Horsehide Chronicles

"Relief pitchers are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

OK, that may be paraphrasing Forrest Gump's mother's famous line, but that doesn't make it any less accurate.

Relievers, after all, are a fickle animal, and closers fall under the same umbrella.

Make it an even dozen for Max Scherzer, and some history on the side.

The Detroit Tigers right-hander picked up another win on Friday night, pitching seven innings and allowing three earned runs in a 6-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays. That makes Scherzer a perfect 12-0 on the season.

I'll take a wild guess and say that about 98.32 percent of rumored trades between now and July 31 won't happen. In fact, a large percentage of those probably weren't even seriously discussed by the teams mentioned.

So while we were all seriously discussing how those players would fit on their new teams and speculating on which prospects were going to be part of the trade package, the general managers involved in the rumored deal were probably working on a deal that was completely under wraps and then surprised the heck out of everybody once it was announced. 

Have you seen what Houston Astros slugger Chris Carter is doing these days?

No, not those 15 homers.

Try those 108 strikeouts.

When the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Yasiel Puig, he didn't even know what color they wore.

When Alex Rodriguez looks back on his early Twitter days, he's not going to be able to say he wasn't warned.

The headline on CBS Sports: "This is probably a bad idea: Alex Rodriguez has joined Twitter."

In light of how things were going for a while there, it didn't occur to me to imagine a scenario in which there would be a huge fuss over Ricky Nolasco.

But lo and behold, such a fuss is happening now.

Work on those breaking pitches, kids. Develop an elite one, and you'll go far.

But therein lies a question: What exactly separates an elite breaking ball from a run-of-the-mill, garden-variety breaking ball?

Yasiel Puig, it seems, can do just about anything. Except get the Los Angeles Dodgers to win baseball games.

Though he won both of them, Gerrit Cole barely looked like a major league-caliber pitcher in the first two starts of his career.