gehringer_2

Smoltz did return to one observation several times that I think may be spot on and maybe is more generally applicable they he even gives it credit for - which is that maybe on the reasons we are seeing this huge shift in the way managers handle pitching and the decreasing value of starters is nothing more than the familiarity factor. There used to be fewer teams and each team had fewer pitchers. In particular for starters, most teams a Lolich or Gibson faced knew them really well. So you really had to have a lot of tools in the toolbox to have been a successful starter. There are so many team and each team has twice as many pitchers, todays batters just never get familiar with the guys they are facing - esp the relievers - this gives relievers a huge advantage compared to the 'old days'. All a reliever has to do is look different and that can get him through as many innings as any other team will see him for. In that calculus coming in fresh and strong begins to mean more than not being a pitcher with a good variety of pitches. The only question is why it took baseball so many years after expansion and pitching staff increases to actually start managing to current conditions. Probably because it takes a long time for the culture in coaching and management to change. Look at how long the 3 pt shot existed before basketball finally started being played to take full advantage of it - it was decades.

absolutely. It was quite strange. The traditional playoff team's dilemma is usually which regular starters give up their role because you don't need 5 in the players. The Braves were pretty much down to 2 starters and they still managed to win.

You can bank on the Tigers trying to make more moves quickly. That seems to be Avila's MO.

it did strike me that once it looked like there would be no game 7 Fox's attention did seem to shift to football. 🙄

so if what I just read is correct, once the 1b and runner both miss the bag, it's not enough for the 1b to just step on the bag, it becomes a tag play. To get the out, Fried either had to tag Brantley before he returned to the base after running by, or the Braves had to do a regular appeal play where the pitcher goes the rubber - steps off etc and they ask for a ruling that Brantley missed the base. The didn't do either so they forfeited their chance to get the out called by not doing either of the correct procedural options. If they had gone to replay all it would have proved is that Fried didn't tag Brantley. https://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/video-braves-challenge-max-fried-michael-brantley-first/586498

Solid deal. Kind of a So-So player but one that fills a need that will still provide value given the context of the Tiger's weakness at the position. And sure, it's mostly about the salary. Agreed $7.5 does seem high for what Burkhardt can do but it's a seller's market in catchers. Quintana's chances of turning into anything are vary small at this point. He's just enough to call it a trade rather than a pure contract dump.

Cunningham going to have to change his first name to Mason. We're going to need some posts on what terrible early games some past stars have had.

Hopefully Correa has been lowering his $$ with every out he he has made in this WS.... 🙄

I absolutely could not make it through the day with a mask that hung from my ears - so I wear one that ties behind my head. Problem solved.....

I wonder if Va will scare the Dem Congressional caucus in DC into cooperating a little better? Probably not.

that was not going to be workable unless the vaccinated agreed to have their foreheads branded. In America dishonesty is just too high to give people the option of working on the honor system.

Wings with an exhibition of terrible passing tonight.

For your comparison, Maine, Vermont and Hawaii have death rates comparable or better than Canada. The State with population over 5 million with the lowest death rate is Washington, at 1145/M. The state over 10 million population with the lowest death rate is NCar, at 1729. So basically every large state in the US has issues either on the urban poverty side or the conservative vaccine refusal side, or both.

you could be looking through the Hubble, there'd still be no trace.

The way I read the allegory is that there is no moral responsibility for an evil action prior to moral knowledge. It's interesting that some of the Greeks took it in a different direction and said evil (sin) comes through lack of knowledge - that no-one who understands that something is evil would do it. So a perfectly knowing person would never commit an evil act. I guess I can see how either view works.

It's 3:55, do you know where your left tackle is?

all we had on our ballot today were city charter amendments. The joke is that they increase the authority of the city Managers, who are regularly fired by the City Council when they get caught between competing priorities of the mayor vs the council. It's really silly. We really just need to upgrade the Mayor's job and do away with the city admin, but we nurse this myth we are somehow above having normal mayoral politics.

Of course the rich part is that the devil is never explicitly named Lucifer anywhere in the Bible. There is a reference to the 'Son of the Dawn' in Isaiah, which in Latin sort of translates to "Lucifer" (used by Wycliff and kept by the KJV translators) but the referent could as easily have been to fallen Babylonian royalty as to the devil, who actually gets almost no mention in the OT after the serpent in Genesis other than in Job, and it's a different kind of character there. All of our common demonology is Renaissance recapitulation of old Babylonian paganism. It has almost nothing to do with the Hebrew Bible and not much with the N.T. either.

The Japanese industry - esp Toyota, had committed to hybrids and other than the Nissan Leaf are on average behind behind their competitors on all electrics. I think in the end they may be right that at least plug-in hybrids hold a solid place in the market for some years to come but right now that isn't where the action is.

Luciferase is what makes lightning bugs light. And here you thought those are just innocent looking little fliers. They are really all just NSA micro-drones sopping up all your conversations - or at least all the ones you aren't already giving up to Alexa and Siri.

nice

They're paying him a $million a year to be ready for it. I know lots of students that would be glad to accept a non-performance refund on his (or Harbaugh's) salary! Being beaten on the field is one thing, being unprepared to play is unacceptable. It's time to wake up and smell the coffee. Harbaugh is just nowhere near an elite head coaching talent. He's not terrible. He may be as good as the U is willing to accept, but he isn't the guy Michigan football fan hoped he would be and that's not going to change.

With Harbaugh this appears to be a feature, not a bug. Defensive coords come and go, Harbaugh's defenses remain unready for the snap.

True. And 2020 the Patriots were 7-9 without Brady. But a good team is good because they have good players and MSU has one.

Of course they have a lot more room for error against Indiana. TBH, the MSU game was more about MSU than UM. M played as well against MSU as they have against anyone this season. The story is what Tucker has accomplished at MSU. M fan has been able to assume that even if beating OSU was a bridge too far, just getting back to being a middling program would allow them to start beating an MSU program that threatened to remain in disarray after the D'antonio's flame out. Tucker upset those plans.