The Upper Deck

Welcome to The Upper Deck, Baseball America’s daily look at the biggest stories around the game and some lighter fare.


RAIN DELAY GAMES

Rain delays can make ballplayers a little squirrelly. Longtime Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey was famous for his rain-delay antics. This season, the Cubs have had some epic rain delays, but they have not taken them lying down. Earlier this season, the Cubs and Brewers staged a delay dance-off.

On Thursday, the Cubs and Diamondbacks had to sit through two hours and 35 minutes of delays. So what better way to fight through the boredom than another performance? The Diamondbacks’ bobsled routine was good, but the human bowling pins was a knockout blow.


NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST HIT

It came in the ninth inning of a game they were losing 7-1, but to Ozzie Albies, his first big league hit couldn’t have been any sweeter. Albies, whose ability to do damage with the bat is a question mark, blasted a three-run homer off Tony Cingrani in Atlanta’s 7-4 loss to the Dodgers. Albies has shown more power this season and had a career-high nine homers at Gwinnett before his callup.


GOLD STANDARD

There is no denying just how good Paul Goldschmidt is; but sometimes he surpasses even what can be expected. That happened Thursday in a wild game against the Cubs. Goldschmidt hit three homers, the last a go-ahead shot against Cubs closer Wade Davis that capped a back-and-forth contest and led Arizona to 10-8 win. Goldschmidt now has 25 homers and 85 RBIs.


A SECOND TRIPLE PLAY

Some teams go decades without a triple play; there have only been 712 instances in big league history, after all. But the Orioles have pulled the feat twice this season after Manny Machado started a 5-4-3 TP on Thursday against Detroit. The O’s also did it on May 2 against Boston.


K IS FOR KLUBER

They don’t call Corey Kluber “Klubot” for nothing. Kluber works with machine-like precision and that continued Thursday when he fanned 11 Yankees en route to a complete-game, 5-1 win. Kluber has struck out at least eight batters in each of his past 12 starts and is the first pitcher to accomplish that feat in one season since Randy Johnson in 1999.


HAPPENINGS AT BA

On Thursday, we unveiled our updated Organization Talent Rankings following a trade-filled July; Matt Eddy dropped his All-Prospect Team for July, led by a couple of Mets; and John Manuel talked to a man best known in BA lore for ranking ahead of Albert Pujols on the Cardinals’ Top 10 Prospects list.

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