lordstanley

A Jason Beck story on Serwa's knuckler and his Whitecaps debut. https://www.mlb.com/news/knuckleballer-kenny-serwa-promoted-to-tigers-double-a-affiliate This is what the knuckleball can do to hitters. For Serwa, it turned his Double-A debut last Thursday at UPMC Park into an introduction for several Richmond Flying Squirrels to his bread-and-butter pitch. He fanned four in a five-batter span from the third inning into the fourth. He then allowed a two-out walk and a ground-ball single, hit a batter, then gave up a two-run single on a fastball. Serwa finished his Double-A debut with six innings and a victory, allowing four runs on four hits with two walks and four strikeouts. It was an impressive debut for a pitcher making his 11th appearance and sixth start in Minor League ball, the latest stop in a journey that included four colleges and two indy ball teams, most recently the Chicago Dogs last summer.

The Tigers are playing .000 ball (0 for 3) this season in games when they have a chance to move 20 games over .500.

The two personal conflicts/standoffs I recall from Yzerman's days in Tampa were with Jonathan Drouin and Martin St. Louis. Drouin was traded to Montreal for Mikhail Sergachev who did put up several good years with Tampa. Drouin has had his moments with the Habs and more recently the Avs, but never really lived up to the potential he was thought to have had when drafted #3 overall in 2013. The latter was because 38-year old St. Louis felt snubbed when Yzerman didn't pick him for the '14 Olympic team and demanded a trade. He was traded to the Rangers for Ryan Callahan and a few picks, one of whom was Anthony Cirelli. https://www.rawcharge.com/revisiting-the-martin-st-louis-trade-tree-tampa-bay-lightning/

I listen to 80% of the games on radio instead of TV, so in my mind the seats are jam packed with fans roaring on every pitch.

I don’t like the empty seats behind home plate. Empty expensive seats are normal in hockey and basketball but are usually outside my line of sights or on the fringes of it when I’m watching a game on tv. For Tigers home games I do think they are an eyesore on every pitch. But I don’t think the empty seats mean that the Tigers aren’t popular or are out of touch with the fanbase though.

I subscribe to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Vancouver Sun and the Globe & Mail (Canada national). But I do use them frequently. Most have sweet deals if you threaten to cancel.

The Wings could use some outside leadership in the dressing room. Just like the Wings' seemed to get a bump from its winning culture in the glory years, maybe there is a bit of a loser or doomer mentality within the club when you haven't got out of the regular season in 9 years. Two straight March collapses in a row, or three if you count '23 when they got blown out by Ottawa a couple of times right before the trade deadline. No one knew how to stop the trainwreck.

At 43-24, the ‘25 Tigers are 6 games behind the ‘84 Tigers through 67 games but are even with both the ‘68 Tigers and ‘06 Tigers through 67 games.

What I am listening to? Shosholoza. It's a traditional South African song, mostly in Zulu language, that was sung by laborers in gold and diamond mines. The title translates as "Move Forward". But why am I listening to it now? Today was the Comrades Marathon, an event like no other. Despite the name, it's actually a 56 mile race/89 km. It's a road ultramarathon in South Africa that had 22,000 participants. Gets national TV coverage every year. Starts in the dark at 5:45am. Hard 12 hour cutoff. Every year there's great drama as a gun goes off at the 12 hour mark and if you're even 10 yards short of the finish officials jump in front of you and block you from finishing. Anyways, at the start, right after the national anthem they always play Shosholoza and people I know who have run it say it is an absolute goosebumps moment. The bottom of the three videos was posted hours ago and "Gerda" would go on to win the women's race. I've been to South Africa 4 times. South Africa has a lot of problems and has been the subject of bad press lately, but this moment always brings a smile.

Two plays that will haunt me until a championship is won are the Ortiz grand slam in the '13 ALCS and the Reynolds 4th down drop in the NFC Championship. Beautiful 1st half and there were no complaints with how the 3rd quarter was unfolding. Held the Niners to a FG after the kickoff to open the half, offense moved the ball smartly downfield in response, and if Josh Reynolds makes the catch he had been making all year the Lions would have snapped on 1st down from the SF 20 with 6 1/2 minutes to go. Worse case a FG would have restored the 17 pt lead and they'd have reduced a 30 minute half to around 18 or 19 minutes. Everything just snowballed and an hour later I'm waiting in a long transit lineup outside the Santa Clara stadium wondering what hit me.

Guardians beat the Astros, so the Tigers' lead for a bye into the ALDS is 6 games over AL West leader Houston.

Tigers win game, Tigers win series.

Nice swing by Greene, for a long out. Encouraging.

So I'm watching on my PC, for free, because when I tried to open the game on TV via the MLB Samsung app, it said Free but also had the lock icon beside it. Sure enough, when i tried to play it, I was sent to the annual fee. First time that has happened to me so not sure if just a glitch.

Tigers leaping all over the place. 4-0 for the 7th inning stretch.

Sigh of relief by Greene. 2 strike single drives in 2 runs. 4-0 Tigers.

4 baserunners this inning. Get out of it with 0 runs but drives up h Jack’s pitch count.

Out at the plate! Challenge pending.

Tork could have given us the healthy lead we need against the mighty Cubs offense.

Greene needed that. Not hard hit, but at least he gets on base.

So for so good. 6 up 6 down including 4 Ks

Big hit by Tork. It would have been discouraging to put the first two men on but come out of the inning without runs. 2-0 Tigers.

MLB free game of the day.

My defense will be that MotownForums is a satirical site and mine is a parody account.

I libelled Jones. It was Perez.