gehringer_2

yeah - maybe some of that- of course the guy really raking for Toledo didn't play much in ST.

It doesn't make much sense that they hit so well in ST and then just fell in a hole. I mean sure, TB pitching is great, but that was only 3 games. ST is nothing definitive, but it's not meaningless either in terms of whether hitters individually look ready. What changed in the clubhouse or the preparation or the scouting or the data presentation or the advice/coaching/managing between ST and opening day? Of course it's mostly the quality of the players, yet to have this happen to this degree 3 yrs running is starting to look like as much an indictment of the mangement as well as the players. Do they somehow manage to drive all their hitters out of their comfort zone once they start up regular season preparation procedures?

Yeah - the infields are so good now that people tend to forget they still may not be perfect. Even with the better fields and and with increased dragging during the game (at least twice per game now) that have allowed IFs to make more successful deliberate bounce throws, there is still no guarantee any given hop or throw can't still catch a fresh divot from a cleat. Still always some risk when ball meets dirt.

Dangerous question.

Turnbull can potentially throw hard - if he gets it all back, but many pitchers pitch half a season after TJ before they get everything back. Some guys are lucky and are 100% out of the gate, but you can't count in that. In the pen, we traded two of the three guys who could throw 97+ so I guess we shouldn't be suprised there is less velo out there.

I wonder. He could just be an unlucky long Covid victim. I just hope that possibility hasn't prevented them from looking for other ossible physical drivers - endocrine issues or thyroid/pituitary/brain tumors can also cause mental health shifts that come seemingly out of the blue. Can be easy to miss early on, but are dangerous stuff.

LOL. The Red Sox Uni with the unbalanced BOSTON across the front has always cracked me up. You'd think in more than 100 yrs they'd have figured out how to put their name on their shirts straight.

Baddoo is also off to a hot start. Could be quite the log jam in the OF if Parker and Baddoo keep doing well.

What to do with Baddoo? Off to a blistering first 30AB in Toledo, 1000 OPS, 20% walk rate.

Not only the FR, but also the English Civil War, whence the impetus for separation of Church and State and the general Yankee disposition toward religious tolerance.

QFT

sure - because he was following the guidance years ago and when LA times called him on his conduct - damn if he was going to change his conduct, afterall, he's entitled, so he just stopped reporting it. That's about as obvious as you can get at putting the lie to his current excuse. Pitiful excuse for a man.

IDK, if Elon would delete himself from the internet no-one would bother looking for him.....

He was a scumbag in 1991 and nothing has changed.

Hmm - I think that's a good guess.

OK - the caricature looks to be Lester Maddox - I remember Lester well enough. But why is his right hand made of feathers? If that is a reference to something I have zero recollection of what.

I have no idea where Odukah's particular recovery is turning out to be, but just in the last few years the recovery prognosis for Achilles rupture repair in pro athletes has gotten better and it's not necessarily the career ender it used to be. From what I read they learned that if they take much more accurate measuremens for the graft than had been the standard practice, the recovery of elasticity and energy storage are both improved and you are starting to see more guys make successful returns to high level competition. In just the years between Brandon Jennings' and Kevin Durant's injuries things changed.

The Tigers went all in on breaking ball guys in Mize and Jobe. Not sure that is always the best strategy - esp wrt health projection, and a little funny since DD was the opposite - a fastball fan almost to excess in the other direction. Or maybe not so strange - it seems Avila was driven to everything the opposite from DD. He did go in for analytics, even if he didn't do it well, less emphasis on 100mph guys with no control but brought in guys that got hurt instead (!), went all in for switch hitters, even if they were terrible, and got away from bringing in washed up relievers to close. Of all his paradigms that last is the one place where we have to admit he did do better. DDs bullpens were legendary bad.

Mass Market Brewers are much more concerned about capturing young habit formers than any other market seg. They already had to write of the GenXer as boutique beer/IPA fans -

LOL! I'd heard that line from that generation as well!

No class (I know, that's in old school complaint in today's world)

I don't know if you'd call him quite an Ace, but of course they'd be in better shape right now if they had taken Singer over Mize. Not only healthy, but so far better than Mize when he was healthy. Of course the Tigers weren't the only team to pass on Singer, but in his case funny that it was the 2017 conventional wisdom for that draft that had called him correctly.

Rules for thee, not for me. Wouldn't find it surprising. Clarence Thomas has always transfered his large sense of grievance into a larger dose of entitlement.

Interestingly enough, he looks like he's getting around on FBs. He may be resonably productive for as long as the knee holds out - which is who knows how long? So there may not be much 'crisis' over his ABs for a while until the knee (or something else) acts up again.

and Riley Greene just hit 350 for a week against some of the best pitching in the AL.