Johnny Cueto is now a Kansas City Royal, meaning the Giants don’t get him but neither do the Dodgers. On the other hand, the Dodgers and Texas Rangers are allegedly the leaders in the chase for Cole Hamels, which tells us that the Chicago Cubs still don’t have this paying-attention thing fully down. Or maybe someone told them they were no-hit Saturday by whole camels, which is a disconnect of its own.
Point? The Giants aren’t in on tire kicks, meaning they’re not in at all. And all they do these days is win. Their next match against a winning team is August 6, which means a lot of people are going to fall in love with this team again.
Nauseating.
[REWIND: Giants get within game of first-place Dodgers]
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But speaking of disconnection, the San Diego Padres, who have tripled their payroll in the last five years and bumped it by more than a third since last year, are now looking to dump a lot of their highest salaries, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman. “Rivals say pitchers James Shields and Andrew Cashner and reliever Craig Kimbrel are being mentioned prominently in trade talks as the July 31 trade deadline closes in,” he typed, adding later that they “also have a few free agents who are seen as likely to go. Outfielders Justin Upton and Will Venable and starter Ian Kennedy are among the free agents who will likely find a new home, while Joaquin Benoit has a club option for next year and could be traded, as well.”
In other words, general manager A.J. Preller went all in, saw how cold the water was, and ran to get a towel. There’s nothing quite like a young swashbuckling GM getting his buckle swashed inside the first year.
[RELATED: Royals acquire Cueto from Reds for three prospects]
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Los Angeles Lakers trainer Gary Vitti, who has been on the job for 31 years and is retiring to become a consultant with the team (“Looks like a groin to me”), is one of the last vestiges of the good old days in Lakerville. His retirement is not believed to be related to the franchise’s freefall, but one can only look at so many chafed thighs and bruised coccyges before asking for something else to do.
Like nothing whatsoever, which is the original translation from the German “berater.” And if you’ve ever been berated by a consultant from the home office in Narnia, you know what we mean.
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And speaking of berated, it seems that new the King King, Vlade Divac, has apparently soured on the team’s analytics expert, Dean Oliver. According to European basketball blog Sportando, Divac, Sacramento’s basketball supremo, halted all communication with Oliver, forbade him from attending Summer League in an official Kings capacity, and has “told confidants that he is strongly opposed to the use of analytics in evaluating players.”
If true, Vivek Ranadive, who made his billions in the world of numbers (software systems for business), has running his team a guy who seems averse to numbers. Yay Kings, again!
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Chip Kelly explained to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane why he is not forthcoming about his private life: “I think most people do, don’t they? Unless you’re a Kardashian.”
And I just had a vision of him pouring champagne into a glass resting comfortably on his hinder. In other words, I hate his private life and I don’t even know it.
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We’ll know the San Jose Earthquakes are an important part of Major League Soccer when we read that the news of Didier Drogba close to signing a deal with the Montreal Impact actually contains the words “San Jose Earthquakes” at some point. Apparently the 37-year-old Drogba, whose rights were held by Chicago, wanted to play in town with a sizable French-speaking population.
This means that in 15 years, the Quakes might have a crack at the 46-year-old Andres Iniesta. Unless he’s been scooped up instead by the team with that rich Hispanic heritage, Real Salt Lake.
[RELATED: Earthquakes fall to Whitecaps in Vancouver]
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And finally, NFL training camps begin this week and Tom Brady still hasn’t been dealt with by The Goodell. Two things to note – training camp news is why there is still heroin, and I hope Brady and Goodell never end, because it will show once and for all that discipline is a dish best served by a member of the restaurant staff rather than the maitre’d.
