Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

Alright, it's time to really talk about what Mike Trout is currently doing. He's been the best player in baseball for a few years now and amazingly, he's taken his game to a new level this season. He's on pace to have a career year at the plate, as he went into Wednesday's action sporting a slash line of .335/.469/.689. The offensive stat wRC+ tries to serve as a measuring stick for offensive performance, with 100 being league average. Mike Trout's wRC+ is currently at 213. Simply put, what he's currently doing at the plate is otherworldly.

In fact, it's nearly in the realm of what Barry Bonds used to do on an annual basis. It's gotten to the point where when it comes to comparing what players are doing, you have the Bonds Tier, the Trout Tier, then everybody else. Albert Pujols may have been nicknamed "The Machine," but at this point, Trout may as well be the fully-loaded version of that machine. He's basically a juggernaut at this point and it's honestly amazing to witness what he's doing.

The sad part is that even though Mike Trout is doing amazing things right now, he's still not getting the credit or attention that he deserves. He's already passed guys like Ichiro Suzuki, Mike Piazza, Vlad Guerrero and Yogi Berra in career WAR and he's only 26. You'd think that we'd see Mike Trout's face all over pretty much everything that MLB does to sell the sport and its league, but we don't. Occasionally we'll see them give him a shout-out but he continues to basically do his thing in relative obscurity. Trout is truly amazing and it's time for fans, media and everyone in the sporting world to recognize his greatness.

Juan Soto is baseball's best time traveler

Mike Trout can do a lot of things, but can he travel through time? As of right now he can't, but guess who can? Nineteen-year-old Juan Soto apparently can, as he hit a home run in his "major league debut" earlier this week.

The scare quotes are there because while the Nationals were playing the Yankees on Monday afternoon, it was the continuation of a game that started on May 15. Juan Soto didn't get called up until May 20, which means that the teenager got to participate in a game that started five days before he was in the bigs.

You always get some interesting quirks whenever a postponed game eventually gets finished — after all, both teams won't remain exactly the same when the game is eventually finished. Still, it's gotta be super interesting when a player with as much potential and talent as Juan Soto gets something as interesting as this under his belt. Plus, when he's an established major leaguer 10 years from now at the tender age of 29 (!!!), this will be an interesting piece of trivia to look back on.

Arizona may need to watch out for Los Angeles

The Arizona Diamondbacks have been led by Paul Goldschmidt continuing to be an extremely formidable foe at the plate, while also getting what could end up being a great season on the mound from Patrick Corbin. As a result, the Diamondbacks have been flying high all season and figure to be in the conversation all year, especially when A.J. Pollock returns from injury.

However, it's about time that they start watching their back. Arizona has slowed down a bit and while they're still in first place, there's the looming specter that is a potential awakening of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They recently broke .500 and have now clawed their way to being just two games behind the Diamondbacks after the end of play on Wednesday.

While the Dodgers aren't exactly setting the world on fire, they're still doing enough to stay in the conversation instead of falling behind. They were never going to fade away — not with that much talent on their team — so it's clear that things will get more interesting in the NL West before they get boring.

Three Down

Hunter Strickland fights a door and loses

Last week, I beat up a bit on relievers who injured themselves in bizarre fashion. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that the relievers are at it again. Let's start with Hunter Strickland, who became infamous for a bit last season for his long-held grudge over something that Bryce Harper did that was so minor that everybody except Hunter Strickland forgot all about it. Strickland is back in the news and it's for an incredibly dumb but also on-brand reason for him.

The Giants played the Marlins over the weekend and as usual, Hunter Strickland got mad at an opponent for having the audacity to be happy about potentially winning a game. Lewis Brinson celebrated a sacrifice fly when they played each other earlier this month and then Brinson scored the tying run in a blown save for Strickland on Monday.

Hunter Strickland's anger boiled over and he proceeded to punch a door in reaction to the blown save. The door won the fight as Strickland came away with a broken pinky, which is going to cost him 6-to-8 weeks. This also touched off a beanball war as the Giants tried to get revenge on the Marlins, which is amazing considering that the Marlins didn't do anything to start it. This was all preventable and the man who started it all could end up missing two months due to incredibly petty actions.

Brandon Morrow's back betrays him

We're not done with the wacky baseball injury segment, though this one appears to be a product of bad luck instead of a product of immaturity. Brandon Morrow's absence was felt as the Cubs blew a ninth-inning lead against the Dodgers, and I really hope that you're sitting down as I tell you the reason why Morrow was unable to be used.

He was unavailable because he suffered back spasms after taking off his pants on Monday morning. The back spasms were enough to put him on the 10-day DL. Yes, you read that correctly — he injured himself while removing his pants. While it's tough to feel bad for Hunter Strickland, it's easy to feel bad for Brandon Morrow. Yes, it's a hilariously unfortunate injury, but it's something that could easily happen to all of us.

Trying to fight a door is easily avoidable, but the back spasms monster could come for all of us at any time. Here's hoping that Morrow can make a speedy recovery and that he can never worry abut injuring himself while taking off his pants ever again.

Phillie Phanatic snipes fan with hot dog gun

Amazingly, we are not done with wacky baseball injuries and this is perhaps the wackiest. No players are involved in this one, but it does involve the most infamous mascot in baseball — the Phillie Phanatic. You can say a lot of things about the Phanatic but you can't say that he's hurt anybody with his shenanigans. Unfortunately, that streak came to an end on Monday night when he injured a fan with a hot dog gun.

He was shooting hot dogs into the crowd and one fan wasn't paying attention and the poor lady took a flying hot dog right to the eye. She ended up suffering a small hematoma under her eye and she couldn't block it if she wanted to since she was already suffering from a shoulder injury.

Fortunately, the fan was still in good spirits and didn't hold any ill will towards the Phillies or the Phanatic. In fact, she told a local news station that she understood if people got a laugh out of the whole ordeal. If we're being real, getting injured via flying hot dog is a much cooler story than breaking your finger punching a door or getting back spasms while taking off your pants, so she is the real winner.