Mets. They’re going to be really good in two years. That young pitching is legit.”

Harvey, deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Dillon Gee…you can see it coming.

6. Late night, big boom

Most shocking part of the Angels’ epic 5-4 win over the Red Sox Saturday night and into the wee hours Sunday?

Not that the game went 19 innings.

Not that it took six hours and 31 minutes to play (second-longest game in Angels history in terms of time, longest for the Red Sox since 2001).

Not that it finished at 12:39 a.m. Sunday.

No, the most shocking part was that when Albert Pujols won it with a replay-reviewed homer that bounced off the top of the right-center field fence in the 19th, it was Pujols’ first walk-off homer since joining the Angels.

It came in his 367th game in Anaheim. In St. Louis, Pujols belted 10 walk-off homers in 11 seasons.

7. Derek Jeter and Sabermetrics

While the sabermetrics crowd has been among Derek Jeter’s loudest critics during his well-decorated career, he is returning the favor before he retires.

While passing Honus Wagner for sixth place on baseball’s all-time hits list—he now trails only Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker—Jeter told Kevin Kernan of the New York Post that he’s always tried to be an all-around player, and that something has been lost in today’s game:

I’ve always tried to do everything on the field to help the team try to win. In all different ways, offensively, defensively, moving runners up to score a run. That’s how you win games. You can take all these formulas and stuff and throw it out the window.

When Kernan suggested to Jeter that the approach is getting lost in today’s game, Jeter fired another broadside: “It’s been lost since they started coming up with all these formulas.”

8. Forget counting sheep, count pitches instead

The Angels and Red Sox played 19 innings Saturday, the Tigers and Blue Jays duplicated that feat Sunday.

According to statistics guru Bill Chuck of Billy-Ball (per GammonsDaily.com), in Toronto the Jays and Tigers used eight pitchers apiece, and the 16 combined to throw 629 total pitches. In Anaheim, the Sox and Angels used nine pitchers each, and the 18 combined to throw 558 total pitches.

The Tigers (325), Jays (304) and Angels (286) now rank Nos. 1, 2 and 3 for most pitches thrown in a game this season, with the Rockies (282 in a 16-inning game July 29 against the Cubs) fourth and the Indians (278 in a 14-inning game against the Diamondbacks on June 24) fifth.

9. Love is in the air, but a Tigers cap is not

There are some things in the baseball world that you absolutely, positively should not miss. This is one of them: The Yankees allegedly barred Kate Upton from wearing a Tigers cap last week in Yankee Stadium. As she put it, she’s literally sleeping with the enemy, Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, and the Yankees didn’t appreciate it. But don’t take it from me, take it from the lovely Kate herself.

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

Ah, Kate. Ah, Justin…

She wrote a long letter

On a short piece of paper

— Traveling Wilburys, Margarita

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball here.

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While there already has been a large influx of prospects promoted to the major leagues this season, there are even more set to arrive when active rosters expand from 25 to 40 players on September 1.

Last year’s wave of September call-ups marked the arrival of some of baseball’s top rookies, including Billy Hamilton, Yordano Ventura, Nick Castellanos and Jonathan Schoop.

It’s still hard to say which prospects, if any, will be promoted to The Show this September, but there’s certainly no shortage of intriguing candidates, with Kris Bryant, Francisco Lindor, Noah Syndergaard, Joc Pederson and Alex Meyer all in the mix.

So, with three weeks remaining until rosters expand, here are the latest call-up odds for baseball’s top 25 prospects, as determined by Prospect Pipeline’s midseason rankings.

Omitted due to injury: SS Carlos Correa (No. 2), 3B Miguel Sano (11), RHP Hunter Harvey (22), RHP Jameson Taillon (25), RHP Kohl Stewart (31) and RHP Kyle Zimmer (33).

Already in MLB: 2B/SS Javier Baez (No. 6), IF/OF Arismendy Alcantara (23) and RHP Aaron Sanchez (32).

*All stats courtesy of MiLB.com, Baseball-Reference or FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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Anthony Bosch, who founded the company at the center of MLB‘s Biogenesis scandal last year, is expected to surrender to the Drug Enforcement Administration on charges of conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids.

T.J. Quinn of ESPN broke the news:

He also reported several associates close to Biogenesis were being brought in for their role with the company. It’s alleged the group provided performance-enhancing substances to athletes ranging from professionals to high school students.

While Bosch was working with Major League Baseball, the possibility of being charged was discussed, per Quinn:

Bosch wasn’t the only person arrested Tuesday:

Quinn reports even more players could be involved:

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports later reported that there likely won’t be any new suspensions handed out by MLB:

More than a dozen MLB players ended up getting suspended for their connection to the Bosch clinic, including prominent hitters like Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera and Nelson Cruz. All of them aside from Alex Rodriguez, who received a longer ban since the league considered him a repeat offender, have served their full punishment.

In February 2014, Greg Botelho and Quand Thomas of CNN reported the league had dropped its lawsuit against Biogenesis and its founder. That was the expected outcome after Bosch agreed to help with the investigation into players using PEDs.

Of more interest now might be his role in providing steroids to high school athletes.

Julie K. Brown and Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald report Porter Fischer, an employee working for Bosch, provided information that suggested players as young as 16 were getting illegal treatment at the facility:

In July 2013, the Miami Herald published a report that Bosch had also been providing minors with steroid “concoctions.” Fischer, in an interview, claimed that 16- and 17-year-old high school players were getting injections at the Coral Gables clinic, a clear violation of the law.

The report also states Bosch and his associates are all expected to go through their first court appearance Tuesday afternoon. More information about how the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DEA plan to move forward should be known after the initial hearing.

It’s also noted that no athletes are named or charged, which means no professional leagues should be expecting any further scandal to come from the situation, at least currently.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

1. Beyond the July 31 trade deadline…

OK, so now what happens? Glad you asked.

The beautiful thing about Detroit’s acquisition of David Price is that not only does it help the Tigers this year, but they now are in position to kiss off Max Scherzer this winter, knowing Price will be in their 2015 rotation.

You know the story: The Tigers offered Scherzer a six-year, $144 million deal this spring, which Scherzer declined. So when Scherzer files for free agency after the season, the Tigers already have taken out an insurance policy against excess anxiety and wonder regarding next year’s rotation.

And here’s a prediction: The Tigers will wind up signing Price to the extension that never was possible for him in Tampa Bay. Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, 85, is doing everything he can to bring a World Series title to his beloved Detroit before it’s off to meet Ty Cobb, George Kell, Gates Brown, Mark Fidrych and the rest of the great Tigers in the sky.

And Price absolutely is going to fall in love with the Tigers organization and Motown’s beautifully passionate fans (some of the best in the country, easy). Price, by the way, makes his first start for the Tigers on Tuesday night in Yankee Stadium. Is Derek Jeter near another milestone?

Detroit and Oakland advance directly to the American League Championship Series. Apologies, Orioles, Blue Jays and Angels. Love your lineups (especially you, Baltimore). Love your possibilities (especially you, Angels; with Mike Trout, anything is within reach).

But the game is about pitching, now more than ever, and October is seriously about pitching. That is why general manager Billy Beane dealt Yoenis Cespedes, a reminder for the rest of us. Detroit and Oakland currently possess everything you need for October except extra bags of Snickers and plastic orange pumpkins.

We will spend the next two months debating which rotation is better. And here is how it will go: One week, we’ll swoon over the Tigers and say, “Ya know, Detroit has it.” Then, the very next week, we’ll be all over the A’s and say, “No, theirs is the best.” 

We will change our opinions wildly each week, like helpless high school kids battling the throes of changing crushes. Lori is the best. No, Jayne is! 

Entering October, this must be the answer: The Tigers. Simply because Brad Ausmus’ rotation has far more postseason experience.

Justin Verlander, David Price, Max Scherzer, Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello, combined, have worked 233.2 postseason innings and 32.2 World Series innings. Jon Lester, Jeff Samardzija, Scott Kazmir, Sonny Gray and Jason Hammel, combined, have worked 142.1 postseason innings and 31 World Series innings.

You can see why Beane traded for Lester: Remove him, and the other four A’s starters have worked just 64.2 postseason innings. So you give the edge to the Tigers rotation. “But not by much,” cautioned one scout I talked with this weekend. And he’s got that right. Another word of caution: Just because the Tigers get the edge here doesn’t mean Oakland can’t whack ‘em.

MLB Network really should look into a reality show centering on the text messages of Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski and Athletics GM Billy Beane. Get the cooperation of those two men, and ratings would blow up.

Did you see what Beane sent Dombrowski not long after the Tigers beat the deadline (and pulled Austin Jackson out of center field in the middle of an at-bat) to acquire Price? Texted Beane, according to James Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press: “And you only give me a minute to try and get Chris Sale. I’m not surprised. You know how to make the big deal. Well done.” Indeed.

Advice for the A’s in the form of a great thought from one longtime scout: “Billy should trade for [Red Sox catcher] David Ross right now. Nobody has ever handled Lester as well as Ross.”

As for who pitches for Boston next year, do you think the Red Sox haven’t already thought of that while shipping Jake Peavy (Giants), Lester (A’s) and John Lackey (Cardinals) west?

Granted, manager John Farrell may wind up having to work some innings himself this month and next. Things are that thin. But there will be plenty of options: Lester, Scherzer and James Shields are expected on the free-agent market this winter. The Phillies’ Cole Hamels and the Padres’ Ian Kennedy (among many others) are possible trade options.

Yes, you figure the Red Sox ship has sailed with Lester. Why would they sign him for what surely would be far more money as a free agent this winter than what it would have cost them to negotiate something during the spring?. But they have both dollars and prospects. That’s a pretty good start to work multiple avenues to acquire pitching.

Fond memories of Yoenis Cespedes will continue for the rest of the season in Oakland…but maybe not the way you might think. As San Francisco Chronicle crack beat writer Susan Slusser reported, the A’s internally had decided they were going to deal Cespedes this winter anyway, a year ahead of his free agency, because he will be unaffordable to them.

From there, looking at the chance to get Lester, the A’s decided that as long as they were going to deal him anyway, they may as well deal him two months early. Now, as for the memories…apparently they’re going to come from a committee led by Sam Fuld. Did you see this no-hop throw Saturday:

2. The Phillies are on the “Talking Heads” plan

You know, Stop Making Sense.

Exactly how a team in desperate need of rebuilding/retooling made it through July 31 without making one single deal will go down in Philadelphia lore as one of the great moments of irresponsibility that furthered their downward spiral.

Cliff Lee (whose elbow may have blown for good the night of July 31), Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Jonathan Papelbon, Marlon Byrd…so many broken-down, aging parts, and yet the Phillies are satisfied with the status quo.

Of those, Utley absolutely has value (and, granted, a full no-trade clause that would need to be negotiated). Byrd should have been dealt. Howard? Maybe in August when he clears waivers.

“Not disappointed,” Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. inexplicably told reporters. “More surprised that there wasn’t more aggressive action from the other end. We have some pretty good baseball players here.”

As a scout so eloquently asked the other day while ripping the words right out of my mouth: “If they have so many good players, then why are they in last place?”

Amaro should have moved more aggressively to deal ace Cole Hamels as well, by the way. Hamels, on a six-year, $144 million deal, is the one Phillie who might bring back the multiple pieces needed to give their retooling a quick jolt.

Maybe they can still deal him this winter. But with Scherzer, Lester and Shields on the market, clubs have the option to simply pick from the free-agent shelves and keep their prospects.

3. The trade deadline and the joys of the digital age

Pitcher Joe Kelly and outfielder Allen Craig were in the Cardinals clubhouse in San Diego, preparing for an afternoon game, when they learned they had been traded to Boston on the clubhouse television. Yep, MLB Network.

Kelly told Bleacher Report: “I didn’t know what to think when I saw it on TV. I was like, ‘Is this real?’ Then I got called into the office.”

Said St. Louis GM John Mozeliak: “It’s almost impossible for them to hear it from me first. You wish you could control the information, but I’ve learned we can’t.”

4. The Cardinals and the lineup card

Part of the public perception when the Cards dealt Craig to Boston in the Lackey deal was that it was a case of Mozeliak essentially taking part of the lineup card away from manager Mike Matheny, who had been reluctant to shelve the slumping Craig (.237 batting average, .346 slugging percentage) in favor of phenom Oscar Taveras.

Mozeliak has been fighting the perception for a while now that he favored Taveras, so much so that he’s frequently reminded folks this season: “I don’t write the lineup cards.”

Whatever, bottom line is that Craig’s decline in 2014 has been steep and stunning, and the Cardinals have not scored nearly enough. Plus, the team is well-stocked for outfielders.

“As you can imagine, if you’re Mike Matheny, that’s a difficult spot to be in,” Mozeliak says. “You have Allen Craig, who has been a proven performer who is struggling this year. We add Oscar to the roster, and certainly I’ll have to take responsibility for that. I didn‘t feel like he had much left to prove at Triple-A.

“You’re trying to play both players. You’re trying to get both guys going. Neither had performed at a very high rate at that time, and it just became a very difficult balance for everybody involved.

“But that was not what pushed this deal. It was more what we felt we had in the pipeline. We felt like this kind of positioning might be the same a year from now, or even two years from now. This was a good solution all the way around.”

5. No fish story in Boston

Forget Cespedes playing handball with the Green Monster for the rest of this season and next. What might make him the talk of Boston is what worries Trout.

“When he plays left field in Fenway, he’s going to be throwing people out on singles,” he quipped to Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times.

6. Cubs find pitching on Baker Street

Maybe Mary Tyler Moore could light the world up with her smile in her time, but John Baker earning the victory in his cameo on the Wrigley Field mound last week sure did light up the baseball world with some grins.

Baker had a difficult time keeping the huge smile off his face as he worked the 16th inning against the Rockies. He wound up earning the win, the first Cubs position player ever to do that, and he scored the winning run after walking in the bottom of the 16th.

“I was trying to work the cutter in, but it wasn’t really cutting, it was sinking,” Baker told reporters, per Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. “I was trying to throw the sinker, and that one was cutting.”

Mozeliak quipped a day later: “Maybe he just had them misnamed.”

One of Baker’s former managers, Bud Black, was with his coaching staff in San Diego’s Petco Park following the Padres game, riveted to the Cubs-Rockies. And when Baker retired Charlie Culberson on a foul pop behind first base to start the inning, Black fired a text to Baker:

“Hey, a bunch of us are in my office watching you dominate Culberson,” read the text.

Baker, aided by an inning-ending double play, needed only 11 pitches to work his way through the 16th.

Then he drew a walk to start the bottom of the inning and wound up scoring the winning run.

In Black’s office, the manager and coaches were having a ball by this time, asking each other, “How come they walked the pitcher?”

Then, when Baker reached first, they hollered at the television, “Bake, ask for a jacket!”

The game lasted six hours and 27 minutes, a franchise record for both the Cubs and Rockies.

Baker texted Black back: “Best. Day. Ever.”

7. The long, slow descent of Dan Uggla

Dan Uggla didn’t even have time to travel to North Beach and back, so short was his stay in San Francisco. The Giants looked at him for four games, during which he went 0-for-11 with six strikeouts, and then they looked elsewhere.

And so the long, steady descent of a three-time All-Star continued, to the extent that you wonder if we’ll ever see him again.

“At the end of the spring, he was really hot,” Braves hitting coach Greg Walker says. “And at the start of the season, he was barreling everything up, hitting better.

“Uggla respects the game so much, runs every ball out, he’s a great teammate, he’s done some great things in the game. I wish we could have gotten him going.

“All of that adversity, he handled it all so professionally. He didn’t try to drag anybody down with him. I don’t think it’s physical. It might do him some good to get some at-bats in Triple-A. A lot of hitters learn about themselves when they’re scuffling.

“When he lost it [earlier this year], he reverted back to being late and falling off of balls. Earlier in the year, we were extremely encouraged.”

8. Hard game, man

The injury bug this year has extended all the way to the Twins coaching staff: Third base coach Joe Vavra has a torn labrum in his left hip, a condition learned after a series of MRIs over the All-Star break, and that’s caused major commotion.

Vavra has been moved to the dugout next to manager Ron Gardenhire, Scott Ullger has moved from first base coach to third, and bench coach Paul Molitor is subbing at first.

Gardenhire told Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that putting Vavra in the field “is a little too dangerous. I don’t want to see one of my coaches go down.”

Gardenhire speaks from firsthand experience: Coaching third base under Tom Kelly in the spring of 1995, Gardenhire blew out an Achilles tendon one afternoon in Bradenton, Florida, while coaching third base.

9. Things to turn funny in Boston?

Absolutely thrilled that the Red Sox summoned right-hander Steven Wright from Triple-A Pawtucket. I don’t care about his pitching. I can’t wait for the jokes.

A Steven Wright sampler:

• If a word in the dictionary was misspelled, how would we know?
• How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
• Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
• I torture my plants. I water them with ice cubes.
• I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
• What happens if you’re scared half to death twice?

Wait. You mean the Steven Wright the Red Sox recalled isn’t this guy in the Red Sox cap? Darn.

Rock ‘n’ roll lyric of the day

Here’s to Steven Wright, the adrenalin of last Thursday and everything else that makes us eager to see what’s going to happen tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that…

“I rounded first never thought of the worst 

“As I studied the shortstop’s position 

“Crack went my leg like the shell of an egg 

“Someone call a decent physician 

“I’m no Pete Rose, I can’t pretend 

“While my mind is quite flexible,

“These brittle bones don’t bend

“I’m growing older but not up

“My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck

“So let the winds of change blow over my head

“I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead”

— Jimmy Buffett, “Growing Older (But Not Up)”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

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