Even the folks paid to cover the game from a national perspective are necessarily going to miss out on a few surprising stories over the course of a season. Thus, it’s not surprising most fans don’t look beyond the 40-man rosters of their favorite team.

And as mad as I am about how poorly the Cubs offense has been the past ten days or so, I have to give credit to the Astros starting pitchers. I’m only somewhat familiar with Spencer Arrighetti, the dude who bamboozled them yesterday, and I had never heard of Kai-Wei Teng until he beat them like a dusty rug today. Likewise, I’m betting most NL West fans have no idea who Davis Martin is, even though he’s one of the better starting pitchers in the AL right now and that’s okay. We usually don’t look beyond the team facing our team on a given day. It’s more than seeing curated highlights on Sports Center. We get a more complete picture if we’re able to watch an entire series. Conversely, it’s easy to miss out on some of the epic failures in other markets, especially if they are playing in different time zones.