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I don’t think the Tigers are willing to shrug their shoulders and say oh well the season is lost. Heck, it’s not even Memorial Day yet. Technically anyway, we have a lot of time to come back and win the division, plus the front office basically indicated earlier this year that the rebuild is done, or at least turned the corner. So they can’t just throw all their kids into the pool just to see who drowns and who floats. They’re still trying to get back in it to win it. I think that’s why they’re rushing Manning back in without the at least one more rehab start he probably needs: we’re getting desperate to win. I don’t necessarily agree that’s the best approach in this particular instance, but I totally get why they are approaching it as they are.

This is Texas, right? He can still be AG if he is disbarred while in office, right?

“Just think about how much they woulda won by if the machines weren’t rigged!”

“Well, come on, the parents and the kids look like a bunch of illegals! What do you expect the police to do! Build the wall!”

I went to some minor league stadiums last week, Birmingham and Nashville in particular, that have apartment buildings that overlook the open space of the ballparks. Seems like it would be so easy for an Oswald-level sharpshooter to pick off six or eight or more people from one of those apartment windows before being caught up with. And of course, there's always the rooftops that have a clear open view of Wrigley Field. Just go up to one of them with an AR-15 and let 'er rip. If someone wanted to create a bunch of chaos all across baseball after their suicide-by-cop, that would be a certain way to do so.

Slashing .333/.367/.556 in his last nine games. How great would it be if this is his turnaround at the big league level, the way he turned around after starting horribly slowly at every level before this?

I feel like avoiding the sweep in MInnesota is a moral victory all in itself.

And there's Tork getting the final out on the same kind of play he was spinning around and dropping balls on the first couple weeks of the season! Ballgame!

And ANOTHER big strikeout, this one by Chafin! Just one more ... come on, buddy ...

BIG strikeout of Carlos Correa for the first out. And here comes A.J. to go get Fulmer. That's fine—he's probably a little wilder today than we need to finish and win the game.

Disagree. A "ghost runner" is already a designation in the game of baseball. It refers to a phantom runner that is assumed to be on a base when a team does not have enough players to have a runner available. You've probably played in games with a ghost runner when you were a kid. The runner can only move as many bases as the batter and runners behind them: if you have a ghost runner on first and the batter gets a double, the ghost runner is assumed to go only to third base. Point being, the "ghost runner" term already existed and referred to something different from this when the rule was implemented. "Zombie runner" is right because the runner placed on second to start the inning was the last out of the prior inning. He basically died to end the inning, and then he was resurrected from the dead to come back and be a baserunner in the following inning. As far as I can tell, that's the perfect situation to apply the word "zombie", and not the word "ghost". That said, who gives a shit.

Zombie runner is the right term. Ghost runner is not.

JEEEEIIIII-MERRRRRR!

Harold was slashing .400/.455/.700 in 11 trips to the plate this year and already had a three-hit day with two homers. I think he deserved the benefit of the doubt to take that at bat.

lol c-mo saying he would totally give the .172-hitting Eric Haase the green light on a 3-0 pitch in a ninth-inning tie game.

By the way, guys, I know it's a little late for this, but if click on settings for the game and choose Audio track (3)/Away, you get the Dan Dickerson call. And, regrettably, Craig Monroe.

Funny, I was going to name Starlin Castro as a potential free agent we could sign in that other thread, but I was afraid some of you older posters would have a heart attack at the thought of yet another Castro on the team.

Someone else needs to buy this team from the Ilitches so Joel Zumaya can be invited to future old-timers days.

I'm not sure where you're getting 100 AB at .250 OBP. Grossman has a .294 OBP in his last 100 or so at bats (i.e., since April 22), which is better than everyone on the team not named Castro or Miggy. That said, Robbie's performance has been nothing short of horrific the last two weeks—like, nearly major league-worst horrific (arguably better than only ... wait for it ... Nick Castellanos!). So sure, let's move Robbie out of the top of the order and put someone else there. I'm fine with that. Please tell me who you think should be top of the order instead. No matter whom you pick, you do know that Robbie can't come out of the lineup, right? Because of the why this team has been rostered, there is literally no one who can replace him outside of Eric Haase or Harold Castro—and either way, you still have Willi in left. But yeah, let's blame Hinch for us being 14-28.

What batting order you want to see? Please list it out.

OK, if everyone were healthy, and if numerous starters were meeting or exceeding their projections and their peripherals, and the team was Pythagorean-positive—as with last year—yes, I agree given the same this year, they could be .500 or better.

Five to fifteen, according to the uncited meta-conclusion in the article you share. I believe the conclusions of such analyses are predicated on comparing the most optimized batting order with the most backwards, upside-down batting order imaginable, no? The latter of which is obviously never even in consideration. So I'd guess that when we're talking about changing one batting order position, like swapping Grossman and Schoop in the order, we're probably not even talking about as many as five runs during a season.

Exactly. Imagine how good this team would be if everything was going exactly right. They might be within shouting distance of .500.

I don't know where you get this out of my post, but no. In no universe do they qualify as established major leaguers. Guess again. Willi is playing left field because it's either him, who is hitting a little but is out of position there, or Eric Haase, who is not hitting at all and would be out of position there. Take your pick. I suppose we could move Grossman off the top of the order and replace him with ... I don't know ... Schoop, maybe? Candelario? Hill? Javy? Tucker? Tork or Miggy? I know you don't want Willi there. Anyway, batting orders don't actually mean all that much in the big scheme of things, maybe five or so runs over the course of a season, but sure, I'm game. Let's try someone else there. I'm not sure I take your unspoken point on Brieske. My point is that Hinch was handed a roster of shit and I'm not sure what more he or anyone else, including Ron Gardenhire, could do with it. Like I said, it's not as though he is running a contender into the ground.