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Yes, so, in light of what I posted, of course Perez has dominated Tigers hitters and reached his 23rd and 25th hitters of the game! 🙃

Yeah, at some point, you just gotta throw the kid out there and, as long as he's not overwhelmed start after start, let him work through it.

You sharp people have probably noticed I mentioned you watching a hockey player on your broadcast. But wait, how could I know that? Am I not blocked by MLB blackout rules from getting the Tigers broadcast when they play the team located in my market? Normally, yes, I would be blocked. But apparently, MLB is ****ing up their whole anti-VPN campaign. Starting a few weeks ago, I stopped getting mlb.com when I had my VPN on. No games, no lineups, no news stories, no nothing. Just 403 pages. I had to add a VPN extension to my laptop browser and split tunnel to allow it to ignore all pages located at mlb.com, which, OK, fine, I guess. But I still don't get Tigers TV broadcasts on my laptop browser when they play the White Sox because I am in Chicago. BUT: for some reason, that doesn't apply to iOS, aka my iPhone or iPad. Even with the VPN on, I still get TV broadcasts on my MLB app, although I still get 403 pages on the news stories on the app, which is super weird, but whatever. BUT: I also discovered, just today, that if I change my VPN to something outside Chicago—e.g., Charlotte—I can get the Tigers TV broadcasts on the MLB app on my iOS devices when they play the White Sox (or Cubs). It wasn't like that before, because iOS's geolocation told MLB I was in Chicago regardless of what my VPN said. So Tigers broadcasts had always been blocked by them. Until this season. At some point MLB is going to get wise to this and "fix" it so that I am denied my favorite team's broadcasts when they face my city's team, which serves their business model. But as long as they don't do so before 3pm, I should be golden for the rest of this game, anyway.

I think Dirks is nowhere near as good on TV with Benetti as he was with Dan on radio. I think it's because he and Benetti are the same age and have the same propensity for humor, so they end up trying to top each other and, in my view, it gets a bit out of control. Dan is all business, so Dirks was more business-like and therefore more listenable on radio. BTW, I feel bad for you people for having to sit through an interview with a hockey player during a Tigers game.

Holy **** on a stick, 100 million acres is more than 156,000 square miles. That's more than the size of Montana!

Do you project that McGonigle is going to rocket through Erie and Toledo to make the big club this season? That would be awesome, but man, that's a big ask.

If he really wanted Bregman, why didn't Harris offer him the opt-out he wanted after year one?

McKinstry plays too much because too many guys are hurt and he has to cover for that. He wasn't supposed to play this much.

I would love to see him put up an eight-win season this year. He's 33 going on 34, so it's kind of unlikely, although if he's gonna do it again, it's more likely now than later.

I meant the benefit of changing those seats to club seats to get premium corporate dollars this year (short term benefit) versus creating the impression of a unpopular team by showing seats that are mostly empty every pitch of every home game (long term detriment).

Yes, and batting him sixth is slightly lower pressure than batting him fourth, since more is expected out of a cleanup hitter than a #6 hitter, and a hitter might take failure in the cleanup spot a little harder, which might erode confidence somewhat. Perhaps limiting his exposure to LHP by his batting 25th in the game versus 23rd factored into the decision, although unless Martin Perez completes dominates Tigers hitters from the word "go", he probably won't make it to his 23rd hitter anyway.

The White Sox are the getaway team, so their lineup is even less major league than normal.

I don't think that's even implied—the rule book is explicit in that errors are charged for physical miscues only. See Note (3) especially: 10.13 An error shall be charged for each misplay (fumble, muff or wild throw) which prolongs the time at bat of a batter or which prolongs the life of a runner, or which permits a runner to advance one or more bases. NOTE (1) Slow handling of the ball which does not involve mechanical misplay shall not be construed as an error. NOTE (2) It is not necessary that the fielder touch the ball to be charged with an error. If a ground ball goes through a fielder's legs or a pop fly falls untouched and in the scorer's judgment the fielder could have handled the ball with ordinary effort, an error shall be charged. NOTE (3) Mental mistakes or misjudgments are not to be scored as errors unless specifically covered in the rules. I know this is not you at all, but, I get how Americans are culturally hard-wired to visit maximum punishment upon miscreants in all cases—it's also why many fans are adamant that pitchers should be charged earned runs if they make their own errors as a fielder—and would like to see fielders punished, and punished hard, for mental mistakes. But, I guess sadly for them, that's not how baseball scoring works.

I believe batting Carpenter sixth is a confidence-building move.

Maybe they have some of the cutout fans from the COVID season somewhere in the basement they could haul out for it? Or, to your point, hire seat-fillers a la Oscars? The real problem is the swell home plate club they tie to these seats. When the game gets boring, or the weather too hot or too cold, or they just have someone in the seat who's there for business and doesn't give a rip about the game or about baseball in general, they're going to the club to schmooze. This is a problem all teams create for themselves by chasing the short term dollar.

Plus, if they're gonna give Riley a planned day off, doing so on a getaway day against the White Sox is as good a time as any.

I don’t mean theoretically. I mean in actuality. How have other countries been taking advantage of the United States prior to Trump, in actuality?

There are other problems with the no tax on tips thing. Why give restaurant waiters a tax break but not restaurant hostesses or back of the restaurant workers? Why do people who deliver food to your house get a tax break but not the people who deliver Amazon packages to your house? Why should blackjack dealers at a casino get a tax break but not the people who clean the floors and bathrooms there? Why should certain occupations be privileged in the tax code at the expense of others, and of the rest of us?

I reached out to my friend who is an official scorer. I was incorrect when I speculated that there might not be any errors given on fiedler’s choice plays. It does come down to official scorer interpretation of whether a play was ordinary or extraordinary. He says: I looked at the play. Looks like the OS decided that Baez could have thrown out Sosa at first but decided to try for a force at second and that the throw to second - from his knee - was beyond ordinary effort. So no error for missing an out. Judgment call by the OS (and I agree). He would have had time to get up and throw to first, so it's FC and not a hit; going to second required more than ordinary effort.

This is the kind of charming local advertiser you hear running radio spots on other broadcasts, and that I wish the Tigers had on theirs. I am over with all the LCE, Comerica, Corewell, and ambulance chaser spots. Could be worse, I suppose—it could also be the same one Fanduel radio spot running literally every break.

Because they take the Red Line to their ballpark

It’s no accident their “news” letter comes from the email address info@marketing.mlbemail.com. It’s completely out in the open that their focus is to privilege those teams and players they perceive as superior revenue generators over all others. They’re not even trying to hide that they favor and even root for the Big Six teams and their temporary honorary members (currently the Braves, Orioles, and Phillies) over nobody teams like the Tigers. Maybe Scott Harris can succeed in achieving honorary membership for us in a few years and make it last for a while. But we’ll almost certainly never be a Big Six team. This is the state of the MLB business model, and if you love baseball played at the highest level, you’ll accept it or you’ll find another sport to follow instead.

I just sometimes feel like phrases like that are used merely as a punchline, that nobody gives it any real thought, that people just accept the statement on an as is basis because they’ve heard it over and over. I would honestly like someone to explain to me exactly how the US has been taken advantage of by smaller, less wealthy countries in terms of trade. I’m listening.

There’s also the issue of “ordinary effort” bs “extraordinary effort”, a key standard for assigning errors. By any standard, throwing to a base from a knee goes beyond ordinary effort.

Look what arrived in my inbox from the good people at MLB Marketing: This is ostensibly a daily newsletter. That’s how they promote it, anyway.