lordstanley

Three 3-ball counts, 3 pop outs. Tigers lose.

3 of the 5 worst records in MLB this season are for teams in the AL Central.

3 straight wins over the Royals! KC may or may not bother sticking around for Sunday’s game.

Whew! Win!

Two on. Knuckle-grabbing time.

10-pitch at-bat for a walk, tying run at the plate.

I know at least a dozen myself and I’m not a particularly social person.

Easy solution: complete game shutouts by the starting rotation.

Believe it or not, Pat Caputo was talking about last night’s game. Weird to hear the Griffins and Cossa and ASP get mentions on 97.1

I hate it. Even when the calls are correct. It clutters my view. I wish i could toggle it off like closed captioning. Or at the very least I wish they would make it much more faint.

Dan Dickerson’s call of the final out. McKinstry’s Dive To Beat KC.m4a

Tork’s 18 RBIs are tied for 2nd in the AL. Judge at 22.

Tork-Tork-Tork chants as he comes to the plate.

I’m only an hour north of Detroit right now and for past 15 minutes we have had thunder, lightning and heavy rain. No bad weather in Detroit (yet)?

Final stats. https://www.espn.com/nhl/team/stats/_/name/det/detroit-red-wings

Because I am in London, Ontario right now I had the misfortune of hearing Leafs home Joe “Holy Mackinaw” Bowen call the tying and winning goals

Guilty as charged. But all I ask this season is one moment of hockey happiness, that being Leafs Elimination Day! Wish they weren’t getting to play Ottawa.

I’m 58 and I find I’m becoming more and more like Andy Rooney by the week. edit: actually, realized I don’t turn 58 until June. Getting so scrambled I can’t even remember my own age

So Caps made it last year with 91, Wings missed it last year with 91, Habs and Devils make it this year with 91. Out West, Flames miss it this year with 94..

Maybe Kasper will score his 20th and DeBrincat his 40th tomorrow.

This will be the most unsatisfying 3-game winning streak ever. Habs clinging to 3-2 lead with 4:30 to go. If the Habs can simply get it to overtime, they’re in.

A wake up call for me was when he had to get rid of Gostisbehere and Walman due to cap reasons. Before then, I figured that the meh signings of Compher and Holl and the like weren’t really tying their hands and were just placeholders until there were better options available. Add two 40-pt defensemen to this year’s team and they likely would have finished ahead of Montreal and Columbus. But I’ve already beaten that dead horse. So looking forward, what was sobering about the Sportsnet article, even though I already knew it, was how stark the math is about making the team better for next year. Unlikely to be better in goal. Committed to Talbot and Mrazek. Only room for improvement next season is Cossa but even if he does get a shot (far from certain) will he play many games (maybe 15-20 at most?) and will he already much better than the vets? I haven’t give up on him as a medium term to long term potential solution (although I don’t expect him to be Vasilevsky if that’s what Yzerman was trying to replicate), but won’t be a difference maker next year for playoffs or not. On defense, we like Seider and Edvinsson and Johansson but don’t like three we are stuck with for another year: Gustafsson, Holl, Chiarot. So barring being able to dump one of them, room to add maybe one player to have any chance of being better on defense next year? Up front, we like Raymond, Larkin, DeBrincat and Kasper. But don’t like three we are stuck with for next season in Tarasenko, Compher and Copp. If we re-sign Kane, fine, but that’s not an upgrade or change for next season. That doesn’t leave a lot of spots. Where’s the improvement next season except from Kasper continuing to get better? Maybe a full season of McLellan instead of Lalonde for a third of it could be worth a few points? I’d be more optimistic for next season if Yzerman had a smart signing planned or a shake-up trade planned, but he doesn’t have a track record in Detroit of doing so. Still looks, for now, like a 90 pt team +/- 5 points next season.