gehringer_2

well that's what we have all been hoping for! And seriously, on this team 'best hitter' was not a very high bar to clear. But he's still trailing Keith's start by ~40 OPS pts though he's passed Keith in most counting stats (also has ~13 more PA). Assuming this is the real McGonigle and not just the charged up version that will run down in a month - which is admittedly a huge assumption - I think he and Colt are as likely to be the highest OBP guys on the team as anyone else. And McGonigle may hit for more power. Colt has shortened his swing so much he has almost no hip rotation, he's really sacrificing power potential for contact right now. Maybe as he gets comfortable with the new stance he'll start to use his lower half more.

The sad thing is, Mario could have been better with someone else. On a few occasions when he worked with someone else the difference was obvious, he was much more personable and engaged with the other person in the booth and it was a better broadcast. Rod could do color, but Mario was right about that too - too often he hadn't done any homework and he would go whole games adding nothing but his cutesy signature lines. Tiger's have only themselves to blame, they should have broken them up years before it fell apart. Sure you don't have to like someone to work with them, but when it reaches where one detests the other to the point he can't be his best self professionally it's no good to keep forcing it. The interlude with Shep was regrettable, but they've landed on their feet with Benetti, for as long as he stays.

Until tonight Riley only had 7 Ks in 43 PA, which is a decent reduction. Unfortunately all his other results have a reduction as well. We've heard a lot of talk about Riley having worked on a lot of stuff in the off season, but so far the upper cut swing doesn't look real different to me.

So all this amounted to was that we have given Bibi the free use of the worlds most expensive lawn mower for 30 days (which we get back with its blade seriously dulled) so he could extend his 'forever war' just a little further out before it becomes the failure it will inevitably be.

No, you don't understand, we just have to be patient and we will see the victory emerge....or so we were told.

Iran has just been funded to the tune of 100 new Shaheeds per ship Transit. So much winning.

It is too bad Johnson isn't up this cycle because he'd probably be toast.

I thought maybe the tide had turned when we got past Riley in the order, but foiled again.

This April is looking too much like '24. I liked last year's better.

LOL - Spencer apparently loves batting 7th, on base 10 of his last 16 PA.

tying run on the bases....

Strkle one to Riley was a ball

Strike one to Torres was a ball.

Hinch's pinch hitters are leaving lumps of coal in Tiger stockings. Tigers show life, but I've got Riley for the last out.

a 10 pt loss is still a big loss. Moral victories on margins are meaningless until they happen in districts where it matters.

I'm sure the Sheiks know any number of Madrassa they can support...

Oh, they are. if it's 40 degrees Minnesotans aren't at the ballgame because they are at the beach.... Didn't someone post a survey that Twins fans were the most pessimistic fans in the division about their team?

I think Buddha has mentioned collective bargaining - but getting even a subset of the schools on the same page to create a coherent bargaining unit on the management side seems like a daunting task.

Max Clark singles, steals 2nd, scores on a single to give the Hens a 1 run lead.

it surely did.

yup - there is always a tradeoff risk. You'd love a guy that plays great D like Parker to be able to stay in the game, and his track record is still pretty short - could he keep his platoon split reasonable? Who knows? How much are you willing to risk to find out? Always the question. I think this is a place were the new pitcher simulation pitching machines can make a difference maybe. A hitter can go dial in a variety of LHP and practice against the pitch breaking away and maybe show his manager he's progressed enough to merit a shot. It should reduce the level of unknown at least some. It is objectively true that some guys can hit pitchers from both sides with only insignificant splits. It's rarer for lefties, but to my mind it's so valuable when you find it that it's worth spending at least some effort to look. You should have a some kind of idea by the time a guy gets through the minors, and it's when a guy who has handled pitching from the other side in the minors isn't given a shot in the majors that I'd question it the most.

yeah - Hinch just doesn't like playing shorter term trends very much, he believes in the strength of longer samples. That's always a debatable question. I don't think it's deniable that some players do sometimes hit a higher (or lower) level for week or a month when their past average performance really isn't the best predictor. But the problem always is how to know exactly when one of those streaks starts or ends. One of the reasons baseball managers who can make a difference are rare. Baseball is maybe the most measured/measurable and statistically catalogued sports, but you always run into the fundamental limit on the assumption that the guy you measured Monday is really the same guy on Tuesday. Some players are very consistent, some aren't, a guy may not have slept well, he may be worried about his relationship, he may be coming down with a bug or have a slight physical deficit. There are a million big and small things working against the assumption that the player is a constant, while the player himself is doing everything he can to be a constant. As long as real people are playing the game that tension will always be there. BTW Tork has reached in 7 of his last 12 PA in the last 3 games - mostly on the strength of 5 walks, so he's coming around a bit at least on plate discipline.

I'm not as big of fan of DD's as I used to be. There are a couple things he's gotten into the habit of that sort of grate on me. One is how he'll spend time telling you how great a guy (particularly a pitcher) is or has been while he's being shelled. What is the point of that? It has pretty much zero relevance to the call of the game to tell me that last year the guy's ERA against lefties was only 2.3 or that his control is 'usually' great after he's walked two. It's basically apologizing for poor performance and that's not something I care to have the PBP guy doing. "He's having a bad day" is fine and leave it at that.

This is today's print from the Cleveland Federal Reserve's "Inflation Now" forecasting tool. INFLATION, YEAR-OVER-YEAR PERCENT CHANGE Month CPI Core CPI PCE Core PCE Updated Note: If the cell is blank, it implies that the actual data corresponding to the month for that inflation measure have already been released. April 2026 3.56 2.56 3.50 3.03 04/07 March 2026 3.25 2.60 3.28 2.97 04/07 February 2026 2.67 2.83 04/07 https://www.clevelandfed.org/indicators-and-data/inflation-nowcasting

They are hitting targets on Kharg Island but apparently not the core infrastructure. Iran has struck a petrochemical complex in Saudi. West Tx Intermediate Crude near $118, Stock market falling this AM. That last one might be the only thing Trump pays attention to.