Tuesdays with Brownie: More nets or more stretchers, it's MLB's choice

(A weekly look at the players, teams, trends, up-shoots and downspouts shaping the 2015 season.)

They carried two more fans out of major league ballparks this weekend, and still no nets.

Grown men sat behind dugouts staring at their phones, and still no nets.

Women turned to speak to the people behind them, and still no nets.

Little boys and girls became engrossed in the last couple dabs of ice cream at the bottom of tiny baseball helmets.

No nets.

Then again, if exit velocity has taught us anything, it's that there can be no defense against an angry foul ball beyond sheer luck. And then heaven help the guy in the next row you've screened out.

(Hey, I want a clean, unobstructed view, too. Instead I get the Angel Stadium press box.)

So, a couple more fans had their days at the ballpark – one in Detroit, the other at Wrigley Field – end early and violently. And countless line drives entered crowded stands that caused the batter, the pitcher, the catcher and anyone else paying attention to stiffen in fear and wonder if that would be the next baseball that knocks out the next fan.

Still no nets.

What are the chances, right? For a hundred-and-some years people have skipped to their seats expecting a wonderful day and trudged out having experienced exactly that. And now – today – we decide it's dangerous and time to protect those folks who either don't care or have accepted the risk? Well, yeah. Is it happening more often or – through MLB Extra Innings and the Internet – do we just hear about it more often? I don't know. Is one stretcher in Boston enough to make a change? How about two in the same weekend in other cities?

Let's say it would be an overreaction, because a few fans were injured among the hundreds of thousands who attended games. And there's no protecting them now. Then why don't we make this about the next fan, the one who won't see the ball coming? Who can't evade the broken bat through all the arms and heads and confusion?

Let's save him. Or her. Then everybody could text and socialize and finish their ice cream.

If my heart bleeds too freely for you on this topic, then how about Justin Verlander's? Nick Castellanos'? Brad Ausmus'?

They're Detroit Tigers. They watched one of those fans get carried out of their ballpark on Friday night. They want more nets.

The only other solution? More stretchers.

He's got mad hops
Josh Donaldson, baseball player and pretty fair athlete, on the Thursday before dismantling the Angels went to a sports science laboratory, where experts measured his physical capabilities. Among them, his vertical leap.

According to Donaldson (and a witness), he recorded a jump of 36 inches.

"They told me I tied Odell Beckham Jr.," Donaldson said. "I don't know if that's true or not."

Thirty-six is a big number for a 6-foot third baseman in a sport where the jumping is generally limited to the outfield fence or a no-hitter celebration. The highest vertical leaps in May's NBA draft combine were in the mid to low 40s. According to wholly unconfirmed Internet musings, Michael Jordan topped out at 48 inches, LeBron James at 44 and Kobe Bryant at 38. The best verticals in the past NFL combine were in the 43-44 range.

Though I'm sure the last eight inches against gravity are the toughest, Donaldson, at almost 30 years old, was not that far from those.

[Play a Daily Fantasy Baseball contest for cash today!]

I shared the news of the 36-inch vertical, along with the Beckham comp, with Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. He smiled, arched an eyebrow and said, "He tell you that?"

Well, yeah, he did.

Gibbons laughed before relenting.

"He's like one of those guys who's good at everything," he said. "But he works at it. It doesn't just happen."

Then Gibbons went on about how good of a high school football player Donaldson was, even dropping references to "receiving records or something," which brought a single cool response from the crowd in his office:

"He tell you that?"

Stroman ready to return?
Read Marcus Stroman's Twitter timeline and you get the sense the Blue Jays could be adding a certain big and rested arm in September.

"Onward and upward," the Toronto pitcher reported.

"Closer and closer," he promised.

A day after CC Sabathia limped off a mound in the Bronx, Stroman took the ball for a simulated game in Florida, and just as the Yankees and Blue Jays appeared headed for a six-week season that could determine the AL East champion and the play-in mope.

Stroman's blown ACL in spring training appeared to irreparably damage the Blue Jays' season before it began. Turned out, not true. The Blue Jays played just well enough to warrant reinforcements, which netted David Price and Troy Tulowitzki, which, along with a lot of other things that went well, netted 19 wins in 23 games. That got their season back, along with a reason to look in on the rehab of Stroman, who wasn't supposed to pitch again until next spring.

Well, the knee appears to have healed ahead of schedule and, after a couple simulated games and minor-league rehab starts, we might be looking at the difference between first and second in the division. Stroman, who had a 3.65 ERA in 130⅔ innings as a rookie in 2014, could start or, it seems more likely, pitch out of the bullpen.

"He's moving that way," Gibbons said. "We haven't written him off."

Frankly, Gibbons said, "I'm shocked."

Tweeted Stroman on Monday: "Big things ahead."

Angels at a crossroads
The counter to all the good news and good results for Toronto is whatever game the Angels are playing right now, along with where it has left them. If they did anything right in a three-game series against the Blue Jays it wasn't evident. This, of course, while the Astros were playing just well enough to beat the Dodgers three times, so as far as a late-August series goes it was about as destructive as it gets.

The news could be getting worse for the Angels, too, because they have been an atrocious road team (24-34 record, 4.42 ERA) and their next nine games are out there (albeit against two last-place teams and one that might as well be), and they return to Anaheim for series against Texas, the Dodgers and Houston.

How a fifth dark October (should it come to that) in six seasons would play with the owner could be one of the more interesting stories of the winter. In the game of who runs what in regard to organizational philosophy and direction, the manager would appear to be undefeated. And the owner tends to make rash decisions. The next general manager will be the club's fifth since 2007, if you count Bill Stoneman twice. And the Angels haven't won a playoff game since 2009.

Ownership does not seem to be in the mood for one of those president/baseball operations jobs so popular today, which means the next general manager could be asked to think more like  than himself, else things become a little dysfunctional again. Or, presumably, Arte Moreno could restart with a different manager, three years (and $18 million) before Scioscia's contract expires. Scioscia can opt out of that contract after the season and likely have options. The offseason could see top-step turnover on as many as 10 teams.

So, turmoil could be coming.

Or, Mike Trout and Albert Pujols could start hitting again, the rotation could tighten up and the Angels could win some road games over the next six weeks.

One or the other.

Here's the thing about the Mets …
Three pitches into the ninth game of his season, the first three big-league pitches he'd looked over since April 14, David Wright on Monday night hit a ball into the second deck in Philadelphia. The Mets hit plenty of home runs upon Wright's return, and an offense that spent four months meekly has (with the aid of a trip to Colorado) become presentable in August. They lead the NL East by 5½ games over the lukewarm Nationals and so are officially into the they-better-win-or-be-cast-as-chokers part of their New York experience. Sometimes it's better just to be scrappy or chippy and win that way, but the Mets at this point can't be choosy. Bottom line, the NL East is theirs to have.

Where it gets complicated, and the irony gets thick here, is if they'll have enough pitching to get there. And if they get there, if they'll have enough pitching left to do something once there.

Rookie Logan Verrett filled in for Matt Harvey on Sunday. He was terrific. He'll probably have to fill in for Noah Syndergaard in the coming weeks. And the Mets likely aren't done covering for Harvey, who is at 154⅓ innings and is operating under a cap – hard or soft, depending on to whom one speaks – of 185 innings. The Mets are looking at six-man rotations, skipped starts and all other reasonable ideas for a season that is going surprisingly well, but perhaps at the expense of the long-term well being of the reasons the season is going so surprisingly well.

Adding to the angst, manipulations such as innings limits post-Tommy John or for very young arms are, generally, theoretical. There are very smart people – scientists, surgeons – who pull these strings, and yet nobody knows for sure what happens to Matt Harvey if he throws 185 innings or 210. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.

All of which is to say, it's a good thing David Wright is back, and hitting already.