gehringer_2

My guess - Akil needs to back off a touch and trust his strength - I think he's just out of control with his swing and he can't get the bat on the ball.

Faedo: 5IP, 4H, 0R, 0BB 8K Olson: 5IP, 2H, 1ER, 0BB, 5K, HR

right. Dan talking about run scoring being down around the league - probably a lot of northern cold weather - at any rate ignoring that, 5 runs a game has been the average in recent years. But when you don't score at all we all tend to overfocus on runs allowed, even if they aren't that bad.

Faedo and Olson both with strong starts so far tonight.

this is so similar to last season it almost freaky. A couple of good games the first week then into the tank. Just the cast has changed. Last April it was Cabrera, Jones, Mazara, Goodrum, Reyes that all slumped out of the gate.

3 black hole rule. I've don't think I've ever seen a productive MLB offense with 3 hitters all really in the tank. Baddoo is currently hitting 114, so there is your three.

You can wonder how Gretzky would have fared in a Scotty Bowman system, though I guess Brett Hull worked out in Det under him. The other question is who did the wings have to play Messier for Gretzky?

sure, the thing with relievers is that actual results in baseball have so many randomizing inputs that results can remain stubbornly divergent from a pitcher's peripherals for a long time (see: Valverde, Jose). Neither Fulmer's velo nor command were great last night, but conditions sucked and he got out of his inning so I'm not going to complain until he doesn't have better peripherals under better conditions.

Jason Thompson, Fidrych and Frank McCormick are all younger and debuted in '76. Thompson was 2 months closer in age, but Fidrych made his first start on Apr20 and Thompson didn't play his first game until Apr 23, so I guess mine would be Fidrych Apr 20, 1976. McCormick's first game was not until July.

At worst, if Haase believes there is no-one behind him, he stays close enough to the 3b line so runner 3 can't get past him and holds the ball until someone gets there to back up home or until runner 2 forces him to throw to 2nd. Point is, he doesn't have to hurry - has lots of time for help to arrive - relatively.

LOL - Reuters already reporting speculation that Musk might back out of twitter deal...... https://www.reuters.com/technology/investors-fret-over-potential-musk-u-turn-44-bln-twitter-buyout-2022-04-27/

Gazprom starting to cut off Europe with Poland and Bulgaria. I see this as good news bad news. Sure, it pressures those publics, but much more importantly, once it's done, Putin's quiver is empty. He will hold zero additional economic leverage. Once each country that is cut off makes whatever adjustment they can and will make, Russia has nothing more, and that much less income.

UMich drops mask mandate for the classroom for spring term but not for any winter term classes finishing late. Don't ask me how they decided to split that hair!

not funny, but funny.

I still it goes back to bringing a guy who is under normal circumstance effectively wild into 30 deg weather who had thrown a total of 14 pitches in the last 12 days. Cripes - nowadays they send starters for rehab when they get that much time off. It was bad BP management on a longer time frame than just last night and Hinch should not get a pass on that aspect.

Soto will be fine. I would agree I think a team is better off without assigning 'roles' but that's Hinch's problem, not Soto or Fulmer's.

I'm still not so sold on Fulmer at 91-93 mph either.

I would have thought the best rotation would be Soto to 1st and Tork come home while Haase runs at the man between 2nd and third, staying to the right to force him to 3rd together with the other runner. 1st is the least likely place for the play to end so the best place for the pitcher. Haase's job is to keep the #2 runner from getting back to 2nd

It's not like England's role in world history is ever under-stated, but you do have to give old England some credit. The seeds of the revolution had been planted long before 1776 - it was in the fact that all those royal colonial charters allowed the growth of the democratic structures and habits that the new nation codified on a larger stage. A different colonial power might never have allowed local democracy to get off the ground in the colonies.

Somewhere upthread I had posted an Ezra Klein podcast with a crypto critic. At one point in the discussion Klein made a comment about the fact that as a long time economics writer, when he saw the Superbowl crypto ads with Damon and Larry David he was struck by their obvious FOMO character and that that a classic troll for 'dumb money' investors.

I'd rank the fiasco as #1 -tiger hitters wasted too many chances, #2 Grossman - he has to catch the ball, #3 Haase panicked, rushed, blew the play, #4 Hinch - let Soto get rusty.

the problem last night was that Soto has been sitting too much. That was only his second appearance in 12 days. Sure a manager doesn't wan't to use a guy in a loss just to give him some work only to end up needing him 3 days in a row and not having him, but you can't sit a guy like Soto 7 days and 5 days back to back.

oh. /...sheepish grin..../

The prank call to the FSB guy could have been written by LeCarre - heII - it WAS written by LeCarre 40 yrs ago.. What apparatchik can help himself when faced with an official who has a report to write! Damn shame he didn't live to see how well life imitated his art.