Morning Mound Visit: Tommy John recommended for James Paxton

Ryan Divish | Seattle Times: Tommy John surgery has been recommended for James Paxton. If he ultimately has the procedure performed, he would miss the remainder of the 2021 season and return some time in 2022. Paxton was placed on the IL prior to Wednesday’s game.

Ken Rosenthal | The Athletic $: Before the season, MLB declared that it would be cracking down on pitchers using foreign substances. The league has collected several baseballs used by Trevor Bauer in his start against the A’s on Wednesday. The balls had visible markings on them and were sticky.

Cody Poage | The Crawfish Boxes: New member of the Houston bullpen, Ryne Stanek, is relying on his split finger more often this year, and the early returns would indicate that’s a good idea. Stanek hasn’t allowed a run in five innings while striking out seven batters.

Quick Hits

Thursday’s game between the Mets and Marlins came to a revolting end. With the bases loaded and the winning run on third, Michael Conforto purposefully stuck his elbow out to take the pitch off his elbow guard. Home plate umpire Ron Kulpa ruled it a hit by pitch, and the winning run scored. It’s one thing to award a hit by pitch when the batter makes no effort to get out of the way, but this would have been strike three.

Baseball Savant

Per Sarah Langs, Javier Báez homered off a pitch 0.86 feet off the ground which is tied for the sixth-lowest pitch to be taken deep in the pitch tracking era.

The legend of Yermín Mercedes continued to grow. He went 2-for-4 Thursday with a long home run.

Goodness.