The Ted Williams Shift used to be unique to one team and was only deployed against one batter. Now, in part thanks to big data, the shift is used by every team on almost every batter. FiveThirtyEight on why baseball revived a 60-year-old strategy designed to stop Ted Williams.

+ I’m am still recovering from PTSD after the SF Giants gave up a three run lead in the ninth inning and lost their series against the Cubs. I was at the game with my 10 year-old — who is much too young to have witnessed such a thing. But sometimes, as fans, we forget that the players are real people too. Of all the articles I read on the ninth inning collapse (and I read enough to have a PhD on the topic), this is the one that really hit me: Casilla weeps after being passed over in fateful ninth-inning collapse.