chasfh

Elite on defense and low BABIP are directly related. Just goes to prove the axiom that a lot of pitching is actually fielding.

Way to gut that out and get the split, Foley. Man, we've seen some games this season so far!

Holy ****, what an at bat by Julien. This turned out to be a game!

That play at third, right there, for the second out in the ninth? That's what we signed Urshela for.

And Tork drives in the run in exactly the way we aren't paying him to hit! FANNTASTIC!

Holy crap, when did the Twins replace people with mannequins in the infield? Come on, Tork, this is your moment!

I think with Tork there are quite a few potential outcomes. The one we all hope is that is he so super-talented that he will inevitably click and become a perennial All-Star hitter. That's the outcome we obviously hope for. The range of remaining outcomes includes that he is talented and has big-league hitting potential but his ceiling is a lot more limited than All-Star caliber; that he is talented but our coaching can't figure out how to fix him; that he is talented and our coaching has a good idea how to fix him but he is obstinate about instruction and/or lazy about applying it; that he is talented, our coaching knows how to fix him, he's willing to do it, but he can't figure out how to apply it; that he is talented in ways that make him a great hitter for college ball but not a good MLB hitter; or that he was talented once, but now his talent has abandoned him. Any of these outcomes are in play for Tork. I'm swagging that the chances of the perennial All-Star outcome occurring for Tork is somewhere between one half and one third—probably closer to a third—and that it's more likely one of the field is true. That happens to some 1/1s. It happened with Mickey Moniak, Tim Beckham, Matt Bush, and Delmon Young, all flops. Or he could be Royce Lewis, who took six years to come through the minors before finally clicking with the Twins with an upside still TBD. Or maybe he'll be Pat Burrell or Phil Nevin or Jeff King or Shawon Dunston, all of whom were drafted with great promise at 1/1 only to have merely decent careers. The range of outcomes are wide and varied, but the one thing we know for sure is that he is ours for the next five years, so sit back and enjoy the show. As for Javy—we may be seeing one of the most spectacular career flameouts of all time. Not like there weren't warning signs that this might happen, giving his skill set and approach. I think we all accept that his chances of becoming an acceptable major league hitter again have dwindled down to neatly nothing. The only thing I know for sure about that guy is that we are going to keep running him out there until we get someone in-house we know can do better than he.

After all, we need the keep Israel going so that Iran and Russia will “come against Israel” so “God” can “wipe them out,” after which “there will be 1,000 years of perfect peace, no presidential elections, no fake news, none of all of this nonsense.” Instead, there will be “one king, and one leader, Jesus Christ the Son of God. One law, it will be his law.” Can’t stop it, might as well lay back and enjoy it.

In Avila’s defense, TORK! was the consensus 1/1 that year. Most if not all of the other 29 teams would have taken him that year.

What if the problem is not the coaches, but the hitters themselves?

I can’t tell—is that actually Ivanka on the far right, or a creepy look-alike?

I’m aware of A Gentleman in Moscow and I think the premise has promise, although it’s not on my radar to watch soon. I’m of two minds when it comes to historical fiction. I like the historical aspects, of course, and I’m always assessing how true to life the presentation is. But I’m invariably disappointed because there always seems to be some B story that overshadows the events that I am interested in, e.g., “Love in the time of the Russian Revolution.” In that way, it almost seems like bait and switch. They hook me in with an intriguing historical premise only to disappoint me with a pedestrian B story that could have taken place in literally any other setting. (Honestly, I have no idea whether that is what “Gentleman in Moscow” is. It just happens to be proximal grounds for my example.) I think the historical fiction I like best is about ordinary people who live through extraordinary times and how they deal with it, as long as the events swirling around them are true to history, and the focus is on their interaction with the events and not some personal story unrelated to them. I’m far less enamored of the kind of historical fiction that weaves fictional characters into the actual events themselves, particularly when they interact with real historical figures. That strikes as more indicative of what’s going on in the creator’s mind than in what actually went on in history, and I’m not a fan of people just making up stuff that comports poorly with reality.

Twins really struggling with PFP today! Also, as much as I hate the whole sliding-into-first-base idea, this was a situation in which it actually made sense to do it.

Imagine the field day traditional fans would have with this idea! 💀

McKinstry on the bench looking at the iPad trying to figure out how he could have possibly given up that bomb.

This is the Zach McKinstry game. Unfortunately.

The Tigers probably have the unique distinction of causing the same player to be DFA’ed from two different teams in the space of nine days.

Needed Urshela at third base for that. ****.

Walked a run in and no one in the bullpen. This is Lange’s game to let get away from us.

That was a lot closer at the plate than I would have like, but TORK! scores the run! KEEEEEEEITH!

I hope burning Chafin with an 8-run lead yesterday doesn't come back to burn us today.

I will say that I really love seeing these local commercials, such as for Victory Motors in Chesterfield, Wyandotte, and Royal Oak, on Tiger games I see on my MLB Extra Innings package, rather than MLB forcing a blocking of local commercials and putting on bland and generic spots for old people drugs or, worse, Draft Kings. It’s the complete opposite with MLB Gameday Audio, in which not only do they block local radio station ads and play the same four spots over and over for Chicago-based companies when I listen to Tiger games at home, but no matter where I go in the country, I don’t even get what the local ads would be. Instead, the same four spots for Chicago-based companies follow me all over the country. Terrible.

An amazing unassisted double play by Colt Keith and Dan Dickerson couldn’t even call it because they had to have the sideline reporter in the stands fulfilling what I assume is a contractual obligation of some sort by talking to some Oakland University basketball players instead. What are we even doing here?

I think the plan might be to play Greene in whichever corner is the bigger, based on which stadium we play in.