MLB Weekly Recap (May 11-17): The Vibes Are Settling In - Dodgers, Padres, Braves, Oh My!

Hey babes!

This week’s recap is coming to you from the south of France — jet lag, late-night baseball, and all.

In this episode, we talk about why mid-May is the point in the season where teams start revealing who they really are. The Dodgers and Braves are starting to feel inevitable, the Padres continue to hold steady, and struggling teams like the Rockies are beginning to show how mindset can impact performance over a 162-game season.

I also cover:
- why the Phillies suddenly feel alive again
- the Mets quietly turning things around
- the Yankees cooling off??
- Kyle Schwarber’s ridiculous home run pace
- dominant pitching performances from the Phillies
- why division games matter so much
- and the upcoming series I’m most excited to watch this week

Plus, this week’s soft take:
~confidence is contagious, but so is self-doubt~

Thank you for hanging with me in the softest corner of sports media!

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Transcript

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Hey babe, welcome to Baseball for Girls, where baseball meets soft girl energy. I'm Donnessy, and here we do baseball with heart, humanity, and a little humor. So, whether you're brand new to the game or deep in your baseball era, you're in the right place. So grab something cozy and settle in. And let's get into today's episode. Let's play ball. So today we're gonna have a very quick weekly recap. Well, I say it's gonna be quick and then it's just gonna end up being the same exact amount of time that it normally is. Um, but I but I mentioned last week in my recent episode about how baseball regulates my nervous system that I'll be in France for quite some time. Um, so currently I am in France, I'm in the south of France, so I am still pretty jet-lagged. I'm so tired, and so I really haven't been able to watch a lot of baseball. I had to work a lot last week, so I didn't really get to watch baseball the way that I usually like to, but on Wednesdays, we know that baseball comes on during the day, like it comes on at like one o'clock in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time. So that meant when I was done with work on Wednesday, there were games on at like 7 p.m. And so then I was able to sit back, relax, watch a game at one o'clock or 7 p.m. whatever, CET, and that was so nice. But the other games, the other days of the week were coming on at like midnight and 1 a.m. and all those really late times, and I mean I also wasn't really sleeping very well anyway, so then I would just be staying up late watching baseball. Ah, so yeah, your girl is tired, but nevertheless, I am here today, and I decided to just try to do a quicker weekly recap, see how quick I can do it so that I can go to bed. Um, so yeah, so let's just hop right into it. So, starting with the weekly vibes, I really feel like at this point of the season, we're really starting to see how the season is gonna take shape. We're seeing the good teams that we think are gonna be good are being good right now. We're talking the Dodgers, we're talking the Braves, like they're really starting to shape out. You kind of are assuming they're gonna win games, even if it looks messy, you know they're gonna come back, kind of thing. You're starting to see the patterns that are emerging emerging, um, like especially for teams like the Rockies that typically struggle. We are seeing them continue to struggle and they haven't really broken out of that. So, like the teams that we kind of expect to struggle are struggling. We do still have teams like my Orioles, who you still just never know. You just don't know what's gonna happen with them. They kind of just stumble through life. I mean, we all have that one friend, right? That just kind of that just kind of stumbles through life, and you just don't even know how they even made it this far in life. Yeah, that's the Orioles. They seem to be doing pretty well last week. I'm gonna get into it, but they did win their series versus the Yankees. Thank you all for keeping the Orioles in me in your thoughts because it really pulled through the community, really helped because the Orioles won their series versus the Yankees. Oh my gosh, thank the baseball gods. I was incredibly impressed, but then they did lose the series versus the Nationals. I mean, don't get me wrong, the Nationals are a pretty good team this season, especially. I mean, CJ Abrams is really good, but so they do have some pretty good players on the team. I'm not gonna knock the nationals, but anyway, that's kind of the overall weekly vibe of just like we're really starting to see how the season is gonna shape out. They say pretty often that you don't um win a season in April and May, but you can lose a season in April and May. So these months are actually pretty critical for how the season is gonna end up in the playoffs. Once we get closer to the playoff season, I'll make an episode about how the playoffs work because honestly, it's really confusing, and I kind of want to just sit down and figure it out myself because I feel like I kind of just figure it out as I'm watching it every single year, but it would actually be really nice to just have it laid out and something that I can go back and listen to, listen to myself explain it because it's really confusing sometimes, but anyway, so the sweeps from last week, so this is the week of May 11th through May 17th. During the weekday series, the Guardians swept the Angels, the White Sox swept the Royals, the Mets swept the Tigers, and over the weekend, the Padres swept the Mariners. So sad. I'm definitely a Mariners fan. The Dodgers swept the Angels. I'm more of a Dodgers fan, so I'm not super upset about that. And the Phillies swept the Pirates, which is kind of surprising. Oh, I meant to mention um the National League Central is still dominating all of baseball with all of their teams over 500. So the Phillies, who have been technically they've been struggling, right? If you've been listening to some of my weekly recaps, you'll know that the Phillies had gone through a 10-game losing streak. Um, so they were really not um, they weren't have they weren't having fun. Um, so to see them beat the Pirates, who I mean, historically the Pirates are not that great of a team, but they're in such a competitive division this year, and they've been doing so well, and the Phillies have not, so it just is um a testament to the Phillies coming back, which I am gonna talk about a little bit later. So, my sneaky team of the week this week is gonna be the Mets, so the New York Mets. Um, as you may have may remember, the Mets have been also struggling a lot this season. I believe they got up to 11 in their losing streak um this season so far, and that happened twice. I think they had an 11-game losing streak and a 10-game losing streak, so they have not been doing very well, but they have been doing better as of late. They are currently on a modest two-game win streak, but they recently swept the Tigers and they s or um this past week and they swept the Rockies um not this past week, but the week before. They have won four of their last five series. They have currently won 20 games and lost 26, so they are just below 500 at.435, so 435, and they've won six and lost four of their last ten games, so they are doing pretty well. The Mets are in the National League East, and they are 11 games, well, 11.5 games behind the Braves. So you might have heard that kind of terminology before, okay? So when someone says or an announcer says, like this team is X amount of games behind, they are referring to the team that is at the top of that division. So in the National League East, the Braves are at the top of that division currently, and the Mets are 11 games behind whatever standing the Braves are currently at. So the Mets would have to win 11.5 games in order to tie the Braves as first place in the National League East division. And now for our temperature check, so we're gonna talk about the teams that are cooling down and the ones that are heating up. So I'm gonna start with the teams that are heating up this week. I was just talking about the Phillies, so we'll start with them. They are currently on a four-game winning streak. They have won five series in a row. They are just over 500 at 511, and they've won 24 games and lost 23. They've won seven games and lost three of their past 10, and they recently swept the pirates, like I just mentioned over the weekend, and before that, a week ago or so, they swept the Giants. The Phillies are also in the National League East, and they are eight games behind the Braves. And for that Phillies versus Pirates game, I wanted to note that the pitcher Sanchez, he is the one of the better, one of the best pitchers on the Phillies team, which is saying a lot because the Phillies is they are known for their elite pitching. On Saturday, Sanchez threw all nine innings with 13 strikeouts, zero walks, and 108 pitches, which is pretty incredible. Zero walks is the highlight of that. So we know that a walk is when a pitcher throws four balls to a batter. So when he so when the pitcher throws a ball, it just means he's throwing it outside of the little invisible strike zone that the batter is supposed to try to swing the ball through. So when a batter doesn't swing and the ball is outside of the strike zone, it is determined to be a ball, and pitchers try not to do that. I mean, sometimes it's strategic and they do a ball on purpose, but typically you don't want to throw four balls because then the batter automatically gets a base. So then the batter automatically will go to first base if the pitcher throws four balls. So the fact that Sanchez did not give up any walks means that he did not give any freebies. Okay, nobody got to just walk away from him, all right? They had to go sit back down. So he did pretty well on Saturday. And on Sunday, Zach Wheeler pitched seven innings with four hits, no runs. He had eight strikeouts and one walk with 98 pitches, so he had a really good outing on Sunday. Oh, and both of these I think I mentioned were both against the Pirates. So the Phillies had a very good series against the Pirates this weekend. The other team that I want to note as heating up is the San Francisco Giants. Shout out to my Giants fans. They have won three series in a row, they are on a two-game winning streak right now, and they are just below 500 at 426. They've won 20 games and lost 27 games this season, and currently they've won six games and lost four of their past ten. They are also nine games behind the LA Dodgers. So the Giants are in the National League West, which is the same division as the Dodgers. So they need to win nine games in order to be at the same standing as the Dodgers. Oh, and that also means that the Dodgers would also have had to lose nine games and not have also won another nine because then it would just split the difference kind of thing. So when you hear the games behind, it's a very um loose kind of statistic. It has a bunch of different variables, but it's just to give you an idea of where that team is within their division. And now for the teams that are cooling down, I have the angels. So currently the angels are on a six-game losing streak, they are below 500 at 340, and they've won 16 games and lost 31. They have won two games and lost eight of their past 10, so they are really struggling right now. They are 7.5 games behind the athletics. Dear God, but granted, the athletics have actually been doing pretty well. The Angels are in the American League West, and so they're pretty much at the bottom of that division. The other team that I think is kind of cooling down right now are the New York Yankees. Maybe I'm just a hater though, um, can't blame me, but they're currently on a very modest two-game losing streak. They are still pretty far above 500 at 596, but they've won three and lost seven of their last 10 games, so they've been struggling as of late. They are currently three games behind the Tampa Bay Rays, who are at the top of the division, which is the American League East. So remembering that the Yankees, the Rays, and the Orioles are all in the American League East. And the Rays have been dominating this division for the past couple of weeks. Um, ever since basically I said that the Yankees were at the top of the division, they haven't been on the top of the division since then. So hopefully I jinxed them. The Yankees have also lost um their last three series, and they were recently swept by the Brewers. Not this past week, but the week before. And now to get into some of the home run leaders. Oh my goodness, I thought I was reading this wrong when I saw it, but Kyle Schwarber is at 20 home runs. 20. We're not even halfway through the season. He already has 20. 20 home runs. Kyle Schwarber, Philadelphia Phillies. He is getting smoking hot. Number two on the home run leaders list is Munataka Murakami from the Chicago White Sox at 17. And then we have Aaron Judge at 16 home runs, and then we have a lot of people that are at 15 and 14. So I just chose the top three for this week. And then just for my soft take of the week, I think that this week kind of showed that confidence is contagious, but so is self-doubt. So, like I mentioned, this week has really showed that the season is starting to take shape. We can tell which teams are really taking it to heart when they're losing early and then they end up still losing, versus the teams who never count themselves out and are always in the game until the very last out. You know, um, I'm thinking of the Padres who seem to be holding very steady, even though they are not at the top of their division. I mean, they're in a very competitive competitive division with the Dodgers, but they are always overcompetent and over-delivering. They have been winning a lot of games. And kind of like I was mentioning before, with the Rockies who are struggling, um, you can really see that they are kind of getting defeated early. So that just goes to show like how mindset is really important in baseball, and how your mindset can really control the outcomes of your life and your performance. And so it's always good to try to have a pretty good mindset, which is so hard, it's much easier said than done, of course, especially if you know that you've been struggling. But at the end of the day, it's all in your perspective, it's all in how you interpret things, and you're the only one that can make a change in your life. And so I like to end with some of the games that I'm excited for for this upcoming week, which is May 18th through the 20. What's that? 28? No, May 24th. May 18th through the 24th. So this week, um, and this weekend. Uh, so for this week, I'm really excited for this Dodgers Padres game. Like I was just mentioning, the Dodgers and the Padres, same division, they are always kind of neck and neck. The Padres do not let the Dodgers sit down for a second, they are always coming after them every single year, every single game. And because they're in the same division, they play each other a lot, so every game really counts when they're playing each other. Because at the end of the season, whoever wins the most games, you know, is gonna win the division and move forward into the playoffs. So these inner division games are really important, which is why I typically highlight them as games that I'm interested in watching, because there are a subset of games throughout the season that actually are pretty important. I've mentioned, you know, like there's 162 games, you don't need to watch them all, like you know, the importance kind of like spreads out, yeah, because there's so many games statistically, blah blah blah. But no, when we're talking about inner division games, you really do want to pay attention, especially if you are trying to really get into baseball and being able to like talk about it with people that are within you know your city who like the same team. You want to be able to say, Oh, well, you know, the Padres are beating the Dodgers a lot, or something like that. Like, hopefully, we can like get into the playoffs. You know, that is like a good way to try to have a conversation because you can say, like, oh well, they've won like five out of the like 18 games or whatever so far this season. I don't know, that's completely made up, but something like that where you're kind of showing that you know why certain games are important. The other game that I'm really interested in seeing is the Brewers versus Cubs game, mostly because the Brewers and Cubs are also in the same division in that National League Central. Okay, don't mess with them. The National League Central are insane, they're literally insane. But also just because this is a the first time these two teams are meeting this season, and last year they played each other to the death basically to get into the playoffs where the Brewers beat the Cubs in five games, and the Brewers were able to advance through the next like stage or whatever of the playoffs, and the Cubs had to go home. So, this will be a really good, interesting game to watch this week. And for this weekend, I'm really excited to see the Mariners versus the Kansas City Royals just because the Royals have been struggling, and I really want the Mariners to get a couple of wins under their belt. Like I mentioned, they just lost to the Padres, who were so good. Okay, so we kind of need we need some wins, and I hope the Kansas City Royals can give that to us. I also think that the Tigers versus Royals game should be good, kind of for the same reason. So we know that unfortunately, very much unfortunately, Tarek Scoobel, who was the ace, the star pitcher for the uh for the Detroit Tigers, who is like the forerunner for the Cy Young Award, and the Cy Young Award is like awarded to like the best pitcher, whatever, of the season. He is out for the foreseeable future, I think of at least a couple of months. So this is the time to play the Tigers. Okay, because when he gets back, he's probably not gonna be playing around. So this is the time to play them, and I hope we can take advantage of their, you know, kind of perceived weakness right now. And so there you have it. I think that is all for me today. I didn't really get any. Into like who exactly won every single series this week. I kind of want to just go ahead and start editing editing this podcast episode so that I can get it up and out for you guys, and I can go to sleep. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Please don't forget to rate and leave a review. Please send this to someone who you think might enjoy it and might want to know what was the latest and greatest in baseball this week. So thank you for joining me in the softest corner of sports media, and I'll see you next week. Bye.