gehringer_2

and who controls it again?

same as it ever was. "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."

I would actually say a lot more. Vote out his enabling article one branch and he will be largely contained.

Oddly, the guy who could be starting to run hot is McKinstry, and he's pretty good when he's on a streak. I also like Torkelson going to RF on fastballs again. Now I just wish he would stop taking 1st pitch heaters down the middle. When the Tiger O was struggling there was a lot of mention that as team they took more 1st pitch strikes than anyone. They've been falling into that trap again. In game 3 even Pierzinski noticed how many 1st pitch strikes they were taking. Driving pitch counts is good, but you can go overboard killing your O doing it. The best way to drive pitch count is don't make outs.

I think some of it has to do with having to make a throw off level ground after having been throwing off the mound. When your front foot doesn't hit when/where your brain expects bad stuff happens. You have to believe teams just don't practice hard enough or maybe don't practice it effectively - i.e. do fielding work but don't stress the transition issues with coming off the mound.

Team is a little bit too left handed IMHO. If Torres walks it will just be worse. It will help a little if Veirling can stay on the field for more than half a season next year but it's gotten to where I don't think we can count on it. They should add a RHB or two if Torres walks. McGonigle and Clark are both lefties. Max Anderson is a righty that's probably due for a shot otherwise they have to go outside. Don't see Malloy turning into a serious contributor, and Jones is purely an anti-LHP specialist.

so does Matt now officially qualify as one that got away?

You know, even Nolan Finley has apparently decided Trump needs to stop talking about Biden. 🤷‍♀️

and the Tigers had one of the worst for a while. Benoit, Just hated to see him come into a game.

I wonder. As the season has gone on I more and more get the idea he one of the Tigers' few 'glue' players. I know, a quantitative management group probably doesn't believe in that kind of thing.

well, that's too bad. If the goaltending is going to be lousy any progress you do make anywhere else just going to get lost.

Yup. I think it's a little ironic that because it's called a pitch clock there is this implication that it was the pitchers that were slowing down the game, and OK, there were a *few* who would work unbearably slow, but 90% of the slowdown was the batters. Most pitchers want to work relatively fast. It's not the 15 seconds for the pitcher that has changed the game but the batter back in the box timer. I'm good with it, but still think it would have been more appropriate to call it the "bat timer".

what is it with DD teams whose pitchers can't field in the playoffs? 🙄

it's a little bit chicken/egg though. If you can significant deepen the bullpen, you are under less pressure to even let a starter begin the 3rd pass through the line-up. But I don't know if that's even enough in Flaherty's case since he seems to give up crooked numbers so suddenly.

Mike Hargrove

there really wasn't any doubt was there?

I think they had to do pitchcom though because it's just gotten to where there were too many camera's looking at the catcher and so much real-time communication available that teams felt they had to go to such complex signing that it was breaking down too much.

Yeah - he is this team's version of Scherzer. Not to the degree of not giving a guy opening day after he won the Cy Young, but the way Hinch keeps him on such a short leash when the rest of the staff is not exactly stellar has got to be getting to Casey at least a little at this point. And if it isn't, his compete must be so low you don't want him.

IIRC, Jobe had the lower impact style TJ that Gipson-Long had. Guys can be back in 12mo from that but don't quote me because I"m not sure one way or the other.

2K might be a better number!

yup - and they need to be better than the force that had been on the Golan.

The downside possibility is that everyone is talking nice to placate Trump short term, but that neither Netanyahu nor Hamas is going to do more than supply a lot of lip service up front while not actually making any peace. Hamas especially may be playing a game where they hope that the appearance of momentum drives Israel to make irrevocable withdrawal moves before they (Hamas) give up any weapons. Certainly hope this is is not the case, but how many times have we been here and the two sides find a way to keep fighting?

I like it. Now talk 5/3 into it!

IDK. I wouldn't use bluetooth for something like that. Aside from the latency, with 40K phones in the stands all with their BT's on, getting anything to pair reliably could be an issue. There are other self-pairing 2.4gHz protocols that do ID based binding. As for hacking, that's a lot harder to do if you can't be there listening when the pairing takes place, so if the units come pre-paired they could be pretty secure - but I have no idea how hardened they actually are.

Skubal pitched very well in his last start against the M's. The M's haven't done anything to 'solve' Skubal. The Tigers just need to score, which they would need to do in any game. The Skubal vs the Ms narrative is a nothing burger. EDIT: ditto to LordS