Maybe they’re just getting in the spirit of the season - Arrested Development is airing new episodes this Sunday on Netflix, after all - but somehow, the Kansas City Royals’ TV crew let the image above pass by as a ‘trivia question’. 

Despite, of course, the completely nonsensical nature of the entire thing.

As Awful Announcing documented:

1) There is no such major league player as Bryce Hunter.

2) Bryce Harper plays for the Nationals and a Tigers logo appears beside him.

3) Matt Jones was a quarterback at Arkansas or is the guy that runs Kentucky Sports Radio.  He is not an MLB pitcher.  That’s a guy named Matt Harvey.

4) Harvey plays for the Mets, not the Orioles.

5) Manny Machado does play for the Orioles, and yes that is his real name… and a White Sox logo appears next to him.  So close!

6) Mike Trout is not a member of the Yankees… yet.

Yikes.

2013 has been a rough season for the Giants’ Ryan Vogelsong - and it’ll be rougher now that he’s expected to miss at least six weeks after leaving tonight’s game with what the team called a ‘fractured right hand’. He sustained the injury mid-swing while batting. 

Chronicle staff writer Susan Slusser, filling in on the Giants beat for tonight’s game against the Nationals, wrote in her in-game article that Voelsong’s wife Nicole tweeted the following:

Ryan has a dislocated joint in the pinky finger of his pitching hand. It’s broken above & below finger. Surgery tomorrow, out 6 weeks.

As Slusser noted, you have to consider rehab time when dealing with pitcher injuries - so he might take a bit longer than 6 weeks to return to the Giants’ rotation.

Ken Rosenthal wrote an intriguing piece tonight for Fox Sports alleging that Dodgers manager Don Mattingly could be fired as early as tomorrow.

The piece, dramatically titled “Ax to fall soon for LA’s Mattingly”, paints a particularly ominous picture of the scene befalling Donnie Baseball and Magic Johnson’s underachieving Dodgers, who sit at 17-25, in last place in the N.L. West after being swept by the Braves this weekend.

The most interesting part of the article:

I got a text from a rival scout, one who has no particular insight into the Dodgers, but is attuned — like so many in the sport — to the game’s day-to-day rhythms.

“Making the call — Donnie Ballgame will get the axe tomorrow,” the scout said.

In watching the Dodgers pretty regularly (since I live down here in L.A.) throughout the early season, Mattingly clearly has some flaws as a manager - he makes curious pitching decisions (like leaving Clayton Kershaw in for 132 pitches but removing Zack Greinke the next day after only tossing 82 and flip-flopping Kenley Jansen and Brandon League from closer to 8th inning guy and back again at random), says confusing things after games (like saying he felt “better” about the team after they were swept by the Giants) and generally just doesn’t seem to have the “fire” necessary to guide a team like the Dodgers to success.

Of course, it’s easy to speculate based on what we see on TV - we’re not in the clubhouse, we don’t actually physically speak with Mattingly - and yet it just doesn’t seem like he’s capable of getting the job done.

It will be interesting to see if he lasts this week - Rosenthal’s piece is pretty detailed and definitely makes it seem as if his days are numbered.

With the Dodgers mired in last place despite their eleventy billion dollar payroll, something has to give - and it makes sense for Mattingly to be the one to suffer the first major consequence of the team’s poor play.

Lefty Jonathan Sanchez, who pitched a no-hitter for the San Francisco Giants back in 2009 (doesn’t that seem absurd now!), will apparently be given another shot at big-league success by the pitching-starved Los Angeles Dodgers.

Magic Johnson’s squad agreed to a minor-league deal with the pitcher this week, and has an opt-out clause that he can exercise by July 1st if he isn’t called up to the majors. 

The Dodgers just got Zack Greinke back in the rotation, and the 1-2-3 punch of Clayton Kershaw, Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu couldbe somewhat formidable if they all stay healthy. It’s unclear at this point if the team would presumably use Sanchez as a starter, but it’s also kind of hard to imagine him being very productive anymore.

Stranger things HAVE happened, though…

Anthony Rizzo is having quite a great season so far (.280, 9 HRs and 28 RBIs) for the Chicago Cubs - and as his reward, he was given a 7-year, $41M deal yesterday.

If the current play of Rizzo is any indication, he’s destined for star status - so Theo Epstein & Company were pretty smart to lock him into a Cubs uniform for the forseeable future.

Nice move, Cubs…