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It's nice to complain about the bullpen because we used to complain about the offense, defense, starting pitching, manager, hitting coaches, etc. This team is so good the freaking bat boy is an all-star.

Today’s starting lineup (wRC+ thru today): Keith: 112 Torres: 129 Carpenter: 123 Greene: 128 Torkelson: 119 Perez: 119 McKinstry: 120 Dingler: 107 Baez: 102 Not bad

Reading all of you discussing local Detroit media makes me feel kind of left out. I have very little knowledge of it. Having never lived in Detroit, and with the Tigers always being an exotic “fix“ obtained from a distance like Jasmine from the Orient, I wonder if my affection for the team would have been dulled by the ubiquity of it all if I’d lived in Detroit. Where I live in Boise Idaho everybody wears Boise State Bronco gear, especially on Saturdays in the fall, and though the team once meant a lot to me, even back then I would kinda roll my eyes and mockingly think “wow that’s really being edgy and unique” when each Saturday rolled around and Bronco flags were flapping from everybody’s pick up truck. For me, the Tigers have always been something unique, not something commonly accessible. Where I’ve lived for the last 38 years the Tigers are my secret pleasure, my secret vice. I might as well be a goth teen wearing all black in the 102° heat with piercings all over me. Being a Tigers fan out here makes me unique, and when I do meet people from Detroit out here we are able to share a bond that seems more valuable because of its rarity. And sharing this affection with the rest of you who grew up in Michigan only affirms this connection.

Vest should definitely be their 6th inning guy.

I will venture to guess that if you dig a little deeper, you are going to find that when Hinch decides to use Vest in the 8th, it has been because the heart of the opposition's order is due up, so on average he is probably facing better hitters in the 8th than when he enters the game in the 9th. How much of an effect is that? IDK, but I imagine no-one here other than maybe Lee or Chasfh does either. In general, paying too much attention to statistics that tell what has happened without telling you why it happened doesn't necessarily get you where you want to go.

I learned about dependent and independent variables in middle school science. I guess a lot of people missed out on that lesson.

I'm shocked to hear Twitter is full of dumb comments.

“Explosive Regression” would be a heck of a thriller title for a book about a baseball analyst who also solves murders in a small town somewhere resorty.

We just seem to be living in the middle of one of the worst written movies ever. But it’s not a ****ing movie. This stuff is really happening. To quote Warren Zevon, “send lawyers, guns and money. The **** has hit the fan“

Nice to see the Tigers win and make a handful of posters sad, lmfao!

Riley strikes out, thinking he’s at the driving range

0-0 after 1. I have low expectations for this game. So if Morton can give 5-6 innings with, say, 2 runs then that might be a satisfactory outcome win or lose, because it would indicate he might make a real contribution the rest of the way.

This might be the best post of the year (so far)

They’re actually showing a pregame on ESPN2

Yeah me too. For me, the waiting isn’t so much the irritant as much as just that Sunday afternoon Tiger games have always been part of the rhythm of summer for me. i guess it’s a small price to pay for having a noteworthy team.

What does his mom look like?

At least with Valenti, he doesn't really try to hide that he's not trying to be right, he's trying to be entertaining/engaging, because on the radio that's his job. I suppose a print reporter can make the same argument to some extent, but there is still a vestigial set of 'traditional' expectations for things that call themselves newspapers, though admittedly they're fading fast.

Everything is pretty good, but the bullpen sucks? Is Dombrowski still around? But, hold on, how many all star bat boys did we see during the Dombrowski era? Is that the tiebreaker?

Might as well win the series.

He’s due for a dramatic regression.

I think this game might be exclusive to ESPN.

Midterms and some checks on this maniac's power can't come soon enough.

I'm in Minneapolis, but at this point in my life I throw about as well as a henway

That's cool - I'll be attending

I got into it for two or three years (1997-2000). I had a friend/coworker that worked with an ESPN contractor with NASCAR. He’d fly out to wherever the race was on Friday and fly back in on Sunday. He loved it for a while. He kept telling me he could get me free lodging and this and that if I wanted to go with him. I finally consented. I attended the 1997 Labor Day race in Darlington, S.C. That was the same weekend Princess Diana died. It was on every news outlet anywhere. We drove out to the track that Sunday morning and hung out a bit. I was just tagging along and trying not to get in the way. I was a Dale Jarrett fan the little time I was following NASCAR. Prior to the race my friend introduced me to Dale’s dad, Ned. Very nice gentleman and former Cup winner. I also met the late Benny Parsons. Still have pics somewhere we took together. I spent the entire race in the television booth overlooking the track as Ned and Benny called the race for ESPN. Jeff Gordon won the race and an additional million bucks over the first place payout. Jarrett finished 2nd or 3rd. It was an enjoyable trip. Dale Jarrett won the cup in 1999. I felt that my work was done at that point and I began to take an interest in the newly minted Carolina Hurricanes. Never really followed NASCAR after that. OK, that’s my contribution to rain delay fill-in time.

We had a teammate on a softball team that drove dirt tracks. We went to watch him one night. We were a bunch of dumb city folk that thought it’d be cool to sit close to the track. We ended up picking dirt out of our teeth for a week.

My bad. Carry on with your good time having a bad time.

You know this wasn’t a bad idea intrinsically, but the rain makes it a tremendously bad idea which is unfortunate. Stuff like this happens when people with lots of money are used to doing things and flattening every obstacle in their path, but the weather is an obstacle that doesn’t respect anyone’s hubris. They can’t allow players to get injured. These guys are worth millions of dollars.

Don't all events at Tennessee speedways need to start with a prayer? If so, won't be able to top this one.

It’s like Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average and some of them even more so. They’re also good enough and hit well enough and gosh darn it we like them.

Rochester Hills. Family moved when he was 2. Dad was in finance and moved around a lot.

Finnegan left them in his wake.

just a guess, but I suspect he was bored at WMI - the BB was sky high because pitchers did not want to throw him strikes

The most alarming thing about this is that, apparently, it is impossible to stop it. 1 big thing: Trump authoritarian streak Photo illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images A five-alarm fire tore through the economic establishment yesterday after President Trump ousted the government's top labor statistician, accusing her — without evidence — of "rigging" a weak jobs report. Why it matters: It's just one glaring example from a week that bore many authoritarian hallmarks — purging dissenters, rewriting history, criminalizing opposition and demanding total institutional loyalty, Axios' Zachary Basu writes. Vast swaths of society are falling in line. The Washington Post revealed this week that the Smithsonian quietly removed references to Trump's two impeachments from its presidential exhibit. 🔭 The big picture: The overwhelming, all-consuming nature of Trump-driven news cycles makes it difficult to discern partisan hysteria from true democratic backsliding. But apply any of these five developments to a foreign leader — or even a past U.S. president — and it reads like an authoritarian playbook: 1. Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer, a 20-year government veteran, after BLS announced massive downward revisions for job growth in May and June. "We're doing so well. I believe the numbers were phony. ... So you know what I did: I fired her," Trump told reporters, without explaining why he believed past jobs reports were credible when they were positive. Larry Summers, Harvard professor and Treasury Secretary for President Clinton. Screenshot via X William Beach, who led the BLS during Trump's first term, blasted the firing as "totally groundless." 2. Eager to shift scrutiny from his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Trump demanded his Justice Department prosecute former President Obama for "treason" over the 2016 Russia investigation. Top Trump aides are engaged in an all-out effort to rewrite the history of "Russiagate" and exact revenge on Obama-era intelligence officials, including through criminal referrals. 3. In his crackdown on liberal power centers, Trump has extracted more than $1.2 billion in settlements from at least 13 of the most elite players in academia, law, media and tech, according to an Axios tally. The Trump administration is reportedly eyeing up to $500 million from Harvard and $100 million from Cornell, paving the way for a cascade of other universities to follow suit. 4. Dozens of Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT megaprison say they were beaten, sexually assaulted and denied access to lawyers or medical care, a Washington Post investigation found. 5. Trump's months-long campaign to oust Fed Chair Jay Powell, or at least pressure him to cut interest rates, is still lingering. White House response: "President Trump is holding the federal government and elite institutions accountable for their political games, longstanding corruption, and terrible incompetence," White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. With regard to CECOT, a White House official told Axios: "These are criminal terrorist illegal immigrants and the American people are safer with them as far away as possible." Trump's consolidation of power comes at the same time he's attempting to unilaterally reset the global trading order — with tariff rates set to his personal whim. Brazil now faces 50% tariffs — among the highest rates of any country — due to its prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro, which Trump has denounced as a "witch hunt." The stakes of Trump's centralized command were accentuated yesterday, when he ordered two nuclear submarines repositioned in response to saber-rattling by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Share this story.

Carlos Monmarez is going hard on Scott Harris is turrible narrative …therefore i think Harris was right.

Difficult to deal with must mean not wanting to part with a top 75 prospect for a 31 year old reliever.

For a front office that is so tough to deal with, they sure made a lot of trades (8) with several different teams (7) leading up to the deadline.

Cows?

I am not especially thrilled with what they got at the deadline, but I don't know what it would have cost to obtain more impactful players. I don't think they significantly impoved their chances of going all the way this year, but how do you do that? There was no urgent need because they have such a big lead and the teams in back of them aren't really trying to win. I think the post-season is mostly a crapshoot, so I am not in favor of selling the farm just for what might turn out to be one series.

Jody Davis, Leon Durham, Bill Buckner, Andre Dawson and Ryan Sanberg etc. That crew I grew up watching on WGN. First thing to do after getting home from school is turn on a cubs game and listen to Steve Stone and Harry Carey. Sandberg had a few more HoF seasons than Lou Whitaker. Otherwise their defense was a wash as both great. But Lou played a little longer and developed power a little later than Sanberg. Otherwise, they both belong and both with their respective leagues where #1 at their positions.

He’s the guy we hoped Tork would be.

Remember when major leaguers left their gloves on the field while they came up to bat? Neither do I. And neither do you unless you're at least 80, because the rule requiring players to bring their gloves off the field was adopted during the winter of 1953-54. But, as with every rule change, there was vociferous opposition by the conservatives in the game. Well, going into 1954, those conservatives included the American League itself, which voted 7-1 to not require their teams to enforce the new rule. They objected partially on the basis of it never hurt anyone before (dubious claim), but, also, on the basis that it would unnecessarily delay games. Why, just imagine a player stranded on second base with the third out. All he had to do is trot to his glove just a few feet away and he's ready to go. But noooo ... now he's got to trudge all the way back to the dugout to get his glove and then go back out to his position in the field. Can you imagine how much time that will take?? Why, ball games will balloon to three hours if we make players take their gloves into the dugouts with them!