Morning Mound Visit: Max Fried to have MRI on hamstring

Fried apparently hurt himself running the bases; The difficulty of detecting foreign substances; The red-hot Reds bats

Ivan the Great | Talking Chop: Nothing has gone right for Max Fried this year, but things went from bad to worse when Fried apparently injured his hamstring running the bases during Tuesday night’s game against the Marlins.

Stephanie Springer | Baseball Prospectus $: MLB is cracking down on pitchers using foreign substances, but detecting these foreign substances is trickier than one would think. Baseballs are inconsistent and they have a varying amount of acceptable substances applied to them.

Wick Terrell | Red Reporter: The Reds offense has been carrying them through the early parts of the season, but wouldn’t you know, they’ve been overperforming in the first week and a half.

Quick Hits

Not to be outdone by Ronald Acuña Jr. beating out a routine grounder to first, Willians Astudillo accomplished the same feat. He just needed a bad throw and a nat 20 on an Acrobatics check to pull it off.

Since I published this piece, the Oakland A’s are 4-1. Their most recent win came courtesy of a three-run home run off the bat of Jed Lowrie. I should have known that Jed Lowrie would return to form upon donning an A’s uniform. His hot start coupled with his allegations that the Mets prevented him from getting healthy are just so on the nose.

Shane Bieber threw nine shutout innings in a pitcher’s duel against Lucas Giolito who threw seven shutout innings. Cleveland eventually won in extra innings.