#66 “If they can make you paranoid, they’re going to try to”

Plus, the Rangers are defying the odds (maybe)

Zach is married! (Reminder: it’s just Hannah this week.) They had perfect weather, magical lighting, a venue that was both comfortable and elegant, and a whole cocktail hour station dedicated to potato-based foods. I had a blast and, from my inexpert vantage, the whole thing went off without a hitch. I hope he and his wife are ignoring this email right now, but maybe he can weigh in when he’s back.

There were several spoken references to the Mets (in her toast, a bridesmaid revealed that Zach is in her phone as “Zach Sports” to this day) but just one visual nod as far as I noticed: the very classy Mr.¹ and Mrs. Met seen above. At least…until the official photos come back. 👀

I was logged off of baseball essentially all weekend so instead of the normal newsy intro, I’m going to go check the standings and see if anything really notable surprises me. Hold please…

Whoa! The enfeebled and infirmed (not a real word) Texas Rangers are just a game and a half back of the final Wild Card spot in the American League. We’ve made mention of them in the last three-straight newsletters — each time because of a different significant injury to a star player. And yet, prior to losing last night, they’d won six in a row and nine of the previous 10.

On Friday, I said that “the playoff field is effectively set.” I wrote that post the night before. At the time, FanGraphs gave the Rangers a 4.8% chance to make the postseason. Not a week later — and, obviously, with fewer games left to make up ground — those odds are up to 16.2%. They’re still on the outside looking in and, crucially, Texas has the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the American League; but this is a useful reminder of a phenomenon that exists beyond sports: Each unlikely thing is unlikely to happen, but any one of those unlikely things happening is a lot more likely.

Does that make sense?

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just a good gif I made

Extremely useful of Daulton Rushing to react not just to the occasion of Shohei Ohtani’s 100th home run as a Dodger but also to the on-screen note about the insane exit velocity (120 mph!!) in such an expressive encapsulation of the universal emotion it elicited.

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Pitch tipping fake outs: “it is happening”