gehringer_2

The commitment to go heavy left handed has made Torkelson pretty much the indespensible player in the lineup and now it's too depressing because it's looking like a fail.

Colt - missed by a couple of milliseconds.

Riley. Fail

One thing Dombrowski believed in was that guys had to be able to hit the fastball, which is why those teams were so good against bullpens. TBF, the change in pitching in the last 10 yrs maybe makes that approach less valid than it was was then, but the Tigers could use some guys that could hit velo right about now.

to me it seems when he scuffles, which seems to be most of the time, he doesn't trust his own power and he's trying to crush everything, with the result that he can't stay on the ball at all. It amazes me that so many ballplayers never seem to learn that squaring the ball up is a lot more important than swinging the bat harder.

Tork got screwed by the ump on one AB, but regardless he's not getting close to anything so far tonight.

so we are seeing the soft underbelly of the Tiger's theory that LH batters will have the platoon advantage in more AB across the a season, and that downside that most LHB have a worse platoon split than RHB, so when the platoon advantage goes against you, it really goes against you.

OK, that one was completely outrageous after the call last inning.

which Vierling catches. Why don't you play your best D when you know runs will be scarce? FTM, why don't you always play your best D?

more ****ty umpiring. Gelof was K'd and got a double out of it.

switch thread guys.

Funny part was Spence looking at Wilson like "it was right at you - Where were you?"

Riley up with a chance to do some damage. EDIT: one RBI. Looked like the SS ended up screened by the pitcher, he wasn't that far away but just didn't break toward the GB.

Dan commenting on how dark it is in CF. Wonder if Parker just lost it in the dark?

LOL - Parker overruns the ball and the A's get nothing.

No, it's not. I see the A's scoring a run here and it ends that way.

but he come back to K with swings that are way too big.

I think it contradicts the premise that one or any org can be doing a better job at talent eval than others to assume that it's never going to come to a difference conclusion about who the best player in a draft is. It's not there are that many opinions that matter in terms of 'consensus'. There are only 30 opinions that matter, the rest are just media sheeple echoing each other.

The common Aussie expression is "No worries", with or without "mate." That seems to be gaining some traction in the US.

I think if you have a FO that believes in what it's doing, the implication that because there is a consensus a team "has to" do something just isn't that determinative. The Tigers have made two recent picks that went strongly against conventional wisdom of what they 'should have' done, both in taking Jobe and Clark. Plus there have always been enough 1/1 busts - not even counting Mize or Tork - that a team shouldn't feel too bound by what conventional wisdom is.

I think you have to pretty much start being skeptical of anyone/everyone once they start getting a little famous or making big $$. It's a very distorting thing.

If teams didn't pick against consensus pretty regularly Langford would be a Tiger.

IIRC Tork'ss final year in college they didn't pitch to him much - he ended up taking a ton of walks. That certainly didn't help anyone see any weaknesses in his bat.

Has Madrigal ever played as well as he looked like he would be since his injury? Of course you can say Mize's value has been driven down by injuries too, but Madrigal may have been more promising before his than Mize ever was in the majors.

From the reporting there were custody issues in this divorce. That is always ripe for both the parents and/or kids to play games to get what they want.