gehringer_2

yeah - even though Tork saved his AB with a walk, he also had good pitch to hit and fouled it off, as did Riley in his AB.

this is feeling awfully familiar

I also wonder though, the Tiger brain trust puts the equation as "don't swing at pitches out of the strike zone", but how many hitters are trying to do that? How much good does it do to coach players to do something they are not capable of doing? Isn't the real question pitch recognition? It seems if you can give a player some kind of tools to help him recognize when a pitch is going to be out of the zone, then you are giving him something he can use that helps him stop swinging out of the zone, but to just tell him to 'be disciplined" and not to swing out of the zone? What does it do for him if the player doens't know how (or in then end doesn't have the capacity) to get there? Besides make him a tentaive hitter anyway. I can believe there are a few guys who just have to focus better but I doubt that is the case for most. if you do something like help a guy develop a swing that gets him to the ball quicker so he can wait longer on his swing decision, then you might get better K zone control as the secondary benefit. When I look at Javy, I see a guy with a long, huge swing who commits before he knows the pitch is a slider. No amount of 'discipline' fixes that without a mechanics change. If I'm coaching Javy, I'd almost rather just work on helping him go ahead and hit the bad pitches he's going to swing at.

leaves you wondering what the point of it all is if the most you get out of it is PR for the fans to make the org look like it's doing something.

One thing true the last two nights was that when faced with an umpire that was expanding the zone, the Tigers didn't follow and paid the price for it in called strikes. Maybe they are so focused on 'staying in the zone' they are not adapting when they should be. Once an umpire shows you what he's going to call, you'd best go with it as best you can.

Maybe they can get on the board tomorrow before the terrible umps get in their heads, which had to be a factor in these first two.

good to see Tork still battling in his last two ABs.

Parker with 3 hits, 2 doubles and a HR on the day.

you can a talk about rebuild schedules and contracts all you want but this is still a do of die year for Green, Tork, Rogers, Baddoo, and no less for the guys Harris's picked up who were all sitting on the edge of being or not being major leaguers (Maton, Vierling, McK). Bottom line is that even if the org isn't approaching this season with any particular urgency, these players need to be.

signs of life - a barrel for Tork and HR for McK.

and he isn't even an Avila guy.

Baltimore hitters adjust to Wentz. Tigers appear to be incapable of in game adjustments. It's something that's impossible to quantify but watching this team over the last three season I always wonder if there is such a thing as too much game planning. Not enough just relax and see ball - hit ball?

Bad week for Tork and Greene is going to be a bad week for the Tigers, and it's getting to be a bad week for both.

and now the wheels come off. It's amazing how pissy little things that extend innings end up making all the difference in a baseball game.

Dan talking about how many Tigers in the lineup have less than 500 career AB. Most of these Tigers actually haven't seen that much of anyone.

Tigers will lose this one because of a slippery pitching rubber?

Some of them look like they are trying too hard to take pitches

Tiger hitters are being horrible again.

I guess when the ruling party of the State thinks 'Reckless Endangerment' is what is guaranteed by the 2A you're not likely to get the normal understanding of the concept enforced by prosecutors out in the field.

IDK - If I'm China i'd rather try to embargo or blockade Taiwan than mount an invasion. The personnel losses would be horrific - and children - esp man children, are precious in China. I would guess that's a difference. I'd be a little suprised if Xi could conceive of wasting his troops the way Putin is willing to.

I haven't checked it out recently, but when Fox first starting using their box, it was consistently narrower than the Pitch F/X box on gameday. But it's be a few years since I paid that level of attention. I like the ball parks where they can give you the overhead of the ball crossing the plate - that's pretty much the last word. I imagine the Umps don't.

If the clip is any indication, Drew has changed his delivery since his Tiger days. He use to come way over the top, his delivery here was more 3/4.

And does it seem to you that Torkelson seems like a magnet for bad called strikes from all the umps? Something about his stance? Does he mutter about the umps under his breath, need different deordorant? I mean, WTF?

agreed. I'm not real sold on Foley either. Gives up more contact than is comfortable for a short reliever - certainly not going to be top pick to come in with runners on base. I don't know if Hinch crossed himself up last night or just didn't like the way the Baltimore order lined-up but you'd have though the logical thing was Holton to come in first for two or more. But then again Dickerson did say during the Broadcast that Hinch thought he had guys that needed work so that was probably also in play. Holton looks interesting - you wonder if he can keep it up. Not much on his stuff - the guys in radio booth concluded he must hide the ball really well as despite the low velo guys seemed to be constantly behind against him. Three guys in the pen (Holton, Englert, Alexander) who can go two or three could be the beginning of a paradigm shift for Hinch.

Not going to score big in many games with Schoop and Cabrera both in the line-up. Add Maton having fallen off and the lineup is regressing to 2022 levels.