gehringer_2

Pitching and pitchers always remain a mystery. Why doesn't a guy with a power arm like Foley throw a 4 seamer when he goes to the top of the zone - he'd be way more likely to get the swing and miss. I assume it has to be because his 4 seamer must be flat as a pancake. So then back to the question - if he can throw a live two seamer, why would his be 4 seamer be 'dead'. Who knows - it's pitching mystery.

Tigers need to get another pitcher behind Foley like Lange was last year. Jason not cut out for the 9th.

actually when there is a LH pitcher I like it because a left-center field camera doesn't give you the track of a left hand pitch at all. Which is why I like the CF camera directly behind the pitcher - though I know most people don't. Anyway, I'm going to date myself here but way waay back in the day they used the camera behind the plate a lot - maybe because the optics on the CF cameras weren't good enough.

Channelling John HIller.

Actually I wrote it backward. He had his RH batting glove in his left hand and he had his right hand extended which missed the plate to the outside. The left hand (the side toward the diamond) got folded under his body. So the was actually too far outside to get the plate with his right hand. So he's safe either if he leads with his left hand or if he slides inside enough to touch with his right.

two innings in a row wasting runners.

yeah - that one was counter intuitive, you normally slide to the outside of HP because the throw is coming from the field, but Tork should have slid to the inside since the throw was coming from behind HP. On the inside his left hand would have been in. Live and learn.

Didn't he put in his retirement before his unit was even called up? How is this even a discussion when the guy was already way past his 20?

In the system 8 yrs? Whod’a thunk?

this one is in the books.

well, that does it. We'll never see the end of McKinstry now!

well, Tork didn't take any hittable strikes.

Keider with a perfect pitch to get Judge

Fair point.

True. It will be interesting to see if his approach is materially different. As I've probably already commented on to death, I've always felt Torkelson's biggest problem was not mechanical or swing related but simply that he never got through his head that in the majors you have to swing at any strike you can hit, or else you will just be out when the pitchers throws you one you can't. Basically a guy who spent his time in the box letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. You can do that against bad pitchers, not average+ MLB guys. IMO, if he has made progress on that front, he should be better. If not, he's going to be a bust.

Because we are the chosen people silly - of course the rules are different for us! Seriously, the evangelicals esp love the old testament, an if you look at the Torah, all the Levitical laws were designed expressly for that purpose - to separate the chosen from the rest of humanity by having all these special ritual, leadership, purity, and sacrificial rules. Christianity usually bills itself as an inheritor or fulfilment of OT scripture but what that view misses is the diametrically opposed approach of the Torah - which was to separate the Hebrews and in particular the priestly leadership from everyone else in as many ways as possible, and the ministry of Jesus and particularly the teachings of Paul, who sought to open the new convenant to everyone. There is a real tension between these that is almost never recognized in Christian theology but I think that is why sects that spend a lot of time in the OT ethos tend to fall into the kinds of exclusionary and rule bound nonsense that we see in today's evangelicals.

Tork always fronts in his interviews that he isn't really changing anything - 'just working on his timing etc.' but I don't really believe that. Judging by his AB's in Toledo he was either told or finally decided to start swinging at a lot more pitches in the zone. That has led to more K's, but also a good number of hits on 1st pitch strikes, which was a big hole in his profile before. Best case scenario is that on return he goes back to being a little more selective while still being more aggressive in the zone than when he was sent down (which was not very). But we'll see. Tork also made comments about 'not being able to work on stuff at the MLB level." If they do bring him back maybe tell him the rest of the season has shifted into development mode so he doesn't have to worry about that! 🤔

Bligh has been the classic unscouted call-up. Nice performance out of the gate when the adrenaline is high and opposition hasn't seen him - then reality hits. His OPS has been crashing recently.

Ezra Klein with a another good interview in the NYT with a couple of people who study gender issues. Some interesting stuff. They divide the gender gap men in the GOP into two groups. I'll call the first the 'bro' group. They don't have big issues with modernity, or abortion, or even women's rights per se, but they feel they are being disadvantaged in the workplace unfairly, and what they really don't like culturally is that the fun part of Bubba Culture, which is wearing your sexism/libido in public, is being taken away. The hate to lose their right to be crude, crass and sexist. They see being civil to women 100% of the time as being a denial of their masculinity. The more insidious group are the medievalists - the Peter Thiel/JD Vance type who are basically holdovers from Nazi eugenics and their concerns pretty much boil down to purity of the gene pool. They are desperately concerned about population decline, 'replacement' by the brown hordes etc. Their aims are only met by women who stay home and procreate and that's what drives them to embrace 'Handmaid's Tale' culture. The only verse of the Bible they remember is the one about 'subdue the earth' - and there is a lot old style RCC sex and patriarchy theology still current with this group. These two groups don't intersect on a lot of things, but LGBTQ folks make both groups nervous (for different reasons) and that has become a big point of alliance between them. And anti-immigration also sells well with both groups.

Not even worth mentioning that Miriam is a dual US-Israeli citizen for whom US citizenship has never been much more than a means for her to support lobbying and influencing for her primary allegiance - which is Israel. She should be registered as such but Sheldon's money bought her out of it.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz's line on CNBC today talking about Trump ticking off the UAW. "There are billionaires watching this show who are spending a lot of money on Donald Trump and they don't understand why he's committing political suicide." The hilarious thing is that even as Luntz is criticizing Trump for messing up his approach to the working class, his premise starts with Trump being the candidate of the super rich and he doesn't even sense the absurd contradiction that creates in his argument.

have to think it was #4. Looks pretty good here.

didn't see the whole game - did either Sweeney or Yung have any tough chances in the field? All the plays I saw Sweeney make were pretty routine.

IDK, maybe they did it to do Gio a favor since he still be playoff eligible if he catches on with a winning team. Or maybe they just did because Gio would have a FA at the end of the year while McK is under control. But I think the Tigers would be nuts to offer arbitration to McK anyway so odds are he's gone in '25 too.

Cole make the perfect pitch on Jung. Cole had him looking breaking ball and got him on two fast balls.