Royals Rumblings - News for July 29, 2020

On a news day like this, so much can change between these Rumblings being compiled and published. If you happened to be away from the Internet the past 48 hours, Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs did a thorough piece describing how the team outbreak on the Miami Marlins is crisis for MLB.

To commit too many words to normal baseball news and notes seems like planting a foot on shifting sands, but let’s forge ahead anyhow:

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes purchased a minority share of the Royals, which means all Mahomes news is now Royals news. Also, you can follow Mahomes’ dogs on Instagram. They are very good.

We may see some friendly faces in the stands at Kauffman Stadium, with a charitable angle as a bonus:

The Kansas City Royals believe they have a way to get fans inside Kauffman Stadium, in a sense, and help with the pandemic.

On Tuesday, the team will begin installing 700 plastic cutouts for the stands ahead of the home opener Friday.

The effort has raised $14,000 toward [eliminating] food insecurity created by COVID-19.

At The Athletic, Alec Lewis and Zack Meisel teamed up to tell the story of brothers Kyle Zimmer and Bradley Zimmer, who have never faced each other but almost did on Saturday.

It has served as a running gag ever since: If they did ever converge on the diamond, what would transpire?

“They always have their funny little things,” Cathy said. “Bradley says, ‘I’m going to go yard.’ Kyle says he’s going to throw behind Bradley’s head or something.”

“I think behind him,” Kyle confirmed.

Would Bradley be able to maintain a stoic expression as he settled into his new batting stance and stared at the familiar face gazing back at him? Would Kyle succumb to some extra jitters as he initiated his delivery?

On the count of three, boys:

Kyle: “I honestly don’t know.”

Bradley: “Honestly, I don’t know.”

All Marlins games through Sunday have been postponed. This triggered a waterfall of other schedule changes:

The Orioles, who were scheduled to host the Marlins in a two-game series starting Wednesday, instead will host the New York Yankees for games Wednesday and Thursday.

The Yankees were scheduled to play the Phillies in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, but that game officially was postponed “out of an abundance of caution,” according to MLB. The Phillies also were scheduled to play games Wednesday and Thursday in New York against the Yankees, who now will be traveling to Baltimore instead.

Also impacted by Tuesday’s announcement are the Washington Nationals, who were slated to play a three-game series starting Friday in Miami against the Marlins. A majority of Nationals players voted against playing the Marlins earlier Tuesday, according to ESPN and multiple reports.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo offered all MLB teams his state for their use, evidently having missed the news that it was extremely hard for one baseball team to find a suitable new home.

Is MLB’s late start to blame for a whole heap of pitcher injuries?

The Mets signed catcher Bruce Maxwell.

Nationals outfielder Juan Soto got back-to-back negative coronavirus tests, after apparently being tested around a dozen times, with positives in between negative results.

Speaking of MLB and testing: be sure to have a critical spirit when parsing testing-related numbers from MLB.

A Dodgers fan got a cutout into the 2nd row in San Fransisco.

Speaking of the Dodgers, Joe Kelly had a message for Carlos Correa and the Astros in general:

Here’s a longer clip for more context.

A couple Astros notes: they’ve exercised their 2021 option on manager Dusty Baker, and signed 43-year-old reliever/archer Fernando Rodney.

Brandon Bellamy has approved as owner of the new Atlantic League team forthcoming in North Carolina. Bellamy will be the only Black majority owner in all of pro baseball, including minor league and independent league teams.

The executive director of the NBA players’ union thinks a bubble might be necessary in 2021, too.

Many great writers from the real Deadspin are getting the band back together for a new site, Defector, which will be a subscription model launching in September. For background on last year’s Deadspin walkout, and more details on Defector Media, hit this NYT story.

Some no-cook recipes to try when it’s hot outside.

Sam Rockwell will play Merle Haggard in a new movie for Amazon Studios.

My review of Mary Robinette Kowal’s ‘The Relentless Moon’ is that it was a deeply satisfying cap to a trilogy I’m going to re-read at least once a year forever. It was full of action and intrigue, and shifted focus a bit from the first two novels in order to fill in some missing information.

A hotel in Australia had to ban a sibling pair of emus because they kept coming in and raising a ruckus.

MUSIC: Taylor Swift + Bon Iver - exile