Zach Crizer

2 weeks ago | dmagazine.com | Zach Crizer |Mike Piellucci

Baseball hell is in between. Between swing and take, between stop and go, between buy and sell. Between anywhere. A week ago, the Rangers’ rock bottom arrived on a ground ball between first and second. Josh Smith was caught in a position he doesn’t really know. Marcus Semien was caught with nowhere to throw the ball. Robert Garcia was caught in a moment of hesitation. And all the while the Rays were racing around the bases.

4 weeks ago | theanalyst.com | Zach Crizer

Despite their plethoraof young talent, the Orioles have dropped from two straight playoffappearances to an unfathomable third-worst record in baseball. While fixing what’s gone wrong, they also need to assess theirfuture direction. How are the Baltimore Orioles this bad? Deep in the cellar of an AL East they were considered contendersto win, their upward trajectory has fallen flat with MLB’sthird-worst record and thoughts of a third straight postseasonappearance all but vanquished.

4 weeks ago | dmagazine.com | Zach Crizer |Mike Piellucci

Look, everyone does it. You meet someone, you get an idea of them, and a full portrait blooms from a mere pinprick of actual data. Even worse, maybe you had already heard about them. You came in with a notion and sought confirmation instead of new information. Then you introduce yourself, maybe at a wedding. Turns out you’ve met them before. You’d say you know them now, but you really don’t. You see them again, in a different setting, and whoa, you had it all wrong. You start over.

1 month ago | bandwagon.substack.com | Hannah Keyser |Zach Crizer

Over the past few days, Zach and I have been taking turns texting each other something like “Twins??” periodically. By which we mean: Have you seen that the Twins are winning again? Hey, it’s Hannah and over the first half of May, the Minnesota Twins went from seven games under .500 to six games over .500 by rattling off 13 wins in a row. This is not totally unexpected — before Opening Day FanGraphs projected them to be an 84-win team that would probably make the postseason.

1 month ago | theanalyst.com | Zach Crizer

It’sRivalry Weekend in MLB,and none of the other star players in the Subway Series comparelike Yankees slugger Aaron Judge to the greatest hitters inbaseball history. The beauty (or misery) of rivalries traces back to pencil markson a door frame. Siblings track their height against their original rivals. Comparison is the point, at the start. Eventually, it becomesunavoidable.