gehringer_2

Yeah - it's probably easier to decide not to spend the money than to figure out how to spend it better.

At the beginning of last season I thought Lalonde had them pursuing the puck better and generally being harder to play against than Blashill ever did, but his inability to snap them out of their March funk was disappointing, and I think they have gradually reverted to playing soft again. Part of that maybe because as has been noted, they are not a young team and it's been a grueling season and some of them were running on fumes.

So it seems to have been assumed that Gio was only going to see LHP, but so far this season he is having no trouble against RHP. If you look at last season, he did have a pretty large platoon split, but interestingly, two years ago he didn't and for his career he doesn't, so maybe he could provide a little more against RHP if Hinch gives him the chance because the glove is all it was advertised to be.

Thursdays lineup? Have we called today's game? It is raining on my driveway in Ann Arbor already.

I have still have hard a time seeing Yzerman committing many dollars to a 36 yr old unless he thought they would be winning a cup next year, which I also don't see. It would be a major departure from his professed strategy. Nothing is impossible, but unless we get a big discount, I'll be surprised to see Kane back. Or neither Kane nor Gost is back, and Yzerman goes in another direction, which also wouldn't surprise me.

Another aspect Carlos hit is that pitchers know the paradigm is to try and run pitch counts to chase pitchers, so since they know hitters have a predisposition to take the first pitch, they take more chances throwing hittable strikes- ergo pitch one is now often the best pitch of an AB. Hitters can’t just let pitchers have that free ride, they have to make them work finer on pitch one, which means they will miss more and the hitter can get ahead more. The bottom line is you can’t be so committed to any approach that you become predictable, even if the approach has a sound basis because to be predictable is to be dead. this all reminds me a game early in JVs career when he was really cruising through his starts, always ahead in the count, and then in Baltimore one day they swung at every 1st pitch strike and beat him up pretty good because he had gotten habituated to guys taking 1st pitches and stopped throwing them with enough conviction

not unexpected but still a big deal as the Dems can move legislation in the House again.

So in the end they scored 38 more and gave up only 5 fewer - so in the end virtually no improvement in the D + goal tending at all. OTOH, if they can improve as much from this year to next as from last yr to this, they are a solid playoff team.

Sites I've seen say the Wings have $28M going into next season. By your figures, If Seider an Raymond take $14.5 (they are already taking ~$2M so the raise would be $14.5), they have ~$13.5M to work with. I wouldn't spend the money on Kane if I could get a center, but I don't know if we can - and Stamkos is old - don't see Yzerman going that way. Anyway - it's still a pretty good chunk of change - they should be able to do something helpful.

It's been interesting to hear Carlos be so critical of Tiger hitter approaches - in particular wrt taking pitches. I have to wonder if the booth is going to get push back from the staff at some point. Of course Carlos wasn't a great all around hitter either, but he was good at two of the things the Tigers want, which was walks and HRs, so he knows something about accomplishing that. The situation with the hitters will resolve one way or the other because hitters will eventually tune out advice that isn't working for them, it just needs to happen more quickly than it's happening. That is *if* these guys are actually better than they are showing and that's what is happening.

For all the constant talk about it with Hinch for three years, the Tigers are not anything you would describe as a running team. As long as a guy can go 1st to 3rd he can hit anywhere in the Tigers lineup and his speed isn't going to matter.

philly blew it. Caps up by one.

they don't have the speed, skill to close on guys in the D zone.

Flyers have tied it up with the Caps

It's not even up to the player. Bat behind any great OBP player(s) and you are going to rack up GiDP.

the tragedy of CTE.

and we got a non-self-destructing inning from Lange as a bonus.

they put a graphic up today that showed the Tigers rank near the bottom swinging at the 1st pitch. When you are a bad offense, you should think about what being an outlier in any offensive category is telling you.

Tigers won't be below 500 at 20 games out!

I have to assume a lot of the biographical chatter will fade as everyone gets to know one another and it's all been said once.

and if you look at the logic, once Iran sent Hamas into such an outright act of war against them, what practical difference does it make to Israel to do something that does nothing more than put them into state of war with Iran they are already in by virtue of Oct 6? I think we tend make more distinction between Hamas and Iran than does Israel, who sees Hamas as a direct extension of Iran. As the ineffective missile attack showed, Iran doesn't have capabilities to strike Israel directly that are more effective that what they already have unleashed in the form of Hamas so the idea that a more outright state of war between Israel and Iran would be any 'wider' than it already is more a Western Media concept than a reality on the ground.

and if you want to go take a nod to Constitutional originalism, I'm sure the founders never supposed that in the rural and small town continental communities of their new nation, you would be particularly likely to find jurors who didn't know or had never heard of the defendents they would have to sit in judgement of. That should never be a criteria for a fair jury.

and TBF, Manny Gonzales is terrible behind the plate today. Strike zone like the Grand Canyon. Have to totally disagree with Benetti thinking the automated zone will help pitchers. I would expect a discernible jump in BA across the league. Hitters know the zone. Take away their doubt about ball being called strikes on a day like today and hitter success rates absolutely go up.

Zach having a very interesting day. Every which way but loose but he makes that catch.

Carpenter only hitting greased baseballs today.