Cup of Coffee: June 25, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

And away we go!

And That Happened

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Marlins 4, Rangers 2: Otto López’s two-run shot in the eighth made a close game less-close, Xavier Edwards had an RBI single, Griffin Conine had an RBI double, and the Miami pen was solid. The Fish take two of three from Texas and have won six of seven.

Cubs 10, Mets 3; Cubs 10, Mets 5: Dansby Swanson had a whale of a game in the opener here, hitting a three-run homer in the sixth and a grand slam in the eighth. Before that the Mets had taken an early 3-0 lead and the Cubs tied it up at three in the fifth on a Michael Conforto double and a Michael Busch two-run shot.

Swanson struck again in the nightcap, tying the game up at three with an RBI single in the fourth, giving Chicago the lead for good with a sixth inning RBI triple, and then singling in two more in the ninth. Just your typical 11-RBI day and a 15-RBI series for Dansby. Oh, and the Mets committed SIX ERRORS in this game, rendering half of the Cubs' ten runs unearned, in case you were wondering if there were any moral victories to be had. While describing all that bumbling, Gary Cohen referred to the team as being, "in the depths of despair." Woof.

Rockies 8, Red Sox 6: Another late collapse for the Boston pen, as they blew a three-run lead but coughing up two runs in the seventh and three in the eighth. The three-runs were aided by a hit-by-pitch and an error so all were unearned, but only nerds care about that. Runs are runs. Tyler Freeman's sac fly in the eighth put the Rockies ahead and Cole Carrigg doubled in a run to ice it.

Angels 7, Orioles 6: The Angles win on a walkoff whoopsie daisy:

They meant to do that, totally.

Guardians 4, White Sox 3: Cleveland had a 3-1 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth when Chicago's Braden Montgomery and Randall Grichuk went back-to-back to tie it up and force extras. Cleveland regrouped and put one over with back-to-back singles in the top of the tenth, however, and Shawn Armstrong locked it down.

Rays 5, Royals 3: The Rays took a 2-0 lead in a two-run error in the third, scored three that inning, and picked up two more runs in the fourth. The Royals finally got on the board by virtue of a Rays two-run error but they had a lot more to scratch back than that.

Yankees 4, Tigers 2: New York batters were not terribly impressed by Tarik Skubal, taking him downtown three times for four runs in all. Paul Goldschmidt hit two of those dongs and Jasson Domínguez had the other. Ryan Weathers turned in six solid inning, allowing just one earned run while another came in for free.

Pirates 11, Mariners 1: All those runs and nary a dinger. You don't see that very often. Ryan O'Hearn and Endy Rodríguez each knocked in three and Tyler Callihan drove in two. Braxton Ashcraft didn't sweat a bit in his six innings during which he struck out ten. And despite the blowout, Carmen Mlodzinski pitcked up a four-inning save.

Phillies 5, Nationals 4: Derek Hill delivered a go-ahead-, pinch-hit, two-run, could-I-use-more-hyphenated-words homer in the bottom of the ninth to put Philly up for good. The Phillies weathered three Nats homers before that in a game which went back and forth more than a couple of times.

Astros 3, Blue Jays 1: Houston starter Mike Burrows was stingy, giving up just a run on two hits over six, and Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage was just as good, allowing one in five and two thirds. But while the hits just never fell for Toronto, the Astros finally broke through late when Joey Loperfido tripled and then came home on a pickoff attempt in the eighth and they got one more thanks to a couple of walks and a Jeremy Peña single in the ninth.

Dodgers 4, Twins 3: Feels like every game last night involved the losing team taking an early 2-3 run lead. Here that losing team was the Twins who got a two-run RBI single from Ryan Kreidler in the second to go up 3-1 only to give up three runs in the third on singles from Ohtani and Munci and a sac fly from Alex Call. Mookie Betts homered back in the second. Ohtani pitched as well and picked up the W after six innings of work. L.A. with the three-game sweep.

Brewers 6, Reds 5: Milwaukee got three in the third thanks to homers from William Contreras and Jake Bauers, then got three more in the seventh with a bases-clearing three-run double from Andrew Vaughn. Cincinnati rallied for five runs between the sixth and the eighth but the rally fell short. The fact that they left 16 runners on base and were 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position bit 'em in the ass.

Diamondbacks 9, Cardinals 4: Arizona enjoyed a six-run fourth, with three of those runs coming on a two-run shot from LuJames Groover – his first ever big league dinger – and a solo homer from Ketel Marte. ldemaro Vargas had hit a two-run double just ahead of Groover’s shot. Nolan Arenado also doubled and scored against his old team. Tommy Troy went 2-for-5 with two RBI on a night on which every Diamondbacks hitter had at least one hit.

Padres 5, Atlanta 2: Ty France homered to lead off the third inning. He also hit a sac fly in the fourth and later doubled and scored on Samad Taylor's two-run single. The Padres have won five of seven. J.P. Sears allowed two runs on five hits in in five and two-thirds innings in his season debut. San Diego now gets the Dodgers at home for the weekend. They're nine back so if they're ever gonna make a run they'll need to sweep them I figure.

Giants 2, Athletics 1: Scoreless through seven thanks to starters Gage Jump's and Tyler Mahle's strong outings. Mahle hadn't pitched in over a month due to a hamstring so his allowing just two hits and no runs in five and two-thirds was quite nice. Max Muncy the Younger broke the deadlock with a homer in the top of the eighth, but Rafael Devers tied it up with a solo shot of his own in the bottom of the ninth and three batters later Victor Bericoto walked it off with a homer of his own. The Giants go for a three-game sweep this afternoon.

The Daily Briefing

Mets trade David Peterson to the Cubs

The Mets and Cubs were adversaries in this. week's series but they were trade partners yesterday as well, as Chicago acquired Mets left-hander David Peterson in exchange for minor league infielder Cole Mathis.  

As the next item in today's newsletter shows, the Cubs are desperate for starting pitching right now given the rash of injuries their rotation has experienced. And if you doubt their desperation, remember that Peterson, 30, has a 6.09 ERA across 68 innings for the Mets this season. I don't know that a change of scenery will do him good but it sure as hell can't hurt.

Mathis, who turns 23 next month, is a first base/DH type who was a second round pick out of the College of Charleston in 2024. He has posted a .981 OPS in 14 Low-A and 25 High-A games this season. He used to be a two-way player, but hasn't pitched since he was in college back when he was 19. Interesting player I suppose.

The Cubs lose two more pitchers

Cubs starter Edward Cabrera was certain to go on the injured list after he suffered a left hamstring strain that caused him to be carted off the field Tuesday night. But the Cubs added not just him, but also right-hander Ben Brown to the pile of broken toys yesterday.

Brown has a strained neck. He last pitched last Friday and picked up the win against the Blue Jays but there was nothing I saw that suggested he was hurt after that game. Maybe he got out of bed funny yesterday. Who knows? But the loss hurts, as Brown has won three of his past four starts and has a 1.85 ERA on the season.

Those two, Matthew Boyd, Justin Steele, Porter Hodge, and Jameson Taillon can all have a "we're hurt" party.

Ok, this was dumb

I had missed this, but in Tuesday night's Cubs-Mets game Pete Crow-Armstrong was called out on a play that should never, in a million years, be called an out but technically is an out per the rules.

For those who missed it, Crow-Armstrong was on first base with one out in the second inning with Michael Busch batting. Crow-Armstrong took off from first on a 3-2 count but Busch took ball four so it wasn't really a steal situation anymore. Except Crow-Armstrong had his head down running and wasn't immediately aware it was a walk and that he was entitled to second base. He thus slid into second base as though it was a steal. As often happens when a guy slides into second he popped up and off the bag for a second, Bo Bichette applied the tag, and after a replay review Crow-Armstrong was ruled out. You can watch it here.

Craig Counsell came out to argue it and was ejected. Crow-Armstrong had to be led off the field when attempting to argue with the umpires. Umpires who, technically, were right because even on a walk, when the runner is entitled to advance to second, the play is still considered live and if the runner comes off of the bag he can technically be tagged out. The obvious purpose of that rule is to allow the team on defense to tag a guy out if he tries to go beyond second and on to third, but in the age of video replay we can see, in super slow motion, even a moment's disconnection from the bag and that, in the eyes of the law, is enough.

Counsell later said that he wasn't mad at the umps because they got the call right, but that he was mad at the rule, which is dumb. And I agree. There should, obviously, be some sort of intent-to-advance element to the analysis which does not penalize a guy for momentary disengagement. But to do that MLB would have to empower the umpires with the discretion to make a judgment call and the clear and unambiguous through-line of every single rule change in the Rob Manfred and Bud Selig eras has been to eliminate judgment calls and umpire discretion as much as humanly possible.

Sometimes that's good, because umps can be jerks and we want plays to be called objectively. But in this case taking an umpire's judgment out of it led to a really stupid result and I cannot see the harm in an ump stating the bleeding obvious, ruling that the runner was not attempting to advance, and that he was safe.

The fall of an access journalist

The New York Times published a major story yesterday morning about the ignominious end of the career of NFL reporter Dianna Russini. As you probably remember, she resigned from The Athletic – which is owned by the New York Times – back in April following the publication of photos which pretty clearly revealed that she was having an affair with New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel. Russini initially lied about the nature of their relationship and then quit after The Athletic began an investigation into her reporting and her ethics.

The biggest takeaway from this new story, however, has very little to do with the Russini-Vrabel affair. Rather, it's about the nature of the extraordinarily well-paid "insider" reporting jobs the likes of which Russini held and which are held by people like Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal in baseball, Adam Schefter in football, and Shams Charania in basketball. Russini obviously crossed lines that, to our knowledge, none of those reporters have, but even short of the scandal the story makes it clear just how compromised and, in my view, debased that entire area of sports reporting really is.

The vibe is totally set with the story's opening anecdote about how, a couple of months pre-scandal, Russini went on a podcast and openly joked about how she got out of a texting-while-driving ticket with her kids in the car because she offered to set up the cop on a Facetime call with the coach of his favorite football team:

On this occasion, Ms. Russini tried to fend off a ticket by telling the officer that the coach of the Buffalo Bills had been fired, and she was trying to break news.

The officer was unmoved, telling her he was a fan of a different team.

That’s when she made him an offer. Maybe she could connect him, right then and there, to his favorite team’s coach.

“Do you want to talk to the coach? You should talk to the coach,” Ms. Russini said she told the officer as she recounted the incident a couple of weeks later on “Stugotz and Company,” a radio show and podcast.

“I FaceTime the head coach,” she said, without naming him. “Head coach is in his office. He said, ‘What’s up?’ I go, ‘I just got pulled over and I just wanted you to meet my friend, Officer Joe.’”

The coach helped her get out of the ticket by telling the officer, “You should let her go, she’s a good citizen,” Ms. Russini said.

The podcast host howled with laughter. “I wish I had that kind of access,” he said.

I have been given shit by some folks in sports media in the past for disparaging Russini's sort of reporting as "access journalism," so it's darkly amusing to see someone just up and bragging about it.

Much of the rest of the story, separate and apart from the Vrabel scandal, paints a picture of a career built on being beyond chummy with the people on whom Russini was supposed to be reporting and how the overall name of her game was celebrity more than it was journalism.

And to be clear, that's not unique to Russini. It's the nature of "Insider" reporting, the final product of which is mostly tweeting out transactions news 12 minutes before a press release is issued because the reporter is friends with everyone inside the game. It's a defacto PR job, with the league loving the free, mostly uncritical press and boosterism they get from the reporters and the networks and publications who employ them leveraging those tight connections to the leagues and teams in order to sell subscriptions and attract eyeballs.

It's why people don't take sports reporting seriously. And why if you try to point it out, you're considered an insane outsider who is bad for the industry. Which, honestly, I think is a much better thing to be than to be as bought-and-paid-for as the Diana Russinis of the world are.

Other Stuff

This dude called it

You are all no doubt aware of the hilarious/pathetic saga of the algae-invested Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. It's being cast as a surprising failure by some – and of course our president is spewing baseless conspiracy theories about why it's all happening – but some random dude with some specific expertise called it on Bluesky over a month ago:

There are several more posts in that thread explaining exactly why what happened was inevitably going to happen and what they should've done instead. Again, this is not hindsight. All of this was posted before the pool was refilled and the algae and other problems began.

It's almost as if things would've been better if this was handled by competent professionals instead of corrupt cronies hired by our criminal president.

Once you see it you can't unsee it

I am going to share a tweet from Hunter Biden which was cross-posted to Bluesky in which he analyzes the results of Tuesday night's primary voting in New York. To be clear, however, this post is not about Hunter Biden or the New York primary. Just read it and then bear with me for a moment:

While to most people that all sounds like, more or less, cogent Monday morning quarterback-style punditry, all I could see when I read it was how obvious it was that it was written by AI. And, yes, I'd say that even if I didn't know that Hunter Biden was massively ramping-up his public profile in part because he's currently engaged in some AI-related business venture.

I don't engage with AI if I can possibly avoid it, but even I've seen enough AI-produced text in various places over the past couple of years that I know it when I see it. And once you become aware of its traits you cannot help but see it every time it pops up.

AI writing has a certain cadence. One that relies heavily on cliche, quick analogy, and the massive overuse of sophomore writing seminar tricks like stinger tag lines, such as "Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field" and "The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room". Most AI writing reads like it was written by or, perhaps, for some tech executive who lives for elevator pitches and executive summaries because he doesn't have time for actually developed ideas and "sounds good" beats "is good" most of the time. It's pithy stuff with the illusion of cleverness but which doesn't hold up to close reading. It's becoming ubiquitous and it's grating.

The pernicious thing about AI writing, though, is that it does make people who couldn't otherwise put two sentences together sound vaguely and superficially competent. I mean, I don't know Hunter Biden apart from what's been in the news about him over the years, but I'm pretty sure that he's not the sort of guy who whips out concise, seven-point political breakdowns on social media 12 hours after an election goes down. Which is to say that that tweet, however AI-created it was, is better than he likely would've done on his own.

Is fake literacy better than nothing? I suppose we could argue about it. But I'm really, really tired of everything reading like this. Words that sound broadly smart, but which, because they are not reasoned, cannot be reasoned with and are thus utterly empty. Words that sound like a sales pitch or the preamble to an actual con not a narrative or a conversation or an argument.

Words are the manifestation of ideas, AI deploys words to create the illusion of an idea. Their illusory nature is made plain by the knowledge that if Biden wanted to argue exactly the opposite of what he's arguing here all he'd need to do is type in "OK, now argue it from the other side" and ChatGPT or whatever he uses will give him seven completely different and completely opposite takeaways from Tuesday's election. There's no weight there at all – there's no there there at all – and if you took Biden away from his laptop he'd be utterly unable to provide any weight on his own.

This probably doesn't matter when all it involves are Hunter Biden's political takeaways. But my lawyer friends tell me that they're seeing obviously AI-generated legal pleadings by pro se litigants. Others have noted that they're seeing it more and more in other forms of advocacy writing, applications, grievances, and the like. All of which bothers me on a superficial level as a writer who takes pride in writing things, but which truly concerns me as a human being.

It bothers me because words, deployed in any number of contexts, can and do alter people's lives. It's bad enough when they're deployed poorly or maliciously, but to see them deployed so carelessly, with less than zero consideration for their meaning, is truly frightening. It's frightening because making words mere window dressing to pre-ordained conclusions rather than the tools of deliberation itself makes the most fundamentally evil impulses disturbingly easy to carry out. Stuff like "find some reason to do that thing, I don't care what it is, as long as it sounds plausible." But the means matter, not just the ends, and working through the means forces us to reassess the ends if and when the logic doesn't add up.

The worst part of this is that I know I'm fighting a losing battle. A large account reposted Biden's tweet to Bluesky, and most of the responses were people eating that shit up. Not because they were convinced of anything but because their priors were being confirmed in a way that sounded superficially pleasant and appealing. Maybe that doesn't matter here, where the substance of the matter isn't necessarily wrong, but as someone who has spent his whole life in the business of advocacy and persuasion I know how easy it is to make people think and even do bad things by deploying words that sound superficially pleasant and appealing.

I don't know what if anything can be done about this, but nothing seems more important to me right now than than finding and valuing real human connection, wherever we can find it.

Have a great day everyone.