The Perils of Perception
The Padres throw a shutout in the cold rain of Pittsburgh, Michigan closes the book on a dominant college basketball season, SDSU stars enter the transfer portal & Angel Reese gets traded to Atlanta.
I think a lot about whether or not I’m crazy. It’s usually under the banner of perception. I’ll provide two examples.
First, Germán Márquez pitched a really good game against the Pittsburgh Pirates yesterday. Five scoreless innings is pretty much exactly what you’re hoping from for your #5 starter.
The start came just a day or two after reports that the Padres thought Márquez had been tipping his pitches (tipping multiple pitches), which seemed like a convenient way to explain the terrible first start of the season for Germán.
So, were they right? Was the difference between a good outing and a bad one for Márquez that he was tipping his pitches? How long has it been going on? Did the Padres just stumble onto an incredible value by figuring this out? Will Márquez be able to capture any of his past glory with the Colorado Rockies?
OR are the Pirates just bad? Did Márquez get lucky a few times, including with some baserunning blunders by Pittsburgh, when wriggling his way out of jams? Was the rain a factor? Was Márquez just sharper in his second outing, like Nick Pivetta? Is Ruben Niebla a wizard? I guess we’ll have to wait to find out. It’s impossible to know.
In a similar vein, the men’s college basketball championship game was last night. It, along with most of the rest of the tournament, felt like a real let-down from where I sit. Outside of the end of the Duke-UConn game, I just didn’t feel or see a lot of buzz around any of the players or teams.
It seemed like the prevailing thought of this year’s slate of men’s college basketball was “Michigan is much better than everyone else,” so I am at least glad that it ended with Michigan proving that point. Still, I didn’t watch much of the championship game last night.
Was the lack of interest that I felt the result of SDSU not being in the tournament for the first time in a while? Or has NIL turned basketball into a top-heavy sport the same way that college football operates? It felt like there were a lot more blowouts than game-winning shots in this year’s tournament.
According to the TV ratings leading up to last night’s game, there’s more interest around this year’s tournament than any since 1993. That’s amazing! Is the reason that I didn’t feel it because Arizona is the closest thing we got to a west coast representative in the Sweet Sixteen and beyond? Were the numbers juiced by a very large Michigan alumni? I have no idea! I also think TV ratings are a pretty terrible way to gauge interest.
So, again, it’s hard to know. Things could be one way for one reason, a different reason, or many reasons. The beauty is finding comfort, relishing even, the not knowing. It’s what keeps us coming back to sports day after day, year after year, looking to still be surprised after a lifetime of learning.
Now, onto the links…
San Diego Padres
Breaking down Padres’ shutout of Bucs -- starting with Márquez - MLB.com
After a dud of a Padres debut, Germán Márquez was much, much better on Monday night. He pitched five scoreless innings, striking out four and walking one. The Pirates managed six hits -- and proceeded to help Márquez with some poor baserunning. But that doesn’t change the fact: This was a different Márquez.
Padres Daily: Just like they said; Morgan’s trouble play; more lineup tinkering - San Diego Union-Tribune
Last night, the Padres had 11 hits and walked five times in a 5-0 victory over the Pirates. The day before, they had 12 hits and walked three times in an 8-6 victory over the Red Sox.
The first of their three consecutive victories that has them at .500 for the first time this season was Saturday. It wasn’t as overt of an offensive success, but the Padres had some sensational at-bats while seeing a season-high 167 pitches and getting seven hits and walking five times in that night’s 3-2 win.
Mark Grant Tackles a Challenging Career Quiz - FanGraphs
I began by asking the pitcher-turned-broadcaster which batter he faced the most times.
“It would have to be Dale Murphy,” replied Grant, nailing the correct answer almost immediately. “He should be in the Hall of Fame. Two-time MVP. Opposite-field pop. Knew the strike zone. A lot of people don’t know that he came up as a catcher before transitioning to the outfield. Really good athlete. Great guy. I played with him in Atlanta and he was a good teammate. Definitely a threat at the plate. You had to be really careful when you were facing him.”
Informed that Murphy was also the batter that he logged the most strikeouts against, Grant responded, “Really?”
College basketball
Michigan, dominant all season, takes down UConn for first national championship since 1989 - The Athletic
It was enough to carry Michigan to the very end, a dominant, bullying, machine-like tear that muscled through one final test. Monday’s win was not an offensive work of art from a squad that became the first to score 90-plus points in five straight tournament games. The Wolverines shot just 2-for-15 from 3-point range, but the size, depth and physicality was too much for a resilient UConn team to handle. Michigan limited the Huskies to 31 percent from the field and 27 percent from beyond the arc, while outscoring them by 14 points in the paint and going 25-for-28 on free throws.
After Yaxel Lendeborg’s ‘awful’ first half, his Michigan teammates lifted him up and the rest is history — ‘We needed Mad Yax, not Sad Yax’ - Yahoo Sports
Mad Yax finally showed up in the final six minutes of Monday’s game as Michigan was trying to stave off a desperate UConn comeback. The 6-foot-9 do-it-all forward scored seven of his 13 total points over a span of 90 seconds, burying a 3-pointer, putting back his own miss and sinking a pair of free throws after drawing a foul to keep the Wolverines’ advantage at nine.
“We understood that he wasn’t 100% physically,” Burnett said. “I mean, he probably wasn’t even 50%, but he persevered for that though and he did whatever it took for his team to win. He sprinted through screens even though his body didn’t feel like going. That just shows you his selflessness, his selfless nature to give to this team and help us win a national championship.”
Stay or go: Decision day arrives for SDSU’s Magoon Gwath, Miles Heide and Pharaoh Compton - San Diego Union-Tribune
Part of Gwath’s decision may be his failing body and the realization that he might need to cash in now with a pro career not guaranteed. And the market for the scarce quantity of skilled 7-footers, especially after seeing a Final Four filled with them, is soaring.
Gwath arrived at SDSU three summers ago and was quickly found to have issues in both ankles, one of which required major reconstructive surgery that wiped out his first season. He developed into the Mountain West freshman and defensive player of the year before injuring his right knee late in the season that led to April surgery.
He was SDSU’s highest-paid player in 2025-26, so much that the program’s fundraisers are believed to have dipped into the 2026-27 kitty to keep him, but he spent much of it hobbled, first while still recovering from the surgery, then from a hip problem that cost him six games in the middle of the conference schedule.
Odds & Ends
A Vengeful Deity Is Smiting The Lakers - Defector
The team that had been deeded to Doncic by virtue of the Fleecing Of Nico suddenly reverted to its earlier LeBronian state after the 27-year-old and the 28-year-old had suddenly been removed. This left the 40-year-old, give or take the assistance of Deandre Ayton and the aforementioned 40-year-old’s adult son, to make April last into May. At this point, the Lakers’ chances cannot be viewed happily, as they may have already slipped from playing Minnesota in the first round with Doncic and Reaves to playing Denver without them.
The NBA’s 65-Game Rule Is Tanking Awards Season - The Ringer
There is a version of this column, of this NBA season, in which we would compare and contrast all this individual brilliance for the purpose of determining this season’s Most Valuable Player. There is surely a world, in some distant strand of the multiverse, where that debate is happily raging right now.
But this is not that world, and this is not that column.
No, in this particularly stupid strand of the multiverse, we’re being asked to pretend that Cunningham’s outstanding season never happened. We’re deleting Edwards and Doncic from our spreadsheets. We’re praying to the basketball gods that Jokic and Wembanyama don’t trip in the shower this week, for fear it might trigger their own erasure from the historic record.
The Chicago Sky Cost Themselves Angel Reese - Defector
The Chicago Sky were supposed to be getting a franchise building block when they drafted Angel Reese with the seventh overall pick of the 2024 draft. Instead they ended up with a player who didn’t even make it through her rookie deal. The Sky announced Monday morning that Reese had been traded to the Atlanta Dream, in exchange for two first-round picks and a second-round pick swap.
Dallas Stars ban fan after group made apparent Nazi salute at game - The Athletic
Social media users called attention to a video featuring a group of men who did the gesture to accompany the Stars’ goal song, “Puck Off” by the band Pantera. The video is from a Dec. 21 game featuring the Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Stars began an investigation into the video this month.
In a statement to The Athletic on Monday, an American Airlines Center spokesperson said the arena has “zero tolerance for any acts of hate and/or discrimination.”
Back with her team after taking a year off, Carlsbad’s Gabriela Nevarez is among San Diego’s best - San Diego Union-Tribune
Nevarez turned 18 on Sunday. She’s now a senior at Carlsbad, the No. 2-ranked team in the CIF San Diego Section. After sitting out her junior season to get faster, stronger and focus on the mental aspects of her game, she’s enjoying a remarkable final high school season.
Nevarez is hitting .605 (23-for-38), has scored 24 runs in 12 games and slugged a section-leading nine home runs. She hit a combined three home runs in her first two high school seasons.
“I’ve seen a lot of kids,” said Rico, who has coached for 36 years. “The first time I saw her swing a bat (at 15), I said, ‘She’s something special.’ Ken Griffey Jr. registered in my brain.”
AES withdraws Eden Valley battery project - North County Pipeline
Hundreds, if not thousands, of residents have expressed concerns for years, while the effort was spearheaded by JP Theberge, vice chair of the Harmony Grove and Elfin Forest Town Council. He described the defeat of the Seguro BESS as a rare example of a grassroots effort overcoming a well-funded corporate initiative.
AES retained a prominent lobbying and public affairs firm led by former San Diego City Councilman Jim Madaffer early in the process, who aggressively sought support from county and local officials, Theberge said. He characterized the effort as an attempt to normalize and fast-track what would have been one of the largest BESS facilities in the state, despite data and recent incidents putting the public at risk.