gehringer_2

People like Hogg are just disinterested in building a governing coalition. US politics are so screwed. On the GOP side you have a party that doesn't care about right vs wrong at all - only winning. On the DEM side you have people who care so much about being right it excludes any possibility of actually building anything that looks like a winning coalition. Pretty clear why one side is winning more elections.

this is very true and sports isn't the only place. It's always hard to teach something where any part of the phrase "it comes to me naturally" applies at all, because you have no experience with which to identify with the person for whom it doesn't.

it just his typical sarcasm. He's actually pillorying the whole Christian ethic here, the subtext argument is clearly that any real Christian attitude of love and forgiveness is actually ridiculous and foolishly naive. Of course it doesn't matter to his fans in the Christian right, who have already wandered so far to support him they won't see it.

mercy rule

Kemp could seriously swing a baseball bat.

how stupid does an ICE agent have to be to fabricate that a US citizen told him he entered the country illegally.

Also interesting that even last season Hinch said more than once that he thought Torkelson had too many people in his ear - maybe that's a little odd since it's his staff - or maybe it's not completely under his control, and he might also have been talking about outside coaching as well. I did read over his last off-season that the Tigers have sort of thrown in the towel about resistance to guys getting outside coaching and realized they just have to roll with it.

I believe Keats decided to retire or he'd still be there.

Hitting coach in the majors has to be the worst job in all of professional sports. Half the guys you are working with probably know as much about hitting as you do, all of then know themselves better than you do and almost all of them are already as good or better at it than you ever were, but it's up to you to make them better anyway....

I didn't see him play in the minors, but the stroke he used last season wasn't going to put many balls out of the park.

I think Keith learned how to be a good OBP hitter and that got him the deal and the promotion, but now he's feeling pressure - whether real or imagined, to hit for more power and his very-short-to-the-ball approach doesn't lend itself to that task so he's gotten himself into a no-man's land approach wise.

I would have thought the pitch simulation machines like Trajekt would have been a huge breakthrough for hitters, but they are around now and so far hitting doesn't seem to have been impacted enough to move the needle in overall league numbers. Dan was talking today about BaBIP still being on a downward trend and assigning that to constantly improving pitching, though I have a suspicion that the increased emphasis by hitters on hitting the ball in the air is also playing a part. Fly balls are generally at least as easy an out as a hard grounder. Maybe better for OPS but not necessarily for BA. (edited to remove echo.....)

it has to be a frustration for a quantitative driven management that there is so much you can do for a pitcher with today's data and tech and yet how limited what you can do for a hitter remains. I think at least at the general theory level, Harris has been a clarifying voice with the idea that you have to be competitive against the whole or at least as much of the K zone as you can. My impression was that under Avila's people the emphasis in being selective at the plate had gone too far and Tigers' hitters too often found themselves hitting out a hole behind in the count - certainly one of the habits Torkelson was still fighting early last season.

I don't think Dan mentioned it but Hinch put Ibanez in at 2nd to close out the game. Colt had tossed a potential DP ball over Sweeney's head in the 8th. Colt owes him though because Sweeney did such a great job of faking out the runnner he didn't go to third. No base given up, no error charged.

relievers are dropping like flies.

I don't know if he'd be any good, but putting more energy into him as a starter is getting pretty pointless so there is a certain convergence between a need and the time try it.

good K rate but ten base runners in his last 5.2 IP.

this is why they signed Balazovic, no?

Depends - you can if the player will play along. If Kenta wants to keep pitching that would force a DFA.

Manning had another unimpressive start Tuesday - time to get him out of that pattern of futility also - convert him to relief and call him up.

IL today

this is just painful to watch them keep sending him out there - not to mention one of these nights - like maybe tonight - it's going to cost them a game.

walk the bases loaded with a 6 run lead. We've got'em right where they want us.

Riley gets every which way but loose in CF

semi-productive out(s).