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Exactly. Imagine how good this team would be if everything was going exactly right. They might be within shouting distance of .500.

I don't know where you get this out of my post, but no. In no universe do they qualify as established major leaguers. Guess again. Willi is playing left field because it's either him, who is hitting a little but is out of position there, or Eric Haase, who is not hitting at all and would be out of position there. Take your pick. I suppose we could move Grossman off the top of the order and replace him with ... I don't know ... Schoop, maybe? Candelario? Hill? Javy? Tucker? Tork or Miggy? I know you don't want Willi there. Anyway, batting orders don't actually mean all that much in the big scheme of things, maybe five or so runs over the course of a season, but sure, I'm game. Let's try someone else there. I'm not sure I take your unspoken point on Brieske. My point is that Hinch was handed a roster of shit and I'm not sure what more he or anyone else, including Ron Gardenhire, could do with it. Like I said, it's not as though he is running a contender into the ground.

This all probably should have been expected, or at least not unexpected. For years the rebuild put its eggs primarily in the right-handed starting pitching basket, because after all, we built a pennant winner primarily on right-handed pitching a decade ago, so heck, let’s try it again. We’re confident the fans will be on board and wait for as long as it’ll take. In the meantime, the organization fell way behind the curve on the technologies the better organizations use, always a step or two behind playing catch-up, which affected their scouting, drafting, signing, trading and development (and perhaps training and medical). The result is this gimpy collection of ragtag has-beens, never-wases, not-ready-yets, and AAAA lifers. There are two, maybe three, players on this team who, if fully healthy and on their established game, could start for a legitimate playoff-level team right now. But even when they’re hitting on all their cylinders, vast majority of these guys here are basically good enough to play on one of the worst teams in the majors, and not much more. I’d be willing to put the lion’s share of the blame on Hinch if he were losing with a team that was seriously expected to contend. But outside of some slappy fans and media people who have to work in that city, most people had the team picked for fourth or fifth place, and well under .500. So if it feels good, we can run Hinch out of town on a rail, bring Ron Gardenhire back, start shopping the veterans around for pennies on the dollar, take a flyer on free agents like Brett Gardner or Julio Teheran, and/or turn over the roster between Detroit and Toledo. Things may not get any better and they may well get worse, since we’d be relying on a group of mainly untried players to be at the top of their game to play up to a .333 level in the majors, instead of major league regulars slumping down to that level. But hey, at least something would be happening, right?

Jesus, Willi, you sure are making it hard to justify my love.

Tigers are kicking up their heels here! Cme on, Willi, the one thing you can do is get the occasional hit.

Holy shit, Miggy singling off 102. He’s the best hitter on the team. Are hamburgers eating people now?

Drew Carlton. Damn. Can you imagine how bad it would be if this bullpen was like, pick any bullpen of the last ten years? These guys came into the game 2nd in ERA, 10th in FIP. Sure, they’re. Like 21st in xFIP, but that’s actually improved in the past few weeks or so. Dramatically-improved bullpen performance is one of the few genuine pleasures I derive from this team.

Fulmer is back to killing it, at least.

Yes, he is.

He may not have had a bead on where Kepler was. He may have thought Kepler was going to score very easily.

Yes, he was.

One of the things I wonder is what happens if, god willing, we pass through this current situation as though it is a phase and we come out socially stronger on the other side in, I don’t know, let’s say ten or fifteen years. What happens to people like Tucker Carlson and Elise Stefanik and J.D. Vance, people who seemed to operate within an acceptable range of the political spectrum but then dumpster-dove into the dark side for the money and the power? Do they somehow get repatriated into polite society, or are they spun off into permanent social exile for make the choice they did?

I can’t watch Fox News for more than a couple of minutes without my stomach tying up into knots. I get physically queasy. The main point of the black guests is to let white viewers know that black people are redeemable if only they assimilate traditional American ideals—IOW, there can be good ones.

That’s where the money is for him.

Or their minds are so clouded and closed that they don’t know they are wrong. I remember several decades ago being surrounded by the thinking that black people have more advantages than white people because of affirmative action and whatnot, and if they are still in poverty or have higher death rates, that’s a problem of their own making, and “the rest of us” shouldn’t have to waste our tax money to unsuccessfully government-spend them out of a problem they don’t care to solve on their own. That’s pretty strongly-established thinking in those circles, strong enough that they don’t have to go through the mental and psychic gymnastics of knowing one thing and saying/doing the opposite in the interest of group orthodoxy. A lot of people, particularly rank and file voters, who think that way do so honestly, for what that’s worth.

Well, to be fair to be Republicans, they have basically told us over and over that they were going to use fraud in upcoming elections.

About the only safe way I can think of to get Putin replaced is to backchannel some incentives to people on the next level or two down and convince them that Russia can reconnect with the rest of the first world without Putin at the top. The danger is that most if not all the the people on those next couple of levels down are completely simpatico with Putin and that reconnecting a first world run by the United States is not at all an incentive for them, and such an offer hardens them and increases the chances for a disastrous outcome.

lol suxx

That first walk was pretty Soto-like, though. The difference is Chafin’s track record is better and as you say, it didn’t work out this time around. But I am glad to see the Tigers fighting back from the early deficit. Shades of later 2021.

That wasn’t Baez’s fault. There wasn’t a double play to be made on that ball, and he couldn’t have gotten up and thrown out Kepler at the plate. The Tigers played a strong game today—that was just another dollop of bad luck.

Normally that’s the left fielder’s ball. but when it’s a choice between Javy and Willi …

Sorry about making this happen, guys … 😏

That said, that was a very Soto outcome on Kepler! 😅

I like Chafin here and not Soto.

That’s fine, but just know that you’ve gotten yourself into a position where you will never be able to praise Baez in this forum when he does do well, because everyone here will remember, if not actually remind you, that you bailed on him six weeks into his first season here.