Cup of Coffee: August 6, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday:

I saw the new Spider-Man movie last night. I think there was a really good movie in there somewhere if they had maybe edited it down a bit. As it was it was pretty good as far as late-era Marvel goes, with some great performances from Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal and some pretty good and well-conceived action sequences. Just a bit bloated and suffering from some pacing issues. Whatever.

On with the day.

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Cubs 7, Dodgers 6: Shoehi Ohtani opened the game with a leadoff homer and closed out the game's scoring with a home run in the eighth. It was just the middle bits that caused problems. Pete Crow-Armstrong, for example, matched Ohtani's first inning homer by leading off the bottom half with one of his own. One of you told me that a Cubs announcer said that this was the first time in MLB history that both teams led off their first inning with a lefty hitting leadoff homers. I'll take their word for it. Crow-Armstrong hit another homer – a two-run shot – in the fourth inning and doubled in a run in the second so he had a hell of a game. Chicago has won four of five. The Dodgers have now lost eight of their last ten and are 4-8 since visiting Donald Trump in the White House on July 23. Just so you know.

Blue Jays 5, Astros 4: Houston had a 3-0 lead after three but Toronto got those three back in the sixth when Kazuma Okamoto singled in a run and then came home on a two-run homer from Jesús Sánchez. It went to extras where Ernie Clement hit a two-run homer in the top of the tenth. Houston might've come back in the bottom half, and began that process when Yordan Alvarez knocked in the automatic runner to make it 5-4, but he was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a double and things ended soon after. He's gonna win the MVP and stuff, and I like the moxy, but baserunners are a valuable commodity in extras, my man.

Cardinals 3, Yankees 1: There was a rain delay of over an hour at the outset of this one. JJ Wetherholt hit a two-run double and the scored on Iván Herrera's ground-rule double in the fifth and those three runs held thanks to starter Andre Pallante allowing just one run on three hits in five and a third. The Yankees offense has been bad, you guys: they've been held to two runs or fewer in six of their last seven games. Here they drew eight walks but got just four hits, went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position, and stranded 11 runner.

Mets 6, Guardians 5: Defeat from the jaws of victory for Cleveland, as Brayan Rocchio muffed a two-out bases-loaded grounder in the top of the ninth inning which would've given the Guardians the win if fielded cleanly. Instead by Jared Young scored and it went to the tenth. In the top of the tenth Bo Bichette singled home the Manfred Man, Cleveland could not answer, and that was that. Lost in all of that was Angel Genao making his MLB debut for Cleveland. All he did was have four hits while driving in what had been the go-ahead run and should've been the winning run in the seventh, but stuff happens.

In other news, Mets pitcher Jeffrey Yan made his major league debut in the bottom of the sixth. Ever see Yan's celebration when he strikes someone out? Get a load of this:

Immediately after that strikeout the Guardians loaded the bases on two singles and a walk, but Yan escaped via a second strikeout and an inning-ending grounder. And, of course, the Mets came back.

Yan has been in the minors since 2014 and has over 200 appearances and over 400 strikeouts under his belt in that time. I find it rather nuts that no one in any of the four organizations for which he has played – Angles, Marlins, Rockies, and now Mets – has told him to cut that out lest he cause a brawl or one of his teammates to get beaned, but apparently not. I don't mind it as it's pretty fun, but you know how baseball people are. Anyway, welcome to the big leagues Jeffrey Yan.

Rangers 6, Giants 0: Five Rangers pitchers combined on a eight-hit shutout. Cody Bradford was the first of them and while he didn't go five innings it was a pretty encouraging outing for a guy who hasn't thrown a pitch in anger in nearly two years. Justin Foscue hit a two-run triple in Texas' four-run third inning and the game wasn't really competitive after that.

Rays 4, Rockies 0: Nick Martinez pitched shutout ball into the sixth, three relievers completed the six-hitter, Junior Caminero homered and a couple of RBI singles and a sac fly put us where things ended. Tampa Bay completes the three-game sweep in Denver.

Orioles 5, Angels 2: Tyler O'Neill and Coby Mayo homered in the fourth and Leody Taveras hit a two-run shot in the eighth. Trevor Rogers took a two-hitter into the seventh, striking out nine. The O's go for the sweep today.

Reds 3, Athletics 2: Rhett Lowder allowed two over six and Matt McLain homered as the Reds win for the fifth time in their last six. The A's have lost seven straight and ten of their last 11.

Nationals 10, Phillies 4: Washington scored seven of their ten runs in extra innings including a six-spot in the 11th which included a two-run triple by CJ Abrams, a run-scoring bunt from Miles Mikolas who was batting for reasons, a two-run double from Andrés Chaparro, and a groundout from Nasim Nuñez. Nuñez also drew a bases loaded walk in the tenth. Abrams' triple was occasioned by Philly outfielder Derek Hill hitting his head against the outfield railing while trying to make a leaping catch at the wall. He was down for a while but was able to walk off the field under his own power. He'll undergo further evaluation later today I presume and it would not be surprising to see him in the concussion protocol.

Red Sox 4, White Sox 0: Sox win! Sonny Gray went six, striking out eight and not allowing a run. Boston pitchers combined on a four-hitter in which they struck out 14. Wilyer Abreu homered. The Red Sox have now won seven in a row.

Atlanta 4, Marlins 1: Bryce Elder went seven, giving up just one run on one hit and Drake Baldwin drove in two of Atlanta's four runs with a second inning single. Elder is 3-0 with a 1.88 ERA over his last four starts. Atlanta has won seven in a row as well, all against opponents from inside the division.

Brewers 4, Pirates 2: William Contreras homered, Christian Yelich doubled in a run, and Andrew Vaughn hit a two-run single scoring Contreras and Yelich, so that was efficient. Brewers starter Kyle Harrison went just five but he struck out 10 – including the final eight batters he faced – and allowed just one hit. That's like a Misiorwoski start or something. Just slower. Harrison came out to warm up for the sixth inning, but left the game with cramps in both calves. Bananas, dude. You gotta eat bananas. Meanwhile, Paul Skenes walked four and gave up three runs in just five innings. His ERA is now just shy of 4.00. It's not been his year.

Royals 2, Twins 1: Noah Cameron had one of the best games from a starter on a night full of good games from a starter, allowing one run on two hits while striking out nine over eight innings. It was needed too, as Dean Kremer enjoyed a good debut for Minnesota, allowing just one run himself over five. But Michael Massey's seventh inning solo shot was the difference maker.

Mariners 4, Tigers 2: Bryan Woo held the Tigers scoreless for seven innings on just three hits while Julio Rodríguez hit a three-run homer in the sixth and Colt Emerson went deep in the eighth.

Diamondbacks 10, Padres 4: Snakes starter Mitch Bratt struck out nine and allowed just one hit in seven scoreless innings and he had the luxury of a lot of run support while he did it. Ildemaro Vargas drove in four, including a two-run double in a six-run fourth inning and then he tripled in two in eighth. Arizona will try to take the series today.

The Daily Briefing

There was no super major MLB news yesterday, so we'll run it down thusly:

• Twins ace Joe Ryan is was sent home to Minnesota to be evaluated for a potential band and/or glute injuries after he was hit hard by the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday night. Ryan has lost his past three starts, and aches and pains are messing with his delivery, said Derek Shelton;
• The Pittsburgh Pirates released DH Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna signed a one-year, $12 million deal before the season but he's hit just .203/.286/.327 (68 OPS+) with eight home runs in 70 games. With the Pirates just a few games out of the Wild Card they must figure that they gotta cut the dead weight;
• Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing has a tear in the UCL in his right elbow. He's on the injured list and his status for the rest of the season is up in the air. This – and, of course, starter Will Smith being out with an inflamed disk in his neck since early June – is why the Dodgers acquired two catchers at the trade deadline I suppose;
• Cincinnati Reds starter Hunter Greene was put on the 15-day IL because of right elbow soreness. He's made only five starts since coming off the injured list, so that's suboptimal; and
• Aaron Judge was cleared for "light activity" after getting new imaging on Tursday. He hasn't played in a game since May 31 because of a stress fracture in a right rib, but yesterday he said, "Oh, I'll be back this season. I don't know why I wouldn't be. That was always the plan to come back – sooner than later, definitely – but I never had a thought of not playing this year."

Whatever you say, Aaron.

Posy Lombard

This came up in the comments yesterday, but if you didn't see it, you should get to know Posy Lombard, the late grandmother of new Yankees shortstop George Lombard Jr. and mother of former big leaguer George Lombard:

Posy Lombard grew up in New England, but she became a key figure in the south for her work in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She marched in Alabama and Mississippi. She was in Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched from Selma, Ala., and delivered a speech on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol. She stared down members of the Ku Klux Klan. She was one of the many who endured inhumane treatment while jailed in Natchez, Miss., in what became known as the Parchman Ordeal. Her role as a white woman marching for racial equality made her a key figure in the movement.

She later settled into life raising her three children on a farm outside Atlanta, bringing them up to Cape Cod during summers on vacation. Young George was the middle child. He was only 10 when Posy died in a car accident in 1985.

There's a lot more about her here.

I feel like I read about Posy Lombard when George Sr. was an Atlanta prospect way back in the day but that would've been a passing reference in some baseball magazine at most I figure.

Anyway: the kid now playing for the Yankees has a hell of a family history.

Other Stuff

A couple of you said in the comments yesterday that you're tired of soccer talk. Well, there will be no soccer talk in Other Stuff today. Promise.

But here are 2,300+ words about cricket.

Off to the cricket

Last December, one of the two Official Astrophysicists and the only Official Real Tennis Player of The Cup of Coffee Newsletter, Chris Lintott, messaged me:

Zero urgency. But for reference the cricket schedule is out, so if you’re planning a UK trip next year let me know

Chris and I had talked earlier last year about how I should see a cricket match one day, and this was the followup.

At first it wasn't going to work with my schedule, but then a couple of months later my schedule changed and I told Chris that, yes, actually, I could do cricket. As I told him that I pictured some lazy lounging and beer-drinking in the stands while watching a sport I barely understood. Chris' response:

Great. For reasons I will explain later, bring a jacket, tie and shirt with a collar.

Oh. It's gonna be that kind of thing. I was going to Lord's.

Lord's Cricket Ground is the historical and spiritual home of the entire sport, like Wembley is to football or Cooperstown would be to baseball if the Abner Doubleday origin story of baseball wasn't horseshit. Lord's is home to the Marylebone Cricket Club, which wrote the original Code of Laws for cricket and remains the global custodian and arbiter of the rules of the game today. Those first written rules, by the way, are two years older than the United States Constitution is and, as recent events would have it, have proven to be more enduring. This is ground fucking zero for the sport.

I did a quick search to see why I might need a suit and tie to see a cricket match and deduced that I was not going to be sitting out in the large, modern portion of the stadium. Chris was getting me into the Lord's Pavilion, which is that fancy brick building with the terraces. And it has rules:

The dress code in Lord's Pavilion remains notoriously strict. Men are required to wear "ties and tailored coats and acceptable trousers with appropriate shoes" and women are required to wear "dresses; or skirts or trousers worn with blouses, and appropriate shoes"

If you read the fine print you learn that you also have to wear socks over the ankles. The dresses or skirts requirement is new, actually. Because women weren't even allowed in there until 1999 unless you were the literal Queen. So, um, yeah, it was gonna be that kind of party.

We actually watched the first part of the match from the regular seats, where I took that photo above. That was useful because it was easier for Chris to explain the rules of cricket to me out there over a coffee and and then a beer than it would've been to do so among all the fancy folks in the crowded Pavilion. We then took a midday side trip that corresponded with the cricket sides' lunch break to go to the real tennis facility on-site, just behind the Pavilion, that is also run by the Marylebone Cricket Club, and where Chris knows everyone.

There was championship match happening there at the time, the nature of which I was unclear on, but I know that Chris lost in the semifinals the day before. Had he not, my cricket day would probably have been canceled, so I'm glad Chris lost. We saw the last several points of the final, in which an elite young player defeated a legendary older player, both of whose names I neglected to write down. When it was over I just walked out with Chris and stood on the court with everyone as the trophy was presented, wondering how many of the people there were wondering who in the hell I was and what in the hell I was doing their club.

After tennis we made our way into the Pavilion. After we were inside I said to Chris that I was almost disappointed that no one checked to make sure I was wearing socks over my ankles. He replied, "Oh they did. They looked you up and down as you walked in. You didn't notice?" I suppose they've had a couple hundreds years of practice keeping the riffraff out and that they've gotten pretty subtle and efficient at it. Was happy to have fooled them into thinking I'm not riffraff.

We watched the second part of the match from the terrace of the Pavilion, where photography is not allowed. Unless you're Chris and you decide to sneak a shot so your American friend could have a souvenir of his weird day out:

Note: they had two or three excellent beers on tap in there and the prices were cheap as hell. It's sorta like how Augusta National keeps the egg salad sandwiches at a buck fifty. The Marylebone Cricket Club does not need to squeeze a couple of extra pounds out of its members on the beer prices as it's doing just fine, thanks.

Enough about the scene, though. Let's talk about cricket.

The match featured Middlesex, for whom Lord's is their home ground, against Yorkshire. This was a group stage match in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, which is a domestic 50-over cricket tournament (I'll explain 50-over in a second; it is not a reference to age). The One-Day Cup is a prestigious tournament, but there's a mildly spring training vibe to it as many clubs' top players are temporarily playing in a much more lucrative tournament called The Hundred, so on Sunday Middlesex and Yorkshire had a number of elder statesmen and young up-and-comers playing.

That sort of fragmentation is a big part of cricket, a sport which itself has multiple different versions:

• Traditional cricket – known as Test cricket – is the highest level of international cricket, with matches that last up to five days. Everyone wears white clothes, the players have tea breaks and all of that. This is the cricket played when England and Australia play The Ashes. I suppose most Americans think of Test cricket if and when we think of cricket;
• Then there is T20 cricket which is a much shorter version, with matches that last like three hours. T20 cricket was not invented until 2003 and it was specifically designed to be a TV product which might appeal to younger people. T20 is what is played in the Indian Premier League, which is the foremost professional cricket league in the world;
• The Hundred is an even newer – like, only since 2021 – shorter, faster form that is designed to last around two and a half hours. Like T20, it's a made-for-TV product with simplified rules and presentation for novices and people turned off by the rather complicated nature of the sport.

What I was watching on Sunday was a One Day match, which is shorter than Test Cricket but longer than the others. It was invented in 1971, basically on accident, as a means of getting through a test match that was experiencing major rain delays and it apparently stuck. My match on Sunday started at 11am and I was walking out of Lord's a little after 6pm, so it was a full damn day. But remember: this was the original "short" version of the game.

I won't get too into the weeds about the rules here, but basically . . .

• There are two innings. And yes they are called "innings" in both the singular and plural form. Which is weird, but it's their language. We're just borrowing it. The first innings feature one team's complete set of at bats, as it were, then a lunch break, after which the other team gets its hacks in the second innings;
• The pitcher is called a "bowler." Each side has multiple bowlers who, in this format, each have to bowl six legal balls before being switched out for a new bowler. Each six-ball turn is called an "over," each side gets the "50 overs" that give this format its nickname and thus the bowling team in this format bowls up to 300 balls, but possibly less depending on the game situation.

As for game play:

• The batsman stands in front of the wicket, which are three stumps in the ground, basically, with two small horizontal wooden pieces called bails sitting on top of the stumps. The bowler – who can take a running start and must deliver the ball on the bounce with a straight arm instead of a bent elbow – is trying to hit the wickets and knock off the bail to get the batter out;
• The batter, meanwhile, is trying to (a) protect the wicket; and (b) score. He scores by hitting the ball out into the field – in any direction! No foul territory! – while he and a second batsman, who stands at the other end of the 22-yard pitch, run back and forth between the ends, trying to cross a line before the ball is retrieved and thrown back in. Each time both batsmen safely make it to the other end, it's one run.

There are various ways to get out. The equivalent of a strikeout – but more rare and more dominant – is the bowler just blowing one right past the batter, hitting the wickets and knocking off the bails, which is referred to as a batter being "bowled" (you can see what that looks like in the photo at the top of this item). At that point the batter is out and makes a slow, sad walk back up through the Pavilion to his locker room.

And yep, he comes right up through the stands and into the room where all of us in our suits, ties, and socks are standing around half-blasted on good, inexpensive beer and Pimm's cups and whatnot. It'd be like seeing Willson Contreras strike out while facing Cam Schlittler and have to walk through the Legends Suites behind home plate at Yankee Stadium back to the Red Sox clubhouse. Three years ago, during The Ashes, there was a major incident arising out of this dynamic when MCC members and Australian players got into it right in the damn Long Room, where I was drinking beer and people watching on Sunday. Wild stuff!

There are other ways for batters to get out besides the bowler hitting the wicket, such as a batted ball being caught on the fly, just like in baseball. Except cricket players don't wear gloves and cricket fans act like baseball players are soft for wearing gloves. I wouldn't get into anyone's face about it if they disparaged ballplayers like that in my presence, but I would like to see a cricketer try to catch a hard throw from Elly De La Cruz barehanded and see what the English people say when that player literally dies. Anyway: a batter is also out if he's hit by a bowled ball that would've hit the wicket otherwise. Also, when the batters are running, the fielders can throw the ball at the wicket and knock over the bails themselves, which is a putout. There are other less common ones but you get the idea.

A team's score is the number of runs it can get before it gets ten outs or before the 300 bowled balls are finished, whichever comes first. The first batting team sets its score in its innings. The team batting second wins if it passes that set score during its innings. It loses if it get ten outs or if it gets through its 300 bowled balls before it can match and surpass the other team's score. I didn't ask Chris what happens in the event of a tie, but this being an English sport I'm assuming draws can happen.

On Sunday Middlesex batted first and got 246, which is low, but Yorkshire choked the match away by scoring only 211. They were poised to go much higher – they seemed like they had a win in the bag in fact – as they had over 100 runs with just two outs at one point in the second innings, but a number of their batters got bowled in pretty quick succession, with two coming on successive balls. This was momentarily exciting as a hat trick – three straight wickets on three successive balls – is very uncommon. If I can trust Google, only 52 hat tricks have ever occurred in more than 4,800 One-Day matches at the international level. Chris alerted me to this when the Middlesex bowler was about to deliver his third ball after the two wickets but, alas, the batter made contact.

In any event, 246-211 is a pretty low-scoring game. Equivalent to like maybe 2-1 or maybe 3-2 in baseball terms. Teams often score well into the 300s. A lot of that was down the playing conditions, which have a big effect on scoring in cricket.

It's all about the condition of the dirt pitch on which the bowlers and batters perform. They water the outfield grass, but as it's been hot and dry in England all summer that pitch has been baked super hard. That gives an advantage to the more crafty bowlers, known as "spinners," who employ less velocity and who instead try to make the ball shoot and curve, which is easier to do on hard ground. Wetter, softer conditions favor the super fast bowlers who take longer running starts and throw it in a straighter fashion. Both teams have both types of bowlers, but on Sunday Middlesex's spinners really exploited Yorkshire's batters. It helped that Middlesex bowled second, after the heat of the day really began affecting the pitch.

OK, I've gone on and on about cricket for a very long time now, so I'll stop. I will say, however, that I had great fun on Sunday! I love to experience new things like that, even if I spent about 75% of the time there trying to understand what I was watching through the lens of baseball. Which Chris said was fine, but he's a baseball fan too, so I'm guessing he's different than most cricket fans in that regard. I feel like some of the old men in the Pavilion would get really, really annoyed if they kept hearing me saying "oh, sorta like how in baseball when . . . " during the match. That's probably not as bad as me not wearing socks that went over my ankles, but it'd be pretty bad.

In other news, after tennis and cricket – and after him giving my parents a private guided tour of Oxford University last year – I owe Chris one, so I told him I'd take him to a ballgame the next time he's in the States. He said he'd like to see Comerica Park, so I may road trip with him to Detroit at some point.

That said, Chris is from Torbay, Devon, and his football team is the sixth-level residing Torquay United, who he said on Sunday that I should come see play one day because there's more to football than the Premier League.

But you know how I am. You gotta twist my arm to get me to fly over to England and watch weird sports. I hate, hate, hate doing that oh so very much! I mean, it's not like I've already noticed that The Gulls are playing host to Farnborough on January 2 and Braintree Town two weeks later when the fares on Virgin Atlantic tend to be really low. I suppose that'd be a weird time to go to a town that is the center of what's known as the English Rivera, but since when do I do things that are sensible?

Have a great day everyone.