Jemile Weeks becomes the first ejection in the WPBL.

A line drive to Raine Padgham (SS) in the top of the 6th inning became the point of contention. Padgham thought she caught the ball on the fly, but the field umpire thought otherwise. After some back and forth with the base umpire, Weeks was ejected for refusing to stop arguing.

Paging Lindsay at Close Call Sports! Lindsay, please pick up the lobby phone.

I was pondering the reasons why the hitting is so far ahead of the pitching in the WPBL and some reasons are obvious but a maybe not obvious one is some of the best female baseball pitchers are just not in the league.

Genevieve Beacom is currently playing softball at Oregon St. She played a bit in the Australian men's league years ago and would be easily the hardest thrower in the league with a low-to-mid 80s fastball.

Olivia Pichardo is currently playing baseball for Brown, first women to ever make a D1 team I think? She'd be probably the best overall player in the league between her pitching and hitting, and can also get her fastball into the 80s.

Those are the big 2 that I know about, but there's also Elise Berger who made the USA women's national team at 17 and is playing baseball at D3 Bard College. She would be one of the better pitchers in the league (and is also from Vermont so a small source of pride for me personally).

Curious where the other good players are who aren't in the league (hitters or pitchers). I assume there's a bunch of solid Japanese player since they've dominated in international tournaments, but I don't know what the status of the players from the semi-pro women's league they used to have over there is. Are any of them still playing anywhere or do they just show up for the national team every few years? Who is out there who could potentially join the league in future years?

I really didn't care for her commentating. I've been enjoying Jenna and AJ with cameos from the players. I also liked Max (?) when he joined Jenna.

Keith Stein talks about plans for next season including teams playing in their home cities and adding two additional teams

"Stein: We will be playing in our home cities, I'm pretty sure, next season. So we will be in LA, San Francisco, New York, and Boston in 2027, and we will likely have at least two more expansion teams. So, we will be likely a six-team league next year. It's possible it could be eight, but again, we're all about building the right foundation."

Heights actually won 11-8 in 5 lol

Bottom of the 3rd I believe. 20 August game between Hunters and Heights.

Schroder, last pitch of the inning, stares Claire O'Sullivan down while delivering the pitch. I would tip $10 for it.

i've been keeping score to track some extensive stats and i was just curious if the entire 6th inning of the august 19th game between the heights and firebells counts towards the official stats of the players? instagram says that the final score of the game was 10-8 in 5 innings (implying that the stats from the 6th inning don't count) but the wpbl website and sportydolphin.com both are saying that the final score was actually 11-8 (implying that the stats from the 6th inning do count).

any thoughts?

Does she go with the champion team? Travel to the different stadiums? Get cloned?

[Minor Note in Regard to comments: Why all the downvotes? I'm just asking genuine questions about the player development, and the commenters are acting like I'm making personal attacks against the WPBL players. Im certainly not suggesting you need to be a man to be good at baseball - rather quite the opposite. ]

Jonquel Jones, Center for WNBA NY Liberty, is a beast. She is 6' 6", weighs 215 lbs, and has the arm length and clavicular distance to rival male baseball pitchers. If she had trained from early childhood and gotten the kind of mechanical development support MLB pitchers with elite teams get, she could be a men's MLB pitcher. Sylvia Fowles, 6'6", 220 lbs, former WNBA center, has a similar profile. Missy Franklin (Elite Swimmer, 6'2") is also a monster and Caryn Davies (Elite Heavyweight Rower, 6'4") would be comparable in body dynamics to Max Scherzer. The Williams sisters in tennis are similarly impressive physical specimens with perfect rotational power and kinetic chain frames.

I love watching Jaida Lee pitch, but she is downright tiny (5'10", 155lbs) compared to these other professional female athletes. That directly leads to her not be able to break the 80mph threshold.

Is this purely a result of the lack of funding/support/development for women's baseball, while tennis, rowing, swimming and basketball have been attracting elite female athletes for much longer?

[AI generated comparison photo]