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According to AI, the majority of fans do not like the rule. I am not sure that's true, but I think that the majority of avid fans don't like it. The players like it, so maybe do it after 11 innings? I still wouldn't like it, but if they have to do it, after 11 innings is better than after 9 innings.

**** them.

he was there, he needs to catch it. he screwed up the little corner but it's his home field, he got to go out there and practice until he can deal with it.

I’ve been to a game today (Sunday). Dragons vs Monkeys in Taiwan’s Chinese Baseball League. 400 NT$ (US$13) to get in. One beer for NT$50 (US$1.60), two for NT$80 (US$2.55) and all-you-can drink beer for NT$150 (US$ 4.80).

he will if the refs call that matchup the same way they call any harden/mitchell matchup with detroit.

Totally agree. Amazing season! And yea, I guess I'll root for the Cavs if they win. I hate Harden so bad, but it's balanced by my hate of the other flopper, Brunson. Once you add KAT into the mix, the answer becomes obvious.

you never really know what a team is going to be. So far it looks like last season was the Cinderella at the ball season for the Tigers but midnight struck a little too soon for them. This year Fairy Godmother is apparently otherwise employed so it's back to tattered dresses and keeping the hearth warm for others ..... unless she should make another appearance.

Tigers offense today;

No. At this point, we need him to chow innings and save the bullpen at this point. We also have to figure out a way to score more than zero runs for him with this injury-replacement roster while he is on the mound.

Pretty sure he’s been bailed out by a few unearned runs this year (that probably would’ve scored either way)

And you're complaining about Wenceel's hitting?

Ben Malgeri is hitting .300 at Toledo and plays all three outfield positions better than Perez. He's not a switch-hitter but since Perez can't hit either side, why does that matter.

Jack's not waiting til the 2nd time through the lineup to suck today. Jack's just helping you realize you need to go cut the grass. Why put it off for another hour.

I like Wenceel, but it’s pretty clear he’s not a major leaguer. He doesn’t hit enough to justify his awful defense.

Ok can we not be a complete gas can today Jack?

I have to say, I was rather dismayed to see Flaherty on my TV when I opened my roku's MLB app. didn't he just "pitch" like 2 or 3 days ago?

"It's the Same, Old Song....."

You left out Adam Silver and whatever the name is of his toad that does the draft lottery. This is going to take a huge effort to get it done. Home court advantage is lessened considerably by the fact the league was already advertising a Cavs/Knicks series. They want the Cavs. Btw, it doesn’t make any sense to me. The horrible fake fouls will become so obvious and fans are bound to get sick of the constant free throw series featuring the Four Tops of Flops in SGA/Wemby and Brunson/Harden. They need the Pistons in there to balance things out.

And I, for one, welcome our Sunday Afternoon games. I'd like to remind you that, as a trusted radio announcer, I can be helpful in rounding up others to protest Sunday night games.

Big Power, Golden Glove

As far as I know it is healthy scratches.... After riding the high seas of illegal streams I finally paid for Flohockey yesterday. Looking forward to non-pixelated AHL games lol. I didn't realize they had ECHL, all the juniors and SHL on there. Depending on what the Wings do this offseason I might be back to heavily focusing on prospects again 😂

If you looked at it during the regular season, you'd think it was fine. As Del said, we had a winning record with Davis as crew chief. He also has the 6th lowest called fouls per game and 4th lowest point total per game. Sounds great, right? Nope. Davis was the Crew Chief for Game 4. Remember that one? That's the one where the Cavs shot 34 free throws to our 12 and Mitchell alone had more than our entire team. Now, maybe it was the rest of the crew (Tiven, Maddox, and Ervin) who called all those fouls in Game 4 and Davis will return to regular season form tonight. Or maybe it was just the call from the league office. Guess we'll find out later.

4-1 this season with Davis as the crew chief. Pistons are wearing blue tonight.

Jake Rogers has an OPS of 1.000 vs Kevin Gausman in 2 PAs. Watch your step, Toronto.

That's what I meant about being able to track every play. When I was a kid, I would listen to Tigers game on the radio and keep a box sore. Every play would be tracked. And that has been done officially for every game for decades. That's what I meant by every play is tracked. That was beautiful and orderly and now it's gone. You described the pitcher stat problem. But what about the base runner? The runner gets credit for scoring a run without anybody even reaching base. That just throws the whole system out of order.

It's a win/loss according to the rules. It's just not real baseball. If it was real baseball, they wouldn't switch back to the traditional rules for the playoffs.

True. Of course what would be even better for the game would be to solve the risk factors for pitchers, then some other stuff could follow.

The cocky part is the key. Jays fans flooded tiger stadium but their team just won a title and seeing how close we were it made sense. Canadians from Ontario are harmless. Cavs fans got cocky in 88 and 89 thinking Mark Price and Daugherty were going to skip past the Pistons. Mahorn elbowed Price and he cried like a bitch. Then Jordan took care of them.

I think that is the reason given publicly, but I think as big a reason is that teams don't want to risk destroying a bullpen for a week in a 16 inning game. Such a large proportion of relievers in the league now are only one inning guys, and on any given night you may have already used 5 pitchers each of the two nights before, you don't want to risk hurting guys by over extending them when they are not acclimated to it. With 'pitching chaos' the Tigers probably have more guys than most to help you get through a long game, but if there is one thing true in US national sports, they don't make rules for Detroit teams.

Since I was wondering whether our offense is maddeningly inconsistent, which I think every fan believes about their own team, I plugged the game by game hitting stats of every team through yesterday into an AI assistant and asked it to rank the 30 teams by most consistent to least consistent offense. Here's what it spit back out. For what's it's worth, of course. ***** Here's the full ranking, most to least consistent through May 15 (weeks 1-7, complete games only). The consistency score is the average coefficient of variation of runs per game and OPS — lower means more day-to-day predictability. Most Consistent (1–10) 1. Tampa Bay Rays — The most consistent offense in baseball despite being a middling team (4.54 R/G). Low run variance (std 2.49), low OPS volatility. They don't explode often (22% of games 7+ runs) but they also almost never completely die (12% at 0-1 runs). Quiet, steady, reliable. 2. St. Louis Cardinals — Nearly identical profile to Tampa Bay. 4.68 R/G, low variance, 9.8% goose egg rate — lowest in the majors. They're not flashy but they show up every night. 3. Texas Rangers — Consistently mediocre is still consistent. Third-best CV on runs despite a weak 3.71 R/G average. They don't beat you but they also don't completely embarrass themselves. Low floor, low ceiling. 4–5. Atlanta Braves / Chicago Cubs — Both are good offensive teams (5.55 and 5.28 R/G) that also happen to be consistent. The Cubs have an impressive 42.5% rate of scoring 7+ runs — they're consistent and dangerous. 6. Baltimore Orioles — Interesting case: 7.3% goose egg rate (2nd lowest in baseball) despite only a 4.17 R/G average. They almost never go completely quiet. The Middle (11–20) Washington, San Diego, New York Yankees, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Houston, Oakland, Cincinnati, Seattle, Kansas City cluster in the 0.506–0.535 range — solidly average consistency. The Yankees stand out here: 5.19 R/G is elite production, but a 35.9% OPS CV means they swing between dominant and dormant. High-variance good team. Detroit sits at 8th — a consistency score of 0.480, roughly top quarter of the league. Their 4.21 R/G average is pedestrian, but they hold their floor reasonably well (14.3% goose eggs) without many blowout games (16.7% at 7+). They grind. Least Consistent (21–30) 27. Boston Red Sox — 26.8% of games scoring 0-1 runs, worst run CV (0.876) of any team not in the bottom five. Genuinely Jekyll-and-Hyde offense. Their 3.83 R/G masks huge swings. 28. Colorado Rockies — 25% goose egg rate, 0.808 run CV. Playing at altitude masks how unpredictable they are. 29. New York Mets — 25.6% goose eggs, 3.79 R/G, 0.840 run CV. Consistent only in their inconsistency, and consistently bad on top of it. 30. San Francisco Giants — The least consistent offense in baseball. 32.5% goose egg rate — nearly one in three games they score one run or fewer. A 0.403 OPS CV means they also have some big games, but the floor is the lowest in the league. 3.45 R/G is the worst in baseball through this stretch.

All these guys had to do was score 2 runs in the first full 8 innings. They struck out 14 times! And granted, that two of those came in the bottom of the ninth and the bottom of the 10th that wouldn’t have been played if they had scored two runs in the first full eight innings, but it’s still too common an event. And the Blue Jays struck out only six times in 10 innings. Making contact makes a difference.

If you go back and read scouting reports on him you will see there is a lot that scouts love about him. He has a lot of traits the Wings lack. He is gritty. He is abrasive. He goes to the net. And it seems like all of those traits have continued to be on display this season and post-season. I don’t know how to handicap him making the NHL roster next season, but he seems to be a more plausible fit to complete the Larkin/Raymond line than Finnie was going into camp last season. He is fast enough to play with them and has skill to finish the play. He will go to the places on the ice they may not. And it seems like he is responsible enough defensively that he could match up against the top lines that Larkin usually draws.

Why are we setting our expectations so low? I expect him to turn into Reggie White.

Gage Workman has to have like a .400 fielding percentage

I forgot this was the “free game of the day“ because of an extended grasp of Mother’s Day. Even the local strip club in Boise, Idaho is getting into the extended Mother’s Day routine. On their marquee today the Torch Lounge said “Happy Mother’s Day, supporting single moms since 1997.“ It’s funny and there’s an unhappy irony about it as well.

Alex Lyon doing Alex Lyon things (not good).