casimir

I wonder if the bigger variable for Flaherty is the upcoming collective bargaining session and how shopping his wares over that offseason seems less desirable than hitting free agency this offseason.

But you're good enough. You're smart enough. And I'm sure we can find somebody that likes you.

Maybe the success of pitching chaos and the pitching factory was much more fortunate than we imagined?

Its possible Harris sniffed around the idea of bringing Verlander back but the interest wasn't mutual.

Unfortunately, you're probably right. It'll be garbage to see it occur.

Come on, you couldn't have gone with "Even though Morton will strike out Soto to end the inning, his day will be done."?

I guess I don't look at the split season as a shot against tradition. Maybe subconsciously I do kind of parallel them together. I just look at the season as a whole measuring stick of teams. Teams will have ebbs and flows through the year. I don't want to see a team that goes 92-70 miss the playoffs in lieu of a team that goes 86-76 because they latter had a better half than the former. That should never happen. Its just like splitting up into too many divisions with too few teams. At some point a team with a losing record wins a weak division and makes the playoffs. Its happened in the NFL. It was going to happen in MLB before the strike in 1994 shut down the rest of the regular season and the postseason. A losing record should never make the playoffs over a winning record in a professional league.

Local cable just removed ESPN and FanDuel Detroit from its offerings.

I shan't disagree here.

Sommers can be gone.

Skubal at 92 pitches through 7. 4 run lead. If the Tigers stick to a 5 man rotation, he’d have a day off included before each of his next two starts (day off this Thurs, pitch this Sat, day off next Mon). Do you send him out for the 8th?

I bet Hinch & Company would rather just get this game over with no more scoring and get back to Detroit ASAP. Tomorrow’s game as @ 1pm.

I don’t think he touched it. Maybe “Whiff”?

Oh, come on, I’m not that insufferable…. I am surprised they didn’t try to get Manning’s mobility into the game a bit more. Maybe not necessarily as a primary running option, but maybe just moving the pocket around a bit more from side to side. Perhaps Manning’s media coverage is a bit overblown. I don’t fault him for that. He’s a sophomore starting the season in Columbus. That is a bit of a tall task. To his credit, he did call himself out for not playing well enough. I suspect he’ll still have a fine season and this will be used as a learning experience.

I’m against 1st half and 2nd half. A season is a season. And I want playoff teams based on best record, not fortunate geography.

I think I’m more comfortable with a Morton start than a Flaherty start right now.

Might be a little of both? There were two young quarterbacks on the field, and lots of talk about defenses being ahead of offenses at this time of the season. I like defense, so I liked watching it.

Yes, that’s a good point.

If the Tigers get swept, it’ll be a cute story about how West Sacramento took down the eventual World Series champions in an August series.

A 2 in one locale and a 3 in another. Flip ‘em every other year.

I have a wholly unqualified opinion that Greene’s body won’t last long enough for a long term deal to make sense.

Its surprising to me that only one number, 73, is currently unused.

LHP Drew Sommers to Detroit. No corresponding 26 or 40 move yet. Let the speculation begin.

5 games vs each of 24 teams in other divisions = 120 games. 6 games vs each of 7 other teams within same division = 42 games. Total of 162 games for the 8 teams in 4 division alignment. The math works well to keep the current game inventory. You're all welcome. Keep the 12 playoff teams, rank them according to overall record, and go with the bracket as is. All star game can be done however. Take 2 divisions and assign them as American, and the other 2 divisions as National. Or just pick a pool of all stars and assign teams however. It could be alphabetical according to height for all I care about that.

He's a better pitcher than he showed in Baltimore. I think that playoff veteran presence will be helpful.