gehringer_2

Since last night the forecast keeps moving the rain back. Last night it was to start at 3p, then this morning it was 6p, now it's back to 9p, so who knows? If it moves back another hour or two they might get it in.

Lee made a post in one of the threads about Fedder being more important than Hinch and it got me thinking about the whole pitching/hitting dichotomy with the Tigers org. I think there is one conclusion - which is that Avila is a 'process' guy and today pitching is something which is definable by 'process'. The tech has allowed teams to understand spin, release, movement. And the Tigers (as they should) have gone all in. They seem to know how to put pitchers into the pitches they should be throwing and how to optimize them throwing those pitches and they appear to have a good system for evaluation of the quality of arms (TJs among them not withstanding). I don't think it's arguable that it been nothing short of phenomenal the way the system has been able to come with young pitchers and BP arms to keep this team even treading water in the face of catastrophic pitching staff injuries and a once in a lifetime offensive collapse. Al has put processes into place which have resulting an org with strong pitching and has hired a manager in Hinch who managers his staff well. That part has been a success. But on the other side, hitting is whole different ball game. There are many aspects you can coach a hitter for, being short to the ball, weight transfer, swing path, and all of that can help a hitter put the bat where he wants to when he wants to, which is great. However 99% of hitting is knowing the point you want to get the bat to, IOW, knowing where the ball is going to be, and there isn't a whole lot anyone has ever figured out to help a hitter do that. And in the absence of any clear system for developing that, like there is in pitching, the Tiger org doesn't seem to have any clear ideas about how to make a good hitter or how to find them, other than that Al likes guys who don't K a lot. Well who doesn't? I like Al's organization abilities, but he needs to find a hitting 'guru' for the system that can show him how to bring some of what has been accomplished on the pitching side to the hitting side.

I doubt any kind decision about that is close. I think the plan is to put a team around Goff and see how he does, then decide how to get a QB if that's not good enough.

the interesting argument here is does it matter if he kept saying he didn't believe people. After all it's what he would say even if he did understand the facts but his strategy was to willfully deny them. Can the Costanza defense hold water in a court of law?

exactly

last in walks might argue that they don't take enough pitches, but I think counter-intuitively, it goes the other way. I think last year they were so pleased with their ability to extend ABs and work pitchers that I do wonder if they fell in love with it too much and opposing pitchers are taking advantage of a team that is now not aggressive enough early in the count, so they giving away too many strikes. It's great to make pitchers work, but you have to remember the best way to drive a pitch count is not to take pitches, it's to get guys on base. In the hierarchy of baseball, chasing starters is good, but not as good as scoring runs.

Grossman is where you would have hoped a hitting coach could have done something. Supposedly Robbie, unsatisfied with his best career year (and nothing wrong with that per se) went out over the off-season and tried to retool some stuff. Well, damn if it hasn't worked out, but can't he at least get back to where he was? And can't coaching help him get there? Sure it's possible he is toast at 32, he wouldn't be the 1st, but it does seem a little odd that there was no intermediate fall off last season or even in the second half of last season.

terrible, but still funny.

Still, after playing with him for 13 yrs I don't think anyone is going to tell Yzerman anything about Federov that would change his mind about whether he wants him or not and I don't see Chris Ilitch, who is the only one who could, actually countermanding Yzerman on it. That said, I agree with Hongbit he seems like a far-fetched choice for enough other reasons that that one wouldn't be top of the list anyway.

I don't really think that is the problem here. It's more a matter of you accept the God of the OT as authentic or you don't. And if you do not, then you cannot simultaneously entertain biblical fundamentalism, unless you are willing to simply gloss over the most jarring possible contradictions, which by and large much of Christianity has been exactly willing to do for millennia. The alternative is to take a more nuanced view that the OT as a document is a human interpretation of the Hebrews understanding of their historical experience. But to do that undercuts the authority of clergy to mediate the interpretation of the infallible text, so the theologians of fundamentalism wave away the inherent contradictions and continue to argue infallibility because it is the key to their power. Now clearly there is another Christianity that has a completely different approach to all of this, but they have been a shrinking minority and American Fundamentalists pretty much view those people as mushy headed apostates.

If you stream the radio via gameday (which is pretty cheap), it will almost always be behind the broadcast enough that on many television systems you can bring the TV 'back' to the audio. It's quite irritating that the gameday app used to have it's own time delay capability which made synching to a broadcast easy. They removed it this season - almost certainly for that exact reason.

they take too many middle middle fastballs (like Cabrera just did). They are all doing it. It's crazy how many cookies this team takes. When you see a guy do that who got to 500 homers because he *always* jumped 1st pitch FBs, you know something weird is going on. They keep harping on 'staying in the strike zone' and that may be true for Javy, but the rest of them need to hit a good pitch when they get it.

Kreidler just hit a 2 run shot. Tigers haven't homered in how many games?

so much of this just stems from the guns. The number one thing police forces need to do is move away from a militaristic approach to the population, but that gets harder and harder to do when the population is armed like a military, which in turn drive police to have to move toward military culture in learning military tactics.

still, before we get too excited, Gausman looked more more up and down than an inside outside yesterday. If Javy can stay home against the guys throwing the bigger horizontal break then he'll be home free.

So much for the Rangers. Tampa gets their shot at the 3-peat. Avalanche have looked better though.

Tyler Alexander gets lit up in an 8th inning relief appearance for Toledo. 3 runs on 4 hits, 3 of which were doubles.

So many AAAA OFs that none of them get enough run to show much. Right now Reyes and Cameron should get the nod over Castro or Haase or Hill. Grossman is going to be the tougher call if Reyes or Cameron hit consistently. You aren't benching Meadows and I think the odds are Riley's bat is not going to let them keep him at AAA very long.

W. Perez with a lead off single, goes to 3rd on a single, scores on a WP to tie the game for WM in the bottom of the 9th. Caps win it on a walk-off sac fly.

He's charging balls on the ground much harder, which is why he's getting assists, which is good. My jury is still out on his fly ball judgment, but miracles do happen.

Baddoo finally on the board with a hit (and walk) for the Hens. Greene also (of course). Kreidler also back in the lineup.

Brieske tossed about 105 last season so I would be surprised if they let him go more than 140-150, which is 100 more. I don't know what kind of plan you need for guy coming off TJ, whether it will more of a pitches per outing thing or a total IP thing, but no doubt they will limit him someway.

It's also about the only way the win a game.

win for Brieske!

I don't know which is worse, Soto's inconsistency or the Umps. I guess I'll take the umps.