(USA Today)

What does it take for Aroldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds to blow a save for a second consecutive appearance?

How about Chapman being bloated from binging on "18," he said, of the yummiest Cuban pastries anyone could stuff in their face Sunday before the Reds faced the Phillies? And it was one of the Phillies announcers, also a Cuban expatriate, who sabotaged Chapman by bringing him the goodies!

That's the story Phillies' Spanish-language broadcaster Rickie Ricardo told the 94-FM WIP morning show Monday. Friends with Ricardso since he came to the U.S., Chapman had asked him to pick up two boxes (100 total) of flaky Cuban pastries filled with cream cheese and guava from a place down in Union City, N.J. — described by Ricardo as a "Cuban stronghold." Two or three of these things would clog your arteries and send you into a food coma. Only, Chapman didn't stop at two or three, Ricardo said:

“Could you imagine cream cheese and guava on a baked pastry? Well Chapman asked me for a box of 100, two boxes of 50. When I saw him on Sunday morning before the game, he was in the clubhouse, he had just eaten about 18 of them. He couldn’t breathe! I looked at my partner, I said, ‘he’s ripe for the taking today.”

The "Ripe Guava," or the "Flaky Pastry," is now the Philadelphia nickname for Chapman, who had come in with a 2.41 ERA with 30 strikeouts in 18 1/3 innings.

(St. Louis Cardinals)

Well, it's happened. Soccer finally has taken over the heart of the United States. The rest of the world's favourite sport is coming to Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Thursday and it is flattening the pitcher's mound in order to make it happen.

With the host baseball team having vacated the stadium on a road trip, Manchester City and Chelsea of the English Premiere League move in to play a "friendly" (exhibition) on the same field where David Freese won a car for leading the St. Louis Cardinals to a World Series championship in 2011.

EPL's season ended Sunday, with Man City and Chelsea taking second and third, respectively, in league play. So these are two of the best teams in the world, a good matchup for the first soccer game of any sort in Busch Stadium III history.

But, as fans of soccer would tell you, big mounds of dirt and clay on the pitch aren't conducive to a good showcase, so the pitcher's mound has to go, as does a layer of dirt elsewhere on the infield. The Cardinals tweeted a photo of work being done to that end Monday. Of course, they'll put the mound back in time for the Cardinals' return (right? RIGHT?). Hey, the crew in St. Louis used to be expert at knocking down the pitcher's mound at Busch Stadium II for the St. Louis Football Cardinals. The mound always went back up, did it not?

But the rest of the field's condition will depend on the weather. It's supposed to rain a lot before Thursday which, MLB.com reports, could lead to more divots being left behind. That worries some fans:

(MLB.tv)

A trip to the MLB Fan Cave in New York City to play Wiffle ball must have been fun enough for 13-year-old Nick D'Annibale, a seventh grader who happens to also be a survivor of leukemia. Just getting a chance to play in the street, semi-Willie Mays-style — to hit and pitch, with other baseball fans — some 18 months after being diagnosed, that alone made for a happy Friday.

And then the ice cream van showed up, announcing its presence with the appropriate music box soundtrack. Car! Ice cream delay — those are the best.

But then, instead of the Ice Cream Man, none other than Robinson Cano popped out of the van, wearing the same No. 24 that D'Annibale wore on his back.

"I thought it was just going to be ice cream," D'Annibale said.

On his own free time before the New York Yankees hosted the Blue Jays in the Bronx, Cano played Wiffle ball in the street with D'Annibale and the Fan Cave Dwellers.

"I love Robinson Cano and he's one of the best second basemen in the league," D'Annibale said.

Cano and D'Annibale traded swings, with the Yankees star giving a high-five and saying, "Whoa, you're better than me!"

And the kid, who sports a Roger Maris 1961 haircut, did seem to put some good swings on the ball. Watch.

How is Taiwan ever going to repay the Western Hemisphere for Manny Ramirez?

As Manny continues to hit like Manny, (he has seven home runs), he also provides Taiwan's nightly news with hysterical video clips. Now, it's hard to tell what is happening in this clip in total because of the language barrier and the overgrown graphics that make CNN or ESPN on NFL Draft day look spartan by comparison. It must be like "Blade Runner" in Tapei City.

But here's the gist of Manny's Moonwalk:

(Getty, BLS Illustration)

Comparing pitchers by their individual won-loss record isn't useful, usually. First off, pitchers don't complete games like they used to — not even close — so the statistic lacks much of its former meaning. Besides, there are many other, better stats to go by when measuring how well someone pitches. However, when the name Babe Ruth is evoked, it's fun just to take a look anyway.

Such is the case with Matt Moore of the Tampa Bay Rays, who Sunday became the youngest left-hander, at 23 years old, to start a season 8-0 since Ruth did so at age 22 for the Boston Red Sox in 1917. (It's also fun to remind ourselves that Ruth was once a dominant pitcher, as well, before he became the Sultan of Swat.)

Moore also set a franchise record by winning his ninth straight decision overall, edging teammate David Price.

''Historically speaking, it's been wonderful,'' Rays manager Joe Maddon said of Moore's season.

Looking beyond the record, has Moore outpitched the Babe? In many ways, yes:

(MLB.tv)

Jeff Keppinger of the Chicago White Sox had gone 0 for the 2013 season when it came to drawing a walk, until he finally took a pitch for ball four in his 141st plate appearance Thursday night. Keppinger's timing, if not his frequency, was terrific. His walk against Michael Kohn came with the bases loaded in the eighth inning against the Los Angeles Angels and forced in the go-ahead run. The White Sox won 5-4.

The walk was the third in a row issued by Kohn, who threw 12 of his final 14 pitches out of the strike zone.

''It seemed like their guy just lost it there,'' Keppinger said.

Hey, it happens, not that Keppinger has taken advantage much. He was the last player in the majors having at least 30 plate appearances to draw a walk this season. He beat Jarrod Dyson of the Royals (42 plate appearances) by one day.

Historically speaking, Keppinger drawing a base on balls has not been comparable, in lack of frequency, to Juan Pierre hitting a home run. Keppinger has drawn 180 walks in 2,846 plate appearances during his career. It's not a lot of walks, but it's one every 15.8 trips, which is more often than Pierre's pauses of 450 trips per dinger. He walked 51 times in 2010. It's in him.

Drawing a walk should be easier to do for any major leaguer, simply by happenstance, than hitting a home run. Other than the Kansas City Royals, nobody walks less as a team than the White Sox, and it's one of the reasons they're 18-21 coming into Friday. So it's not all Keppinger's fault — there's some kind of groupthink going on with the White Sox, whose batting coach Jeff Manto has never expressed much appreciation for how drawing walks can help an offense. The team's manager didn't seem all that gung-ho about seeing Keppinger be so selective, either.

There's a lot to like about the catch the fan at Yankee Stadium makes in the video above. He's wearing a glove, which some people don't like, but they're wrong. There's no way he makes the catch without it. And a foul ball must have been unexpected, because the batter, Chris Stewart, was a right-handed hitter. Rarely do right-handed hitters put foul balls where the fan was sitting. Way to be on your toes, literally and figuratively.

He also makes an all-out effort to catch the ball, slamming his left arm and full torso into the rows of seats behind him. Terrific grit. And, ouch. As Mike Blowers of the Seattle Mariners broadcast team says, "He's going to feel that in the morning."

No matter, because this guy got PUMPED. Primal screams, forceful high-fives, likely bro hugs (off camera). He was proud of himself, as he should have been. There was nothing nonchalant about it. David Cone, part of the YES Mystery Wheel of New York Yankees TV broadcasters, said the catch was "Like Derek Jeter in the playoffs a few years back." I think he's referring to the catch Jeter made against the A's in the 2001 playoffs. Or it could have been the one against the Red Sox in July 2004.

Well, the guy didn't appear to draw blood, and Jeter had a longer way to run, and almost everything he does has a nonchalance about it — that's one of the reasons he's Jeter — but it's an OK comparison for live television, and it probably crossed the mind of a viewer or two, as well, that it might be Jeter-like. I don't have a problem with the fan's catch, anything about it, except for the jersey the guy was wearing.

Oh, no, Mo. (MLB.tv)

Does that look like a licensed Mariano Rivera jersey to you?

I don't like the font of the No. 42. Seems off. I don't like the color. It's too light. Even the pinstripes. It's not even close to what the Yankees wear on the field. I'm afraid we're going to have to eject this young man, nullify his catch and confiscate his ball because of obvious jersey violations.

Now, the same thing goes for the guy next to him in the Bernie Williams replica jersey, but for another reason. While the color is right, and the font is right, the Yankees don't put their names on their jerseys ever (even though this one appears to be licensed by MLB). Sorry, son, you're going to have to leave too.

What an unfortunate ending to what seemed an inspiring story.

Not only might LSU senior Raph Rhymes have the greatest full name in college baseball — he was born Raphael Ray Rhymes IV — but he's a good ballplayer and quite a tumbler.

Against dreaded rivals Ole Miss on Thursday, he got to show off his myriad skills during a nationally televised game on ESPNU. Thanks in part to an unsuccessful dive by Ole Miss outfielder Auston Bousfield (another great name), Rhymes scooted around the bases for an inside-the-park home run in the bottom of the sixth inning. It wasn't a clean scoot, though, because catcher Stuart Turner — who was trying to field a relay throw simultaneously — flipped him head-over-heels, with Rhymes landing on his left side (his hip appeared to absorb most of the impact) a few feet in front of home plate. The throw got away and Rhymes got to his feet quickly but it didn't matter, because the umpire awarded him home due to Turner obstructing the plate.

The sequence took about 18 seconds, for you Tater Trot Trackers.

It was a heck of a way to earn four bases for Rhymes, who comes into Friday batting .351/.419/.473 with four homers after he led the country in hitting in 2012. Rhymes, 23, has been drafted twice by major league teams, most recently by the Yankees in the 30th round a year ago. On Twitter, Rhymes did not preclude the possibility of doing more gymnastics in the future: