This week in baseball: New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is on an early season tear, with a .423 batting average, 11 homers and 14-game hitting streak. Toronto Blue Jays moved three-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Max Scherzer to the injured reserved list, and Minnesota Twins reactivated third baseman Royce Lewis. Also, John Oliver has jokes.

Oliver — a British comedian, former “The Daily Show” correspondent and current host of HBO’s faux news series “Last Week Tonight” — riffed on minor league baseball to close out his show’s May 4 episode, which was mostly deportation-themed.

He started the minor league bit by listing some humorous team names: Hub City Spartanburgers (a Texas Rangers affiliate), Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Miami Marlins), Modesto Nuts (Seattle Mariners), Richmond Flying Squirrels (San Francisco Giants), Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Philadelphia Phillies), and Binghamton Rumble Ponies (New York Mets).

Oliver explained why minor league teams need to excel at publicity to be profitable. “While their player contracts are handled by major league teams,” he said, “they’re responsible for many other operating costs which can be significant. So, they go out of their way to try to grab people’s attention, starting with eye-catching team names.”

The show then cut to a 2022 “CBS Saturday Morning” report on Madison, Alabama’s Rocket City Trash Pandas, a Los Angeles Angels affiliate, in which a marketer noted the team sold $2.3 million of merchandise before the Trash Pandas even played a game. Despite ownership’s doubts about a team name with the word “trash” in it.

“Of course you did,” Oliver said. “I cannot believe that ownership group fought that group for a single second. Because if you told me, ‘My idea for making people buy things is to put a racoon in a trash can rocket ship,’ my first second and third reaction would be, ‘Good idea. You’re about to be billionaire.’ Because you can’t not buy merch like that once you know it exists.”

Oliver reached down behind his desk and retrieved a blue Trash Pandas cap. He slapped the cap on his head and exclaimed, “Go Trash Pandas! TPs for life!”

The host segued from minor league team names to the teams’ wacky promotions, including the Boston Red Sox affiliate Lowel Spinners’ Bubble Wrap Night in which 3,700 fans popped bubble wrap at the same time. Cleveland Indians affiliate Lake County Captains were noted for a promotion where toilets were used for a section of seating at a game.

Another promotion involved San Francisco giants affiliate Eugene Emeralds occasionally playing games under another name, Exploding Whales. That move, a reference to a locally infamous 1970 beach cleanup effort that went horribly wrong, tripled the franchise’s merch sales that season.

However, Oliver criticized some other “boringly named” minor league teams for “not pulling their weight.” He singled out the Worchester Red Sox and Iowa Cubs, merely named after their major league parent clubs, as an example. Oliver also said “first thought” names like Blue Jays affiliate Buffalo Bisons and Twins farm club St. Paul Saints were “pretty disappointing.” Without an eccentric or outlandish team name to boost merch and ticket sales, he said these teams were “leaving money on the table.”

Oliver then made an offer from “Last Week Tonight” to minor league team front offices: “We are willing to use all of our resources and stupidity to give one minor league baseball team a total rebrand. We will give you a new team name, a new mascot, we will even throw you a theme night. It will be personalized, and it will be bespoke.”

He added, “I promise, we will put just as much time, energy and research into this as we do exposing the dark underbelly of America’s criminal justice system – arguably more. And we will do this in the spirit of your team, city and the league to which you belong.” Interested teams can apply via email to [email protected].

Past “Last Week Tonight” episodes have touched on Alabama subjects including Governor Kay Ivey and Brookside Police Department.