gehringer_2

remember last month when we thought this offense was still better than last year? Good Times.....

No point in losing close.

Yes

Baseball gods don't like Riley upsetting the plan by getting on base.

Have you heard he's great once we get to June?

And for whatever reason, the two of them were spending a lot more time in non-game personal banter and camera in the booth stuff (toys/fgifts/food etc) than any of the other pairings, almost all of which could be deep-sixed IMHO. Maybe they were learning to get along, maybe it was forced --- don't care - don't need it.

People will want to blame it on Comerica - but the ballpark gave us two batting champions and and a triple crown in a lot fewer years than old Tiger Stadium, a supposed great hitters park, ever did. The biggest problem with Copa has been who's playing there.

Willi has learned to hit left handed. That's no mirage. The question is why did it take going to the Twins?

I think it goes to prove conventional wisdom that while a guy with strong basic catch and throw skills may be able to be adequate no matter where you play him, it's takes concentration at one position type to make a plus fielder.

Hot and humid in Det. Ball should be flying. Expect another shutout.

After last season I wanted to see more of Vierling at 3rd to see how it went. It's been a mixed bag. He can make a lot of the plays and his arm is good, but over time we've seen what he can't do get a little exposed. Maybe with enough reps there he'd improve, but that's not likely to happen now. Bottom line - he may have been as good or better than anyone we played there last season but watching Gio you see that the position can be played better.

Gio has a terrible reverse home/away OPS split (780 away/576 home). So you know he's going to go to some other team for nothing and immediately be a 2+ WAR player.

I'll wager that pic has been retouched, but it still works.

I've spent the last dozen years with 19 yr olds, most of them listened to old music. Granted a narrow cohort, but the kind of cohort Jason would be in.

ETTD!!

I can see it just meaning "We are respecting Monroe's prerogative to say as much or little as he wants to" but yeah - oddly put. The IT age has meant that everything gets written quickly with little review, so having a 2nd person (like a secretary that types it out) review stuff for unrecognized tone issues is pretty much a thing of the past.

Adrian Beltre made 52 errors in his 1st two full seasons. If a guy has decent hands, decent reaction time and can throw accurately he's got a chance to become decent. If Keith was making bad throws or having balls clank off his glove with regularity I'd be more concerned, but unless they swap him back to third with Jace they should just let him work at 2b for a while. You don't want to throw in the towel and put anyone that young at 1st that still has any potential to hold some other spot since their bat will be a lot more valuable there.

Petry is definitely more the Jimmy Buffet type.

Had this been disclosed? https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/40401837/dylan-larkin-recovering-surgery-late-season-injury It's like a culture shock the way the NHL conceals/obfuscates injuries compared to other sports. I understand the reason but it's still weird.

Colt’s hanging in there so far. In this years environment a 230 BA and a reasonable K rate isn’t so bad for a rookie’s 1st couple hundred AB. I’m not going to sweat low power production at this point.

more glitter goes to dross.....

Maybe the worst thing that could have happened to Tork was to come up with Detroit at a time when they were desperate for the long ball, because he should have spent his time learning to be a better hitter, instead of spending all his effort trying to drive the ball into the seats. My guess is that the last 2 years actually set him back as a hitter, because now pitchers have figured out to just pitch him away and he had become stuck in a mode where he couldn't cope instead of having spent that time learning to actually "command" the zone.

Tigers will move a guy like McKinstry who isn't all that good anywhere all over the field, but I bet that having moved him, Keith won't get a shot at 3rd again even if his arm does get stronger.

yeah - I don't know if it would be completely accurate to say that Fenech got bounced because of critical reporting about the team per se, it seems it was more the interpersonal stuff and in general being an asshat to other people. I remember one spring training where he was trying to sneak around the fences and shoot video from his iphone when the team had closed the fields to recording. Juvenile stuff. If you take an interview where the question of being on the record was pretty much a last minute decision and the interview changes his mind within a couple hours and you stiff him, you may be within your rights but you aren't going to win many friends or hold anyone's trust.

Looking at the pitches in his gameday plots, he seems to be swinging at a lot of pitches he would normally take. One hopes that's a deliberate experiment to stretch out his plate coverage and not that he's completely befuddled. But only he and his coaches would know for sure.....