gehringer_2

I don't know if it's notable or not, but there have already been at least a couple of times when one of our young pitchers admitted they gave up a HR after shaking off Tucker.

not a pre-Trump GOP member, an ex refinery services guy...... But to your point, yes the Dems are conflicted on energy issues because there has always been a segment of the Green lobby that won't understand that the answer to problems is not to go backward in time, but to go forward in technology. That part of the lobby just wants everything bad to stop happening and if everyone has to sit cold in the dark that's just what we deserve for raping the planet. Of course the problem is that regardless of what we may 'deserve', in any real political world that approach gets you at about 10 votes at the polls. That makes the compromises that are part of real practical progress anathema to some of the squeakiest wheels. And of course the oil companies spend a ton of money buying political influence that truly is hostile to our future. But what else is new?

There is a lot of nonsense in the MSM about refining. You see a lot of articles about how we are doomed because so many refineries have closed, but the what has happened in the business is that many small refineries have closed while the big refineries have gotten incrementally bigger, so total national refining capacity actually continues to increase. What is true is that no-one is going to invest to build a new refinery with electric cars expected to take up to 10% of the market soon. Refining is a tricky business, you make a lot money when product supply is tight, but you can lose your shirt in a hurry whenever demand drops because it's very expensive to operate units at part capacity and they are very hard to just shut down and start-up. When demand falls, each refinery is instantly willing to undercut every other refiner on price to keep his refineries running efficiently at capacity. So that adds to the volatility of gas prices, which of course are already very volatile because of the way crude prices vary all over the place. Only one big refinery has closed in the US and that was Philly and it should have been burned down 30 yrs ago. Sun had driven the place absolutely into the ground. The place was a pit. Good riddance. They are just lucky no-one was killed in the last big failure that finally led to the total shutdown.

Like most oil patch people, Wirth is FOS. The oil companies don't care how people talk about them. The problem is that while people are bitching and moaning about prices, they haven't cut back their driving - consumption is still very high. If people would cut back, prices would fall because only then will refiners have to compete to sell the last barrel they can refine. Right now they face no price pressure because they can all sell all the gasoline they can produce. Now granted, refinery margins are only about 10-20% of the price the gasoline, the rest is the price of the crude, but 10% would still be $0.50/gal. It's actually hard to believe given the emphasis on fuel economy but US gasoline consumption is still up about 6% from 7-8 yrs ago.

You would think that. This franchise is under such a black cloud recently it's hard to accept otherwise normal probabilities as applying.

Haase has had a good month - 800 OPS in June. It's not saying much but he is the closest thing to an MLB catcher we have in the system currently. Maybe Barnhart is still suffering league change, no way he should be as bad as he is.

Sanchez has a little OBP but no power. Can he defend?

Brady is 26 and not playing very much (14 PA scattered through June). Looks a little like he is on a glide path out.

has missed 130 games in the last 3 seasons.

where did Ali Sanchez come from? ..... waived by StL AAA on the 18th. Policelli looks like he will vie for the Shane Halter award if he ever makes the majors. Has already played pretty much everywhere.

But this is what I was afraid of. The discussion about the quality of the police response it a total misdirection from the real problem, which was the shooter being there armed the was he was in the first place. The police may have made it much worse, but fundamentally the situation was lost before they ever got there - that is what needs to be fixed.

Baddoo on base streak with the Hen's ends tonight.

sure, and Javy's miss may have been Grossman's fault. Just saying you win more if you clean that stuff up. But the reason I go back the the play with Javy is that it extended the inning where your pitcher give up the big hit. You can also point to them guessing wrong on shifting for Vedugo. That may have been the worst because that could have been a tailor made DP ball in a standard set.

if Javy catches the pop fly, it's a different ballgame. They can't seem to break through to a clean game.

it wasn't even a breaking ball. If you can't see when a fastball is on the plate you really shouldn't be umpiring.

Robbie get jobbed on a pitch 6" inside. Unbelievable how bad the umpiring is.

aged very well!!!!

pinch hit for Schoop and Castro? Won't happen.

It's perfectly reasonable that Hinch has started Greene off low in the order to start, but you have to hope he can keep his head above water well enough to get flipped to in front of Miguel .....soon.!

THe obvious fact is that Isaac never played enough in Det to get any kind of comfort level. They didn't given him a position to play or and confidence he'd get another AB. Some guys that doesn't bother, but it clearly did Isaac. The give away was when he came out of winter league having won the batting crown and then couldn't do anything in Det. You knew there was a player there we weren't seeing, whether it was major league or not, it was better than we were seeing.

there was always some complaint with Paredes. First it was that he was going to get fat - he didn't. Then it was that he wasn't going to hit, and he did. Then he wasn't going to hit for power, but he seems to be...... The glass was always half empty with Isaac. Maybe they will still be right in the end but they have egg on their face right now.

Ah - gotcha. I see it now, the feed selector doesn't link to anything....

game of inches...

Do you mean you can't get the audio at all or can't cast it to another device? My MLB updated yesterday and still does regular audio.....

It's not helping the perception that he hasn't been able to stay on the field.