Yesterday afternoon all of the baseball world was focused on Paul Skenes’ ML debut against the Cubs. Nobody could take their eyes off the 2023 #1 draft pick and his 17 100+mph pitches even if he couldn’t get out of the 5th inning.

While Pittsburgh and the Cubs have played more games against one another than any two franchises in history, I don’t think any Cub fan old enough to have seen Roberto Clemente play considers the Pirates a hated rival.

While the Cubs and Pirates were bumbling and stumbling to a 10-9 finale, Fox had a more interesting and relevant game on TV. The slightly improved Mets were hosting the hated Braves in the second game of a series at Citi Field. Mets fans don’t especially care for the Braves and some of their better players and that makes for a great atmosphere one that is often captured by better broadcasters than the national nabobs on FOX.

Max Fried pitched 7 innings of no-hit, shutout ball. I would have loved to hear how the Mets faithful reacted to that, but national broadcasts rarely share that with the viewers. They prefer to mic’ up and interview someone (completely unnatural) rather than let the drama play out.

An even odder drama was unfolding as the surprising A’s(19-22) were smoking the Mariners 8-1 in Seattle. Let’s not forget that the White Sox beat the Guardians for the third straight game.

Big bettors and the smart money had Skenes hitting the over on strikeouts, but who had the Sox and A’s beating better division rivals on the same day?

Who knows what will happen next.