gehringer_2

ask and ye shall receive!

This. We've gone way overboard with a kind of theological reverence that seems to taken even the idea of amendment off the table. The amendment process was a pretty regular thing right up through the middle of the 20th century. Our refusal to keep up with the times legally/consitutionally is big part of our gridlock.

Torkelson's got to be better, the BP needs to be better, Flaherty needs to be better. 2 out of 3 might be enough.

Skubal's average start ends somewhere in the 6th - past that with Tarik is bonus - he's a guy with 1 CG in 139 career starts. The difference is the BP isn't shutting anything down. You won't win anything in today's game without the BP depth to deal with that.

This team has no hope if it can't win Skubal starts. Hinch in the classic dilemma of a manager with a bullpen he doesn't trust. Left his starter in longer than the might have and then had the BP fail to perform when he did bring it in.

Really it all comes down to not making outs. If enough guys don't make outs, or you get an XBH, a run is going to score before 3 outs are made. You can add a lot of complexity getting to the second decimal point effects but the basic logic isn't that complicated - High on base, high XBH up front is what gets you there. And also obvious that if more your productive players get more AB, you get more production, so you start with them.

Have had to listen to this week's game on radio - have to say I'm pretty much completely off Bobby Scales by now.

Yup - The pitcher's uni is not the ground and it's out of play, the batter should be out.

I'm not real big on the 'challenge guys to play better' strategy. Maybe you have a player here or there that needs to change approach, e.g. Raymond shooting more, but in general guys are how they play. You're dreaming if you think they are going to turn into what they haven't been.

WTF

also did not see young Kaline, but to lay out the comparison: McGonigle is 21. Kaline had a monster season at age 20, 8.2 WAR, Batting title, 967 OPS, MVP runner up. but it was not his rookie season, it was his *second* full season. In his rookie yr Kaline had a nice season, was 3rd in ROY voting, but 650 OPS and 1.2 WAR. McGonigle on a pace to top easily if he stays on it.

Piece by Ben Rhodes (Obama admim alum) about Platner in the Times today. FWIW, he does not think Platner is a Nazi candidate - he thinks he's an anti-war, anti-military-industrial complex candidate.

The counterpoint is that having Trump bored and frustrated with the whole thing is more likely to end up with him more or less waking away from it all and Iran getting more of what they want, than giving him more reason to see the conflict in the personal vendetta terms that is more likely to make him more dangerous and instransigent

no denying they know US culture well enough to be good at this and the opposite in not true. But that said, they aren't doing anyone, including themselves, any good with ti.

this most recent poll that has him down ~33% - if it is to be believed, is a solid increment down from the 38-42 where he he seemed to hold in the past. I don't want to give the idea I'm resistent to evidence - I just want to see it!

a little more than 1/2 way to Sparky’s 40 game marker we’ve got a 500 team, and that’s what they are going to be if run prevention doesn’t ratchet up a notch or two.

Remember when our farm system had given us two stars in him and Garcia? Good times….

i couldn’t watch this one, but looks like Kieder recovered after a bad innings and kept them in it. But 7 h 2 bb, for DeJesus to get 4 outs? What does a guy have to do get pulled around here?

yup. What i find so funny is that as a society, the Christian Right is so selectively oblivious. Do they think that OT god of plague and genocide, who strikes down anyone who puts a fire pot in the wrong place is just going to give them a pass on 3, 4, 7, and 10? It reminds me of what Paul said about “with the law comes sin”. They condemn themselves by their own stds. Go figure. Which is because, as you note, it’s not really about religion per se at all, it’s about anti-democracy. it’s about establishing that “my rules transcend your vote”

you aren’t going to get great defense playing mediocre defenders

as terrible as Trump has been, once you break it down to the races that matter, I'm still not seeing any forecasts that rate the Dem's chance of taking the necessary Senate seats as better than 50/50. That's were the rubber meets the road to defang Trump. Granted, some of that is reluctance to go out on a limb because along with Trump, the GOP has exceeded their past polling, but it's still telling you that there still isn't enough signal out there to be unequivocal. I'd love to see some data that Collins solidly underwater and Peltola or Talarico were a slam dunk- that's what a wave will look like.

Possibly for now, but in general sport only tends to be clean temporarily in the aftermath of each crackdown, then in pretty short order the miscreants regain their lead over the gendarmes.

DD was talking about Jack usually losing it after 10 more batters - if that were true you might able to use him in long relief in place of the way Hinch wants to use Anderson, but the 10 batters in thing certainly wasn't true tonight - 3 walks in the 1st 7 batters.

granted, but retaking MI and WI is not a wave for the Dems, it's just getting you back to even.

tour de france riders close, though mostly artificially enhanced