gehringer_2

I love Hinch when it comes to pitching and bullpen management. He's as good as I've ever seen - better, but something is wrong with the team's hitting approach that is taking too far into the season to right itself. Either the players finally figure it out themselves, or the players tune it out, or the coaching alters its approach.

yeah - I'd like to have seen Lalonde mix and match more just in the regular course of things, firstly just so guys get more familiar with each other in case someone goes down so you don't get the situation where you lose Larkin and all 4 lines are screwed up, but also just because you never know if you might hit a little special chemistry you'd otherwise miss. and you're right that the 2nd line was completely becalmed for weeks and Lalonde pretty much just left it alone instead of trying to change things up.

OK, so they are not 2-11, but they won some games on the virtue of some great pitching, the O is just as dead out of the gate as it has been for the third year. When does the hammer fall on Hinch to change the way/take responsibility for the way he brings his hitters out of ST? The probability of this just being bad luck or cold weather is pretty low at this point. The team is messing itself up somehow. They are all 'in between' looking for what ever it is they're looking for that isn't there.

Wood-Rich threw a 93 mph middle-middle FB to almost every hitter that inning and not one barreled it up - all fouled off.

Keith is making them all look bad, shortening up and taking base hits with RISC.

Hinch outsmarted himself on that one - no question. I can accept that but at least take the bunt sign off when he is clearly lost on the first attempt and give him half a chance to hit.

never send a guy up to bunt who doesn't. Just silly.

absolutely terrible approach by Torkelson in the 11th with the game on the line all he needs is to poke the ball to right against a guy throwing him outside and he's till trying to pull everything. Terrible.

The poor producers had paid for the sword master, the choreography and Harrison just blew it up, but you can't argue with perfect.

The best outcome for the Wings would be to find out Ras has one of those silent abdominal tears (i.e "sports hernia") slowing him down. Short of that the disappointment probably continues.....

If there is one thing that I think maybe the Tigers over do, it's preaching about looking for pitches to drive. My take has always been that too many Tigers take too many 1st pitch strikes because they aren't perfect pitches to drive, but then get themselves behind in the count and become easy outs. Sometimes you have to give the pitcher a little credit. If he is painting the corners maybe you aren't going to get a pitch you love and so you can't take him deep but that doesn't mean you can't shorten up and put a ball that's going to be a called strike in play instead of taking the eventual K.

This is kind of out of left field but Ras reminds me of Rasheed Wallace in a way. Players that have a level they can show but can't hit consistently or even most of the time. Rasheed's baseline was higher than Ras' but the idea that there was always more there that wasn't showing is the same. I sort of wonder if sometimes with big guys if it's a physiological thing, that maybe its genetics and they just can't get to a high enough metabolic output consistently. That would certainly be a factor in both basketball and hockey.

they all have the same teeth?

But it sort of proves the point that making progress in trades and signings of NHL players is very slow going, the big jumps come from the guys you draft and the Wings didn't bring anyone up this year until they finally ran out of reasons to keep Edvinsson in GR. If Cossa is the real deal a step up in the goal tending next season could drive the next point total increment.

If Selleck had done Jones it would have been one and done. He couldn't have given the character the irony that is Ford's calling card and makes a romp like an Indiana Jones movie work.

Still hope someone on the schedule picks him up!

Agree. The question is progress. The conference is weaker, but the year to year point improvement is still anemic. This has been a very weird team - maybe I've just watched it closer but it seemed to ping pong between great and terrible more than any team should. The hot stretches made you question the coaching in the cold ones, the cold stretches left you wondering if the good stretches were just a mirage. And it continued the odd Wings phenomenon of new acquisitions playing great for a month and then disappearing.

Look on the bright side. That's 0.53 R/K. Last season they finished at 0.45 R/K. If they just keep up this pace, they'll score around 120 more runs this season than last!

Manning hasn't pitched since April 4th, but Maeda and Flaherty are scheduled to start tomorrow as per the Tigers MLB page.

The top 3 teams in the AL central have the three lowest Runs Allowed totals in the entire AL.

I had thought it was Wen-SEAL, but his BR page has it as: \WIN-cehl PEH-rez\

That's a good question. My guess is the rule applies to the situation when the pitcher enters, otherwise as you note it would get pretty nutty. Maybe we'll find out tonight.

Seems to have a thing with Spanish speaking shortstops. Maybe one stole his lunch money in 3rd grade.

Javy should just tell himself he's not going to swing the bat on any 2 strike pitch for a week. If they throw him a strike - a called K is no worse than a swinging one, and it may begin to give him enough credibility to start getting hittable pitches again.

hunting too hard for walks that MLB umps aren't going to give him.