Cup of Coffee: July 9, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

No soccer today. What a drag.

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Blue Jays 10, Giants 0: Dylan Cease took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before Heliot Ramos broke it up with a line-drive single to center field to lead off the inning. He was at 118 pitches at that point so kudos to John Schneider for giving a puncher's chance regardless of the toll it took. As it was he struck out 11 over eight shutout innings and Tyler Rogers finished off the final inning with just that one hit registering. Cease already has a no-hitter under his belt, having tossed one against the Washington Nationals back in 2024 when he was with the Padres so I'm sure he didn't lament this one slipping away all that much. There was some actual offense here as Kazuma Okamoto hit a grand slam in Toronto's five-run first. They obviously didn't need any more after that.

Marlins 2, Mariners 0: Another shutout. This one authored by four Miami pitchers, with Tyler Phillips' five innings leading the way. Just five hits in all for Seattle on the day. Kyle Stowers homered and Xavier Edwards tripled in a run.

Rays 3, Yankees 0: Another shutout. Shane McClanahan tookt it onto the seventh, allowing four hits and striking out five. The Yankees ended up getting six hits total and striking out 11. Which I suppose is a moral victory given that they had struck out 17 times in the previous two games. Jonathan Aranda knocked in all three of Tampa Bay's runs with an RBI singe in the third, an RBI double in the fifth, and a sac fly in the seventh. The Rays now have a five-game lead over the plummeting Yankees.

Atlanta 3, Pirates 0: Another shutout. Grant Holmes handled the first five, allowing three hits, and four relievers allowed just one hit over the final four. The Pirates struck out 11 times in all. It was still a competitive game until the eighth, however, as Jared Jones and a couple of relievers shut out Atlanta until then, but then Joey Bart hit a two run homer and Drake Baldwin singled in a run in the ninth. Atlanta snaps a three-game skid.

Red Sox 5, White Sox 0: Sox win! And another shutout. Jake Bennett handled seven innings of it, allowing just four hits. All five Boston runs scored in the third and fourth innings with the three RBI singles, an RBI double, and a wild pitch. Boston has won 10 of 12. Bad news: Willson Contreras had to leave the game after fouling a ball off his left foot in the third. They're saying it's just bruised.

Tigers 6, Athletics 1:  Jake Rogers hit a two-run homer and Spencer Torkelson hit a three-run shot which, along with Riley Greene's RBI single gave the Tigers more than enough. Detroit wins its fourth in a row and its seventh of eight. The A's have lost nine of their last ten.

Cubs 9, Orioles 7: There were nine homers in them. The Cubs had five of them. Pete Crow-Armstrong hit two, Michael Conforto, Carson Kelly, and  Seiya Suzuki also went deep. Suzuki's was a three-run shot, both of Crow-Armstrong's, Conforto's and Kelly's were solo jobs. A sac fly and a wild pitch supplied the other two runs. Tyler O'Neill homered twice for Baltimore and Pete Alonso and Coby Mayo also went deep. Winds must've been blowing out at Camden Yards.

Nationals 8, Astros 2: Nationals starter Foster Griffin allowed one run on five hits over seven and the Washington offense built up a 5-0 lead by the fourth. Luis García Jr. hit a three-run shot and CJ Abrams went deep as well.

Mets 6, Royals 2: It was a tight 1-1 game until the eighth when the Mets broke through for five. New York loaded the bags that inning and Jared Young took an RBI plunking, Bret Baty singled in two more, Young scored on a wild pitch, and Francisco Alvarez singled home Baty to top things off. Christian Scott got the start and tossed five shutout innings.

Reds 11, Phillies 5:  Sal Stewart hit two homers and Noelvi Marte, Elly De La Cruz and JJ Bleday went deep as well. Marte knocked in four runs, with a three-run double accompanying his solo shot. The three-run double was cooler. That's a way more exciting and kinetic play. Sometimes I think about baseball without home runs and how fun that would be. Just bunches of triples and guys hauling ass all the time. It'd be boss.

Cardinals 5, Brewers 1: Michael McGreevy worked six and a third while allowing one run on five hits while Alec Burleson and José Fermín homered. Jordan Walker and Burleson each hit RBI doubles as well. St. Louis had lost seven in a row to Milwaukee before this one.

Angels 13, Rangers 1: Jo Adell had two home runs and drove in five. Mike Trout, after missing 17 games with a hammie came back and homered as well while Vaughn Grissom went 4-for5 with a double and four RBI and Zach Neto was 3-for-4 with two doubles.

Twins 6, Guardians 5: Both teams scored three runs in the fourth so that didn't settle anything. Each scored two more in the seventh to make it 5-5. The Twins mounted a rally in the bottom of the ninth, with two singles and a walk loading up the bases with two out, which brought up Alan Roden, who singled to center to walk it off. The Twins have won four in a row and five of six overall. It was their fourth straight victory over Cleveland as well.

Padres 10, Diamondbacks 4: Michael King allowed one run over six, Luis Campusano homered, and Miguel Andujar had three doubles and drove in two while scoring twice.

Dodgers 4, Rockies 3: Tommy Edman scored on a wild pitch and Kyle Tucker singled in two in the first inning and Mookie Betts singled in Edman in the bottom of the eighth to break a 3-3 tie. The Dodgers took two of three.

The Daily Briefing

Justin Verlander to retire

Early yesterday afternoon Major League Baseball announced that Tigers starter Justin Verlander has been named as a “Legend Pick” for the 2026 All-Star Game and that he'll be honored at the Midsummer Classic in Philly. Right after that Verlander announced that he will be retiring at the end of the season. His statement:

I want to thank the Commissioner for the incredible honor of being selected to the All-Star game. The opportunity to attend once again is something I’ll cherish, and it will be an incredibly special moment for me and my family.

This season has challenged me in ways I haven’t experienced before, both physically and mentally. I’ve always believed that as long as I could compete at the level I expect of myself, I’d keep playing. I never wanted to retire because of a milestone, a number, or a date on the calendar. I wanted the game to tell me when it was time.

Over the last several months, I’ve realized that time has come. While I’m fully committed to giving my team everything I have for the rest of this season, I’ve decided this will be my last. It’s fitting that I get to finish where it all started – with the Detroit Tigers, the organization that drafted me and gave me my first opportunity.

Baseball has given me more than I could have imagined. It taught me discipline, resilience, and the value of continuing to adapt and evolve. I’ve been fortunate to play with and against incredible players, for outstanding organizations, and compete in-front of fans who deeply appreciate the game.

To every teammate, coach, player, clubhouse attendant, and fan who has been part of this journey – thank you. It’s been a privilege to share the field with you. To my family, especially my wife Kate, thank you for standing beside me through every season, every rehab, and every high and low. I couldn’t have done this without you.It’s time for the next chapter.

But first, I’m excited to finish this season the only way I know how - with everything I’ve got.rough a slog 2026 has been for him physically

As Verlander himself notes, 2026 has been a physical slog for him. He's made just one appearance in which he pitched just three and two-thirds innings. Otherwise he's been on the injured list. Currently he has a bum hamstring. While he has resumed playing catch, there is still no clear timeline for his return from the IL. He won't play in the All-Star Game next week but he's obviously shooting to finish his career on the field if at all possible.

Verlander will be an easy first-ballot Hall of Fame selection. He's a three-time Cy Young winner (2011, 2019, 2022), an MVP winner (2011), and a Rookie of the Year winner (2006) with 266 career wins and 3,554 strikeouts over the course of his 21-year career. He is MLB's active leader in games started (556), wins and strikeouts. He has pitched in ten different postseasons and he won two World Series rings with the Astros, in 2017 and 2022. At present he's 24th all-time in career WAR for pitchers if you go by Baseball-Reference, but you obviously don't need advanced metrics to make his case for Cooperstown. It's been obvious that that's where he's been heading for some time.

Here's hoping he can get back on the field soon and remind people of just how special he was before he hangs it up.

Keith Hernandez is a dick

I know that baseball fans have a lot of goodwill for Keith Hernandez. He was a great ballplayer and he has been an institution in the booth for decades. But I just saw something from him that has made me lose whatever respect for him I had. And no, it has nothing to do with his politics. I've know he and I are not aligned on that stuff forever and unless he plans on running for office I don't care.

What has put me off was him talking about his family during Tuesday's broadcast. The Royals put Daniel Lynch IV into the game which led Hernandez and Gary Cohen to talk about names being passed down which eventually got Hernandez talking about how family line is ending, which he referred to as "burning out the line."

Cohen: I want to get back to the last half inning. You were talking about 'burning out the line.'

Hernandez: Yes.

Cohen: I didn't think we could leave that unattended.

Hernandez: It's convoluted. Jessie, my oldest, has two kids . . . she's my adopted daughter [Hernandez emphasizes the word "adopted"], so she's not in my line [Hernandez pauses to make sure that sinks in]. So, my brother has two kids and they're in their 40s, they're not married, I don't think they're gonna have kids. My two, in their 40s, they're not gonna have kids. I won't go into one of them, how that's not gonna happen [chuckle and then giggles; not sure if it was Hernandez or Cohen], so the line is burnt!

Cohen: Burnt?

Hernandez: It's burnt! Burned down! . . . Look, I've got two g- Jesse's like my own, Maggie and Charlie are my grandkids. And I love them very much. But . . .

Cohen: Ball four. Collins is on.

Hernandez: . . . there's no passing down. We're done. My brother and I are done. We're done!

Cohen: So you're saying that all of your collective athletic skills and your charisma that you and Gary have brought to this earth . . . just fizzled out.

Hernandez: It's just seems like a terrible waste.

Cohen: I'd have to say you're correct.

By way of background, Jessie Hernandez was the biological daughter of Hernandez's first wife, whom Hernandez himself adopted after they were married 47 years ago.

Which is to say, she is his daughter, even if he's decided to be a Royal Tennenbaum-style asshole about that by telling a national television audience that he considers her to be lesser than his other children and her children to be something less than true grandchildren. I don't know what to make of the giggle-inducing line about his biological daughters not having kids and how "I won't go into one of them, how that's not gonna happen" because I don't know anything about them, but a comment like that from a guy Hernandez's age is at the very least suspect.

I am sure Hernandez thought he was being funny – and his tone was very much a joking one – but stuff like that pisses me off.

My brother is adopted, and my parents and I have never thought of him as anything but our son and brother. My father was adopted by his stepfather. That's where the name Calcaterra comes from, in fact (we'd be McIntyres otherwise). When he talks about his "dad" that's who he means, and based on what I've been told his dad felt the same about his son. My mother's biological mother abandoned the family when my mom was very young, and she grew up with her stepmother who, while she did not legally adopt her, she always referred to as her mom. In my family I'm the oddball, as I'm the only one who grew up with both of his biological parents.

Again, I understand that Hernandez was considering all of that in a lighthearted way, and for all I know the whole "my adopted daughter" thing may be a loving inside joke in the Hernandez family. But to hear that kind of thing put out there with no explanation is a shitty thing to do. A hell of a lot of people who were adopted – people who may very well have grown up in difficult or complicated circumstances because of it – were watching that game, and the last thing they need to hear is someone reinforcing the idea that adopted children or even grandchildren are somehow lesser family members.

Jesus. As I'm writing this it's been over an hour since I first watched that video and I think I'm even more angry now than I was before. Fuck Keith Hernandez, man. Fuck anyone who puts those kinds of bullshit ideas into the world, regardless of whether it was meant in jest.

Phil Regan: 1937-2026

Former player, longtime pitching coach and, briefly, Baltimore Orioles manager Phil Regan has died at the age of 89. No official cause was given but at his age I think we can rule out bullfighting accidents or cliff diving mishaps.

Regan, a product of western Michigan, enjoyed a 13-year big league career between 1960 and 1972, during which time he pitched for the Tigers, Dodgers, Cubs, and White Sox. Over that time he had a record of 96-81 and an ERA of 3.84 (ERA+ 98). His best overall year came in 1966 when, in his first season with the Dodgers, working strictly as a reliever, he went 14–1 with a 1.62 ERA, helping the Dodgers win the NL pennant. He made his only All-Star team that season and was named the Sporting News named him the NL Reliever of the Year and NL Comeback Player of the Year. He was basically a closer before anyone called relief pitchers closers, leading the league in games finished and saves in 1966 and doing it again in 1968, even if saves weren't an official stat until 1969.

Regan was best known to more recent generations as a coach. He began that phase of his career immediately after retiring in 1972, coaching the Grand Valley State University Team from 1973 through 1982. From there he joined the Mariners as their minor league pitching instructor and advance scout in 1983 and was promoted to major league pitching coach in 1984. In 1987 he began a six-year stint with the Dodgers as a special assignment and advance scout before a brief tenure as Cleveland's pitching coach.

Regan's only job as an MLB manager came in 1995 when he led the Baltimore Orioles to a 71–73 record in the strike-shortened campaign. He was fired after that year and replaced by Davey Johnson. After that he spent the next 20+ years as a manager in the Dominican and Venezuelan leagues, as a Triple-A skipper for the Dodgers, and as a pitching coach for the Cubs, for Cleveland, and for the Mets. He also served as the pitching coach for the 2000 U.S. Olympic team in Sydney. It was quite a varied and interesting journey through baseball, that's for sure.

Rest in peace Phil Regan.

Other Stuff

Communism is OK when Trump does it

If a Democratic politician suggests a slight tax increase or says that, perhaps, the government should regulate certain matters so as to protect the health, safety, and well-being of Americans from demonstrable risks and harms, they are painted as Stalin 2.0 and the political press goes on a weeks-long jag about whether radical socialism is right for America. Meanwhile, Trump has opened up nationalized, price-controlled gas stations:

The White House has launched 25 “Freedom Fuel” gas stations in an attempt to provide Americans a cheaper option at the pump. 

“The FIRST Freedom Fuel Network gas station has LANDED in Philadelphia, lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President,” the White House wrote on the social platform X on Tuesday.

“President Trump is leading the charge to lower gas prices this summer – putting more money in your pocket.”

Twenty of the stations are located in Pennsylvania, while five are in New Jersey, according to the Freedom Fuel network’s website.

This is a transparent propaganda effort aimed at pacifying idiots who don't understand – or don't want to understand – that the reason gas prices are so high right now is that Trump launched an illegal war of choice in Iran, promptly lost it, and then yesterday broke the ceasefire which stands to send energy prices spiraling up even higher.

I'd like to think that both people and the press will see this for the pathetic, empty political gambit that it is – and perhaps reckon with the manner in which they demonize politicians of one party "communists" or "socialists" while never seeming to do the same to the other – but I'm not holding my breath.

How to create a nation of idiots

Inside Higher Ed has a story about an economics professor at Brown University who recently allowed students to take their midterm and final as a take-home exams rather than doing them in the classroom. Once he saw the grade distribution on the midterm, however, he realized that almost everyone in the class cheated on the mid-term, likely by using AI:

His welfare economics class typically attracted up to 30 students, but this spring he taught 86—an increase he attributes to the promised take-home exams. When the midterm came along, the average score was 96 percent.

Historically the average grade in the midterm of this course has ranged between 65 and 80 [percent], and this exam was harder than the exams I wrote in the past, because … take-home is an opportunity to challenge the class a little bit more, given that you’re giving the students unlimited time,” Serrano said.

When the professor saw that unnaturally high average score on the mid-term and reasonably suspected shenanigans, he told the class that he changed his mind on the final and that it would now be in-person. He said that if the grade distribution was similar on the final, fine, he would count the midterm as originally planned. If it departed radically, which would pretty clearly prove AI-aided cheating, he would toss out the midterm and re-weight the final. That caused 18 students to immediately drop the class despite their acing the midterm because they clearly knew what was going to happen. Several others simply ghosted the final which is an odd choice but a telling one.

Once you see what happened on the final you'll know that the professor was vindicated:

Can we stop for a moment and give a shoutout to Student 22? That person obviously did not cheat on the midterm and, rather than drop the course as many people did when faced with an in-person final, actually buckled down and tried harder on it. They still did pretty poorly, which sucks, but they did it with honor! So shines a good deed in a weary world! The professor should've given them an A on principle!

Also: we're all gonna be working for Student 1 someday.

As for the rest:

. . . three students earned a zero, and the average score on the final was 48.6 percent—by far a historic low, he said. Previously, the average final exam score had never dropped below 65 percent. Only a few students scored similarly to how they did on the midterm. . . [the professor] announced the midterm was void and the final exam would be worth 80 percent of the students’ final grade. Any student that scored a 40 percent or higher on the final earned a passing grade—previously, he set the passing line at 50 percent or higher. In total, 19 students failed the class.

The professor brought all of this to the attention of Brown's administration and got no response. They only did something once the professor went to the press. And even then it was insufficient, with the university telling him he needed to file formal cheating allegations against each student individually with individualized evidence against each one. The professor notes that the only accepted way of doing that is to run the midterm exams through an AI detector, but those are notoriously unreliable. Which means that, basically, he couldn't do anything.

The article goes on to talk about how the procedures and mechanisms in place for academic integrity are woefully out of date and insufficient to the task. Which means that this sort of thing isn't going to stop. That's bad in and of itself because integrity matters, but in a broader sense it's even more disastrous because it means that students are basically learning nothing. They're just getting by on cheating and everyone has decided that that's more or less fine.

But the thing is, learning never stops. Everyone learns and develops new skills and competencies throughout their lives and careers. Competencies that, as this article shows, are easy to fake in school and, as everything we've seen about businesses' AI obsession demonstrates, aren't even all that important to companies anymore.

Which is to say, we're on a glide path to becoming a nation of idiots.

Waymos are cops

From the Beautiful Dystopia of the Bay Area:

Two teens who engaged a Waymo car for an afternoon of carousing were busted after the vehicle delivered them to the San Mateo police.

The 15-year-olds allegedly were drinking alcohol and shooting water beads from a toy gun as they rode in the driverless car Monday, the police’s social media post said. Waymo stopped the car in a parking lot and notified the police, who detained the teens.

One's first impression of that might be to be amused or think it's good or clever that the car stopped some wilding hooligans, and I totally get that. But this is not something we should want. Indeed, it's highly dangerous to extend the police state to a privately-owned and wholly unaccountable rolling surveillance system that can literally lock up people and deliver them to the cops on a whim. And you know damn well that, eventually, it's going to turn out to be racist too. I'd bet my life on it.

Don't use Waymo, folks. If that's the only option, walk to the nearest hotel and find a taxi stand.

Have a great day everyone.