Saša Milićević

Assistant coach @ BC Sabah Baku | Teo4 basketball camp |
Manchester United ❤

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

In August of 2004, Ichiro Suzuki collected 56 hits.

In one month.

Cal Raleigh has 52 hits this entire season.

And here's the part that makes it almost impossible to process.

Last year, Cal Raleigh had one of the greatest offensive seasons any catcher has ever had.

Sixty home runs. The most ever hit by a catcher. The most ever hit by a switch hitter. 125 RBIs. A .948 OPS. He led all of Major League Baseball in home runs and led the American League in RBIs.

He finished second in AL MVP voting, and only because Aaron Judge also happened to have a monster year.

He won a Silver Slugger. He made All-MLB First Team. The Mariners went to the ALCS.

That was twelve months ago.

This season he is hitting .158.

Thirteen home runs. Forty four RBIs. A .568 OPS. A strikeout rate over 32 percent, which sits in the fifth percentile in all of baseball.

In May he went 0 for 34. He needed eight games just to get his first hit of the month.

And the historical context is genuinely staggering.

Cal Raleigh is currently tied for the third worst single season batting average in the history of Major League Baseball, minimum 350 plate appearances.

The only two players below him both played over a hundred years ago.

Tom Verducci found another one. Fifty four times in baseball history a player has hit 50 home runs in a season. Not one of them had ever followed it up with an OPS below .704.

Until now.

There is no precedent for this. A player has never gone from that high to this low in consecutive seasons. It has simply never happened.

Some of it may be explainable. He played in the World Baseball Classic in the spring, and there's a theory that the different schedule wrecked his timing. He's been late on fastballs and early on offspeed all year, which is what a broken internal clock looks like. He also missed time with an oblique strain in May.

But here's why I actually wanted to write this.

After the Mariners lost their fifth straight game earlier this month, Cal Raleigh called an impromptu media session. Nobody asked him to.

And this is what he said:

"It's not good. We're not playing well. That starts with me. I'm awful."

Then: "I've got to find a way to be better, and to help bring the guys along."

He didn't blame the WBC. He didn't blame the oblique. He didn't blame the fact that Seattle as a team has scored the fewest runs in all of baseball this season, which is also true and not his fault.

He got up in front of cameras during the worst year of his professional life and said the losing starts with him.

He even admitted the mental part out loud: "Sometimes, when you're feeling bad for yourself, you get a little lackadaisical out there and maybe have a little less energy, or maybe you don't have quite the same edge that you should have every single day."

That is an extraordinarily honest thing for a professional athlete to say about himself in public.

He's 29 years old. He is a Gold Glove catcher who is still catching every day and still handling a pitching staff while carrying the worst offensive season of his life around with him.

The Ichiro comparison is brutal, and it's real, and Mariners fans are going to see it everywhere.

But one year ago the same guy did something no catcher in 150 years of baseball had ever done.

Baseball is the only sport that can do both of those things to the same person twelve months apart.

[h/t @nut_history]

For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap

[Cardinals Dude @Turn2Dude]

The Cardinals combo of Masyn Winn and JJ Wetherholt are leading all of MLB by far in Middle Infield Fielding Run Value according to Baseball Savant. The Cardinals middle infielders have recorded a 37 FRV. The next closest team is the Chicago Cubs (18). #stlcards

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

😢

[fOx @fOx1257067]

There’s something Hayden Panettiere once said about Remember the Titans that is especially difficult to hear today.

Hayden was only 10 when she played Sheryl Yoast, the real-life daughter of coach Bill Yoast.

In an Interview, while talking about the movie, Hayden mentioned that Sheryl had died very young.

She was just 34.

Hayden was 36.

Two young women, connected by a role that introduced so many of us to Hayden more than 25 years ago.

Sometimes there really isn’t anything more to say.

Rest in peace, Hayden.

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

🤩

[MLB @MLB]

3 home runs in his first 3 Major League at-bats 😤

Did Joshua Báez put on the best MLB debut EVER?!

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

❤️🥲❤️

[MLFootball @MLFootball]

DREW BREES TALKING ABOUT HIS LOVE FOR SEAN PAYTON.

“I miss the 3-hour flights home from Dallas to NOLA after a big win, by the way; that's supposed to be an hour flight. But Sean would have the pilot circle ten times so we could soak up the celebration.”

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

Već par godina mi je opsesija, kako jedan, naizgled običan, trenutak, i jedna od formulacija neke veoma poznate teorije mogu promeniti život iz korena.
Iz nekog razloga, u tom momentu, na taj način izrečena, ta poruka menja sve.
A Drew, šta reći, jedan od najvećih.

[Josh Chambers @JoshChambers]

Drew Brees believes he would not have made the hall of fame if it weren't for a film session in 2003 where Marty Schottenheimer told him to stop making excuses

“I’ll never forget a film session in 2003. I was coming off a tough game. As we watched the tape together, Coach asked me the question…”

“‘Hey, why didn’t you throw to this receiver?’ ‘He was wide open.’ My response was… ‘I couldn’t see him.’ The tape paused. There was a moment of silence. Coach glared at me and said… It’s your job to see.’”

“You reach a point in your career when you stop making excuses. It’s usually a moment or an event where you flip a switch. Or make a very conscious decision. And it becomes part of your being. Coach was right.”

“And never again would those words or thoughts come out of my mouth. I would need to find a way to play the game a little bit different. Even if it was in a way that had not been done before.”

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

Noooot 🙏❤️

Ljubi brat

[St. Louis Cardinals @Cardinals]

A message from Lars Nootbaar to Cardinals fans ❤️

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

Neviđeno

[Jed Fontaínè @JedFontaine]

The Dodgers Starting Pitchers:

1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto
2. Tarik Skubal
3. Blake Snell
4. Shohei Ohtani
5. Tyler Glasnow
6. Justin Wrobleski
7. Roki Sasaki
8. Eric Lauer
9. Emmet Sheehan
10. Gavin Stone

How is this even legal?

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

Ma idi

[ESPN @espn]

The Dodgers' potential postseason starting rotation after trading for Tarik Skubal 😳

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

😤

[Redbirdriot @RedbirdRiot]

🐐

[AC Milan @acmilan]

La Storia del Milan è in lacrime per la scomparsa di Franco Baresi. Il suo esempio e la sua profondità saranno, per sempre come la sua maglia numero 6, parte integrante e fondamentale del DNA e del cammino di tutto il Club. Le condoglianze che AC Milan porge alla famiglia tutta di Franco Baresi sono le stesse che ogni tifoso rossonero fa a sé stesso in un'ora così dura.

The entire history of AC Milan is in tears following the passing of Franco Baresi. His example and integrity will be forever etched into the Club's DNA, just as his iconic number 6 shirt is. The condolences AC Milan extends to Franco Baresi's family at such a difficult time are shared by every Rossonero, who feels this loss as their own.

[Igor Brakus @IgorBrakus]

Sećam se da sam bio oduševljen kada sam prvi put odgledao seriju "Jutro će promeniti sve"...ovih dana sam je pogledao ponovo, što bi mladi rekli izbindžovao svih 39 epizoda...bog te maz'o kakvo je ovo impresivno autentično remek-delo...od scenarija, režije, nestvarne glume posebno glavnih protagonista (kvartet Simijonović-Stojiljković-Kuzmanović-Rakočević) do apsolutno fascinantnog audio
izbora muzičke urednice. Ova serija jeste bila incident u dramskom programu RTS ali i verovatno nešto najbolje što su na istoj emitovali u poslednjih 20 godina.

[Sky Sports @SkySports]

Former US Open Champion Dominic Thiem has started a new chapter by joining Austrian football side Badener AC 👀⚽️

[DansGuden @DansGuden]

Probably the wildest moment in football history. Swedish Hammarby legend Kennedy scores a spectacular free-kick goal and, while celebrating, catches a plastic cup of beer thrown his way—which he downs before tossing it aside!

[Adam K @TortsIllustrtd]

This is everything right with sports

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

Kakav comeback season, bravo dobri moj 🖤

[St. Louis Cardinals @Cardinals]

The first HOME RUN DERBY CHAMPION in franchise history 🏆

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

❤❤❤

[All Fútbol MX 🇲🇽 @AllFutbolMX]

🤯🇺🇸 OFFICIAL: 'Ted Lasso' star, CRISTO FERNANDEZ, has officially made his debut for El Paso Locomotive.

The Mexican actor has fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional footballer.

"FOOTBALL IS LIFE". ❤️👏🏼

[Hater Report @HaterReport]

Bronny: “Dad I can’t believe we’re leaving the Lakers”

LeBron:

[Saša Milićević @_s47e]

WADE BALDWIN 🤯

[Zlatan Ibrahimović @Ibra_official]

The studio will never forget