gehringer_2

There is a gaping hole where Holton's name used to be. He was the key to it all.

It's so pointless to leave a guy out there who hasn't got it because you think you can squeeze another out or two out of him. He just ends up giving up runs and the next guy has to get those outs anyway. Unless they pull this out this will be one for the few loses we can charge right to AJs account. Can't manage pitchers on hope.

opener thing not working to well recently.

Print circulation is now around 50K for each - though the Freep's Sunday print is much larger. Just back of envelop that is a 1.2% market penetration of the 4M households in MI. I guess the tech has now reduced the cost of hardcopy a lot as well otherwise it's hard to understand the Freep can still put out a print every day. MLive does 2'ce a week, Thursday/Sunday. I haven't tried to look for numbers on either paper's web success.

So the $20.5M is apparently going to be an annual calculation based on the average of power 5 program incomes. I wonder how conference re-alignments will figure into that, etc. Who decides which new or re-aligned conferences get counted? Does the judge keep an overseer on the case? Google tells me there are 69 schools in the power 5 and there are 134 schools in the FBS (=Div1?). That leave 65 schools trying to operate in a system that's hard wired to require more income than they have. Well more than that really because probably something like 1/3 to 1/2 of the power 5 schools have less than the average income across the power 5. (I suppose logic requires something near half of any group to be below the group average - unless it's MN of course.....) I'm thinking one of the unintended ( or maybe not unintended ) consequences of all this is pressure on the schools in the back half of Div1 to drop out.

Warde wrote a piece for the "U Record" detailing the budget impacts of the "House" settlement at UM. Cost adds are $6.2M for the increase in scholarship numbers (82 more scholarships added) and the $20.5M in direct payments to athletes. The athletic department made internal cuts that reduced the one time request to the general fund to under $20M for this year and the department will cut staff (10%), reduce travel expenses, and apparently try to sell more booze at events to bring the AD budget back net zero to the general fund. Traditionally the AD does not get any funding from the general budget. They do often run surpluses, which are mostly reinvested on new varsity but also on the other campus rec sports facilities.

This would be a great rule for improving the game, but the GMs of every bad team with a high pick are out there salivating every year about finding a dual threat QB in the draft that can give them a shortcut to a decent offense in one fell swoop. Take away the QB running protected past the LOS, you effectively end the allure of the dual threat QB. Wouldn't bother me, but I think it would be a hard sell overall.

Torkelson's BaBIP in his last 25PA is 125. Baseball happens. Relax folks.

Tigers scored 8 runs in this game without outscoring the Rays in any single inning in which they (the Rays) batted.

don't now if someone has noted this yet, but Gannett is going to let the JOA between the News and Freep expire at the end of this year. I'll be surprised if both papers still exist in 10 yrs.

we were worried the offense would be flat on the short turnaround and they've put up six. You're gonna lose when your starter blows a gasket but actually a decent sign the rest of the team (well, Riley anyway!) bounced back well after yesterday.

probably playing hurt but nothing to do to fix it.

mini drone fly through!

SGL is probably going to tax the BP the rest of the way. While it would be nice if he could get deeper into a games I'm going to guess that isn't in the cards. Maybe another year out from the surgeries.

Finesse pitchers? When they aren't on and have to throw not so great fastballs in fastball counts?

Keider going back would seem to indicate Olson will make his next start.

This definitely plays. When I was working in refineries the mothership had a strict rule that you couldn't take more than 2 weeks away at one time. I told them I was going 12000 miles away and would gone for three weeks. There wasn't much they could do. I'm sure it went into the corporate memory banks as something to ding me for later but at that particular time they needed me more than I needed them. I tried to keep myself in jobs I enjoyed but I was never a live to work person. But it's a piece of advice I would give to any young worker - don't just work - take every opportunity to expand your skill set and make it more valuable because not only will it make the job more interesting, it's something that can give you leverage later.

that's a good point. It certainly wouldn't be unusual to to send the starter ahead coming off the DH. I wasn't watching but did anyone see him on the bench?

You haven't. It was deliberate - the idea was to stay out of FLA during the summer monsoon.

he's a more than average streaky hitter. He'll win a game all by himself and then disappear for several games.

bullpen too short for many extra inning games. But what shouldn't be lost in all the noise at the end is that Holton is either broken or just coming down to earth after a season last year playing over his head. Either way, those are innings we don't have a replacement for if he can't pick it up.

that's about a wrap

the part that sucks is that if they were going to lose better to have done it at 9pm

I think Lee might have been a good idea....

The rare Hinch IBB