A minor league team came back from a 16-run deficit to win last night - MLB

Via Deadspin comes a story of the Class-A Clinton Lumber Kings finding themselves down 17-1 after five innings and coming back to win 20-17:

There’s never really a bad time to score 19 unanswered runs. But trailing 17-1 after five innings, the timing of the LumberKings—a Mariners affiliate—couldn’t have been much better. Six in the sixth, five each in the eighth and ninth, and three in 12th adds up to a comeback for the ages. And all somehow wrapped up in a tidy three hours and 28 minutes!

That’s pretty trippy — Deadspin links to the radio call of the game, which is a lot of fun — but I think this is pretty significant in the world of the Unwritten Rules too. After all, the next time someone gets huffy about someone trying to lay down a bunt for a hit or steal a base in a blowout, can we not point to this game and say that no lead is safe? I mean, sure, no big league team is likely to be quite the choke artists the Burlington Bees proved to be last night, but the old saying about how I’ll stop trying to win when you do seems to be the best policy, always.

CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”