mtutiger

My understanding is that Eduardo isn't too far behind at this point, so they'll be able to pencil him in at some point. But yeah, that's a risk factor for them, they're still short on the starter side.

If you squint, you can sort of see a path back to .500 between now and the All Star Break, especially with guys coming back from injuries (such as Meadows, ERod, possibly Greene, etc.).... but it requires they hold their own over the next eight games. New York and Toronto will be tough, and they have six games with them over the next eight. After that, a lot of games with the Royals/Guardians/White Sox, plus games with Texas, Arizona, Boston and San Francisco, none of whom (outside of SF) seem that daunting.

They could be only 3 games back of the White Sox by the end of the day, depending on what the Jays do to them

Daz hit that bomb against Liam Hendriks last year after that rain delay.... he's got some magic in that bat at times

DAZ!!!!! Decided to hit it a little further this time!

Foley looking extremely good lately.....

Haase is really costing this team with his throwing arm....

His start looks a lot more successful with a better offense lol

Schoop now playing on "easy" mode these days... lol

Makes sense

Fair point, and they'll have to make a roster move to get him up here since he's not on the 40. Which they will at some point. I wonder if the looming (yet often pushed back) deadline for 14 pitchers is maybe the day for him to get on the 40, should it end on the 19th.... particularly given that Barnes would be a good candidate for DFA Excellent, thanks for sharing.

Offensively, there's really nothing wrong with his peripherals.... not a Kerry Carpenter situation where you see a massive BABIP discrepancy. Fielding seems to be an issue, decent range factor, but 5 errors in 22 games at 2B isn't great. It's nice to see that there are a few guys who are improved or at least advancing this year.... Wenceel seems like the best example of that, but Parker Meadows to a lesser extent is another (although we haven't seen a lot of success at Erie so far)

As mentioned in another thread, Lynn was pushing the idea of starting Greene in Toledo while he was raking in Spring Training as well. Not sure if he has any special insight or if he just doesn't like Greene for some reason.

So, there are ISDs in this state where teachers actually do carry firearms right now.... Sounds like a recipe for good guys with guns to be killed by other good guys with guns.

Regarding the mental health discussion, this is an enlightening piece specific to Texas: Texas was building a program to find troubled students and prevent school shootings. It hadn’t reached Uvalde yet. One of the takeaways being that, while efforts have been made post Santa Fe to identify troubled kids and get them help through the Texas Child Mental Healthcare Consortium, it's really unlikely to ever be the total solution to this problem. Mostly because, in three years, the numerator (~6,000) is far behind the denominator (~2,100,000) in terms of eligible kids who have been able to access these services. And that more money and time would be required to identify every single kid who could be a problem. The other takeaway is that this is all happening in a state that has otherwise slashed mental health funding is one of the worst states in the country in terms of mental health. The problem is always going to require a multi-faceted approach, but one facet (guns) never seems to be on the table.

If they can score runs more consistently, big if, they could be a tough out for the opposition going forward. Especially as they get some of their pitching back off the injured list

Bad Candy defense in the 9th... yiiikes

Gausman and Verlander came to mind immediately, although I didn't realize how good Cortes has been. Damn

At this point, you gotta think he’s gonna start earning some CY attention

Its not a bad place, politicians notwithstanding. Although I'd rather be up north

Better harden our Doctor's offices then

Yep. The harder nut to crack, as you suggest, is that to the extent that "mental health" is a problem here or anywhere, it may not be purely inherent within anyone who undertakes one of these shootings... and that the society itself may groom people for these events. By that same token, the problems that exist here exist elsewhere as well... the difference is that we add firearms to the mix in a big way. And it leads to disastrous results.

As bad as his approach and the results have been, he's still somehow behind his K-rate even during his much discussed improved stint with the Mets. Thats kinda mind blowing to me.

Again as well, we're talking about (in Texas, that is) a state that thinks so little of public school teachers that it's spent the last Legislative session passing a bill that would limit how history is taught, by penalty of law... There's something logically broken about paying teachers below what they should be making and not treating them as professionals and trusting their judgment in the classroom while simultaneously saying that they should all be packing heat. It's ridiculous.... and our Governor, who recently told the TEA to set up a task force to explore why Texas has a teacher shortage, wonders why we have a teacher shortage. Also, if you're gonna do that, why stop at schools? We just had a grocery store massacre a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? Just following the logic being employed, we need to "harden" every public place in America. That's particularly ironic coming from the "we cannot live in fear of COVID" crowd.