Immaculate Grid baseball: Answers, connections for Grid 90 (July 2)

Breaking down the July 2 Immaculate Grid baseball game with players and connections for Grid 90 that involve the Braves, Royals, Yankees, Dodgers, and a very prestigious group of pitchers. 

What’s a 14-letter word for the most addicting baseball game you’ve ever played? Immaculate Grid! Sunday, July 2 marks the 90th daily game for the grid-based MLB trivia game, and it features the Braves, Dodgers, Royals, and Yankees.

With so many legacy franchises in today’s grid, it should be easy, right?! That’s what I thought, and I ended up with four out of nine. I’m continually impressed with how shallow my baseball knowledge really is.

The right-most vertical grid is “won a Gold Glove” and the bottom horizontal grids are 300+ wins as a pitcher. That combination is interesting, because it gives very few options for the lower-left and lower-right grid today, so you need to be careful about how you use certain guesses. Options are limited.

Immaculate Grid 90: Top answers and connections for each square (July 2)

Here are the top answers for today’s game. Unsurprisingly, some modern names show up. Aroldis Chapman is an easy one to call out because he played for the Yankees right before the Royals, and was in the news this week because the Royals traded him to the Rangers.

Similarly, Joey Gallo is known as a recent Yankee and Dodger for all the wrong reasons.

Freddie Freeman is an established player who performed well for both the Braves and Dodgers, so no shock to see him show up there.

Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens obviously stick out for both the Yankees and Braves, so they take up three squares in total between the two of them. Keep in mind, though, in your own game, you can only use each player once, and Maddux can easily get you in a bind if you use him for the bottom-left.

• Royals/Braves: Jorge Soler (45%)
• Royals/Yankees: Aroldis Chapman (37%)
• Royals/Gold Glove winner: Alex Gordon (28%)
• Dodgers/Braves: Freddie Freeman (55%)
• Dodgers/Yankees: Joey Gallo (34%)
• Dodgers/Gold Glove winner: Mookie Betts (58%)
• Braves/300+ wins as a pitcher: Greg Maddux (44%)
• Yankees/300+ wins as a pitcher: Roger Clemens (70%)
• 300+ wins as a pitcher/Gold Glove winner: Greg Maddux (80%)

5 players who played for Royals and Braves

I was kicking myself over not recalling Jeff Francoeur for today’s grid.

• Wally Joyner
• Bill Pecota
• Michael Tucker
• Jeff Francoeur
• Lonnie Smith

5 players who played for Royals and Yankees

Lots of recognizable names that played for both the Royals and the Yankees.

• Johnny Damon
• Carlos Beltran
• Lou Piniella
• Danny Tartabull
• Steve Balboni

5 players who played for Dodgers and Braves

Freddie Freeman, of course, sticks out, but here he is along with four other options for crossover between these two teams:

• Freddie Freeman
• Johnny Cooney
• Rafael Furcal
• Red Smith
• Jason Heyward

5 players who played for Dodgers and Yankees

The Dodgers and Yankees have had quite a bit of crossover over the years. I forgot about Curtis Granderson playing for the Dodgers:

• Gary Sheffield
• Darryl Strawberry
• Steve Sax
• Curtis Granderson
• Bobby Abreu

5 players who played for Royals and won Gold Glove

Benintendi and Perez join some legends on this list:

• Eric Hosmer
• Andrew Benintendi
• Frank White
• Amos Otis
• Salvador Perez

5 players who played for Dodgers and won Gold Glove

Lots of recognizable names here, including the top answer of Betts and current Astros manager Dusty Baker.

• Mookie Betts
• Greg Maddux
• Steve Finley
• Dusty Baker
• John Roseboro

Players who won 300+ games pitching

This is a rare feat in general. Here’s a full listing of every player who has achieved it:

• Cy Young
• Walter Johnson
• Grover Cleveland Alexander
• Christy Mathewson
• Pud Galvin
• Warren Spahn
• Kid Nichols
• Greg Maddux
• Roger Clemens
• Tim Keefe
• Steve Carlton
• John Clarkson
• Eddie Plank
• Nolan Ryan
• Don Sutton
• Phil Niekro
• Gaylord Perry
• Tom Seaver
• Charles Radbourn
• Mickey Welch
• Tom Glavine
• Randy Johnson
• Early Wynn
• Lefty Grove

Players with 300+ wins pitching and a Gold Glove

This is one of the rarest grids I’ve seen. There are, as far as I can tell, only three possible options here.

• Greg Maddux
• Phil Niekro
• Steve Carlton

So, if you use Maddux for the left-bottom square, you’d have to know Niekro or Carlton to get the other one.