gehringer_2

Chafin strikes out the side "I'm not dead yet!"

Nido is apparently an invitation to steal.

LOL Braves broadcasters making fun of Dickerson noshing in the booth.

Fine outing for Jack. He and Skubal are ready.

I suppose if it goes back to the pre-expansion days, winning the pennant was the league championship.

On the other side of the same elocution - the one that was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me was Vin Scully's use of 'regular year'. Are there teams out there somewhere playing in an 'irregular' year and we're missing it?

TOOTBLAN #2 OK, I admit Malloy is probably going to be a better hitter than I thought, he still hasn't persuaded me he's a winning player.

Tiger offense moving smartly from sleepy to comatose.

Flaherty gives up a lead off double (that Riley might have caught) then gets out of it clean.

and then TOOTBLAN

Braves announcers believers in the minimalist school. Lots of silence. I'm down with it.

Tigers barrelling up pitches left and right and Lopez escaping with At'em balls.

Del La Cruz and Santana still hanging around?

It's a lot easier to talk about freedom not being free when it's a matter of sending someone else's kids to war, instead of biting the bullet to resize your institution and get off the federal trough.....

Giving Malloy another chance to drop one in left too.

I don't think he has pitched well enough for anyone to be interested. I guess he had to decide if he'd rather sign a minor league deal or hang 'em up.

If Cobb is expected back around May 1, Mize and Jobe will probably spend the month worrying about who gets sent back. That (worrying about it) probably won't benefit either of them but such is life.

In Tony Paul's podcast with Avila he asked him about Jobe and Al mentioned JV's starts in 2005 when he had all this off the chart stuff but still got hammered by MLB hitters. Just for comparison, between college and the minors JV had thrown 450 innings prior to 2006. Jackson is at 252 IP since he left HS - that's pretty green even for a guy with great stuff. OTOH, that's about where Skenes was before last season - but Skenes is a freak even among the freaks that make up the MLB pitching population.

Another one down - Beck reports that Maeda is out of the rotation sweepstakes - will start the season in the pen. So Skubal, Flaherty, Olson, I'm going to say Mize is in, which leaves the last decision as Montero vs Jobe. Montero's results today were fine as far as they went, but NY didn't bring much of the team.

that's a joke Chas!

9 runs now in the other game. AJ clearly didn't divide his troops correctly.

all things being equal, Montero probably should go north over Jobe, but all things are never equal.

Dan&Dan talking about Torres leading off for the Tigers. I sort of doubt it. In NY he had Judge, Stanton and Soto behind him, with the Tigers he might be the #1 power threat rather than #4.

hard hit ball by Javy get's BaBIP'd

Dan&Dan talking about Jobe getting hit hard in his last outing - a simulated game.