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Don’t hold me to it but I believe they’re shooting for one podcast every two weeks.

I finally listened to the AJ Hinch podcast with these guys. Excellent.

I was just thinking how good the new City Connect uniforms would look in that fire.

Deuce provided optionality on and off the field.

We’re at a Durham Bulls ‘Education Day’ game this morning. Our old friend Eric Hasse will be catching for Nashville. (Milwaukee)

Retired catchers have made some good pitching coaches over the years.

Cleveland, KC, and Minnesota won tonight. If Harris is counting on competing in a weak division this year I’m thinking he may be wrong. Cleveland hired a good manager. KC added some pieces late. Minnesota has been on a role recently.

I agree. I don’t know what prospects would bring back but I believe this pitching staff is good enough to keep the team in it with the addition of a bat or two. They don’t even have to be top tier bats. I’ll never know how much $$$ Harris has to spend, provided he would even do so.

Flaherty is looking forward to the trade deadline.

The Tigers have a serious problem. It isn’t going to fix itself.

As I recall, Nick asked for an extension when approached by Gardenhire about working out at first base. I can guess that didn’t land well with the Tigers front office. My suspicion has always been that the Tigers weren’t really committed to keeping Nick. Again, Gardenhire was a temporary manager and it wasn’t a secret at all. To what degree Gardy really gave a crap what Nick said, one way or another, who knows. Maybe the Tigers were committed to bringing the team salary into a certain window and extending Nick would have created problems there. so to answer your question, I don’t believe Detroit was interested in keeping Nick. They were getting top draft picks and opted to move on in that direction. What’s your take? Rereading this I’ll add, I believe if the Tigers had made a realistic and good faith offer early on Nick would likely have signed. I think things between the two parties had soured to the point that both sides weren’t interested in the end.

My unsolicited take: To this day I hate the way the Castellanos thing went down. I believe Nick could have been a decent enough first baseman. He’s a proven bat. Gardenhire was the placeholder manager which didn’t help the situation. Were I the GM, I would have extended Nick. Obviously they didn’t and as it stands the Tigers are stuck at first base. A Cabrera in decline is succeeded by what is appearing to be a blown draft pick. To be clear, I was saying the exact same thing back when this whole back and forth was going on prior to the trade.

Hope not. Whitaker turns 67 this Sunday. Willie Mays celebrating #93 today.

One day you will wake up and realize that 50 years of age is not old. Trust me on this one. I know of what I speak.

I had not seen this quote from Hinch after Saturday night’s game regarding Tork and his offensive struggles. “You see him steadily moving down in the order,” Hinch said, “and the next stop is next to me. We’re trying to keep supporting him because he’s a good player. But he’s not in a good spot.”

I’d trade Hinch for Kotsay all day every day.

I miss Jim Campbell.

A redundant theme in Motown for some time now.

Hinch is the brightest manager in MLB right now. If you don’t believe me, ask him.

So I check the boxscore and there were no outs. My mistake.

So, I think we’re not sure on how many outs there were at that point. With two men on at that point, wasn’t there already one out? I recalled that it was. Putting a guy on first then would have loaded the bases with one out. That would have provided a chance for a double play on a ball on the infield. I realize it would have to be turned cleanly but other than that, they were toast anyway at that point.

Listening to several games in the evenings, I can’t recall a time when the broadcasters have been more outspoken about the inept umpiring at the plate. It is crazy right now.

Looking like the Tigers will take over sole possession of fourth place tonight.

Agree. The team is bigger than Tork and if something has to change that impacts him, too bad. The team's confidence is the bigger consideration.

So we’ll see if Harris is going to continue to be hands off I guess. Hate letting these chances get away.