mtutiger

Completely on brand

I do have some hope Robbie will join that club soon. Along with Baez. But yeah, Candy and Schoop are issues lol

If we had the French system (which, IMO, is the platonic ideal in terms of how they elect their Presidents), we probably would have a candidate who espoused those beliefs. But don't need to beat the horse about our terrible system again lol.

Crazy enough, but I believe the 21-0 Cubs win over Pittsburgh was similar in regards to how many one baggers the Cubs had... Edit: 23 hits, 18 singles in that one

Oh God, I hate it so much. At least when James Mason said it, he had the excuse of being a haughty Brit lol

100% right. For all of our complaining, every other team in the division is kinda treading water at the moment. And if (big if) the pitching can hold up enough until Manning/Mize get back, I don't know that they need to have the best offense to be at least on the periphery of competing in this division. They just need to get to their potential, particularly on 2nd and 3rd. I'd still stick with my 82 win prediction, but I can see scenarios where they can do better.

Thinking a little more about the coverage of the French Presidential Election, it reminds me a lot of California Recall election last year in that, while it may have been close at one point, it didn't last and, just as it was the case then, the media did not recalibrate once that trend away took place. And naturally, when the polls start trending toward more right leaning candidates, that recalibration tends to happen (see Virginia 2021)... for some reason it doesn't happen much in the other direction In the grand scheme of things it may not be that big of a deal, but I do worry that the outsized coverage can be a boon for nutjob candidates.

It's true about the clicks... I sometimes feel like they learned all the wrong lessons from Brexit and Trump and almost seem to yearn for hyping right wing candidates to drive readership. Conspiratorial, maybe, but setting aside left/right bias, we all know media companies also have a bias toward making money. Zemmour almost acted like a stalking horse for Le Pen to seem more moderate or sane in comparison (not sure if that's the case or not, but it kinda worked out that way anyway). And I dont know that it's a coincidence that Macron started gaining after the first round once Zemmour was off the stage... all eyes were on her and, though she did somewhat better this time, for the most part, she did a good job reminding a lot of French voters what they didn't like about her five year ago. As for the future, you are correct, with the caveat that it's more of a three wing system now with the Melanchon bloc of voters. They may not be quite as big as the other two, but it stands to reason in France's system, they could find themselves in the Kingmaker role frequently going forward.

A lot of Ws for liberal democratic values today

Not that Willi is a world beater or anything, but this is a bit surprising. Either way, its almost Chafin time!

I posted it in the other thread, but the coverage of the French election was complete malpractice by the US and international media. Macron, particularly after round one when he outperformed his polls and started gaining between the first and second round, was obviously going to be reelected. That would have made the obvious play to profile the voters who would vote to give him another mandate, or profile what he may have planned for a second term. Instead, we were treated out countless pieces discussing the 5% probability that Le Pen would be elected. Like, it would have taken by far the largest polling error in the history of the Republic, and one of the largest in world history, for that to have happened. Instead, it was covered as if it were more 60/40 that it would happen. I get that there is long memories of Brexit and Trump's first election, but we need to stick with the facts... not gin up stories that don't align with the facts because it sells papers and draws eyeballs. It just makes me feel that the media learned all the wrong lessons the past few uears.years

This is one of those games that you would expect they would lose even with a functioning offense. Even the best teams can have a bad start. But it just makes losing winnable games (such as last night's) even harder.

Gotta start somewhere!

I'll take that from Schoop... nice contact there.

Does Candy have options left? I know Schoop doesn't...

I dont want to be one of these guys who makes excuses, but there have been some good signs today. Barnhart looking more like the guy who was advertised, Robbie starting to get hot, Meadows mixing in more extra base power into his game. But they really need better production out of 4 and 5. Nothing is holding this team back more at the moment.

Not a bad half inning at all, unfortunately they have not cashed in much before that...

No doubt... could be rather that the high of his 3000 hit gave them a jolt that they wouldn't ordinarily have.

Lol, that's what I get for compliments

Credit where credit is due, he's having a good day today

There's an emotional element of Miggy's accomplishment... maybe a bit of a hangover from that

I'll stick with my 82 wins. Maybe even that's too optimistic, we will see.

I dont have a problem with playing Haase in left. But at some point, you have to move Tork up in the lineup. I get that he's a rookie and you're trying to protect him some, but if the goal is to win ballgames, its the right thing to do.

Despite my last post, I do agree with this. There is still long range risk.

Can I just say that the western press did an absolutely terrible job covering this election? Marine Le Pen did close the gap some by the runoff in head to head polling, but first round polling underestimated Macron and Macron gained a good 5-7 points in polls in the interregnum between the first round and second round. I know I will get the usual comments about complacency and whatnot, but once things started moving against her after round one, her goose was cooked. Yet you wouldn't have known it from how the Times covered it.