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Tigers are kicking up their heels here in the eighth!

Hey, what do you know! Two groundball outs! Awesome! Now do that three more times.

Gregory Soto coming into the game with the bases loaded and one out in the eighth, with a mere one-run lead, and will be asked to get the final five outs. What’s the proper emoji for this? Oh, yeah, it’s gotta be …

I will admit that I caught myself doing that same thing when I first started capturing events on iPhone video maybe a decade or so ago, and once I realized what I was doing, I felt a little dopey. After all, I’m there in person to see it live! Why are my eyes glued to my phone instead! So I have sort of solved this “problem”, if it is one, by lowering the camera from directly in front of my face down to just a little below my neck. That way I can look over the phone at the action as it’s going on live, but I can also keep the phone in my field of vision to ensure that I’m still capturing everything my eyes are watching. It takes a couple of tries to get it just right, but it’s not hard to do so.

Every team has its unique downside. How would you like to be part of a fan base that’s mortified by not having won a World Series ring since 2009?

Willi Castro can’t stop getting himself thrown out stealing, can he?

They obviously need you to show them how it’s done. 😉

Another pressing at bat, another strikeout. Sigh. It really knocks me out seeing all these people who are there live and in the stands watching his at bats through their phone!

That’s OK, you don’t have to be excited or impressed. I just think it’s cool to see one of our guys up toward the top of a good pitcher’s list for a change.

Man, Big Load is off to a great start!

The umpire kept the ball from getting past the catcher to the backstop, which possibly cost us an extra base.

They have Pineda listed at 280, so, what do we think? 310? 320?

Jesus, what a fucking load Pineda is.

Believe it or not, Castellanos may be on the short list to accomplish that, at least in the next couple of eyars. Vlad Guerrero Jr might have the best shot in the next decade. Austin Riley, perhaps. One thing to remember is that in today's game, a guy doesn't have to hit mid- to high .300s to win a batting crown anymore. Last year, .319 won the AL title and .328 won the NL crown. And the way base hits are down this year, who knows, we might see a guy with a batting title hitting two-something.

Now for a little good news—look who's ranking toward the top of the Statcast pitcher list! Maybe that 2016 RoY year wasn't a one-off after all.

Trigger warning to Mize fans: don't watch this video or read the rest of this post. By way of reminder, here's how Pedro Martinez assessed Casey Mize a couple years ago: Pedro: "For a guy that's so young, throwing the split-finger, if you think about him in a 200-inning season ... see? With that kind of torque on that elbow? You're looking at Tommy John." That's also what we'd read from Fangraphs prospect writers back in 2018 when we took him 1/1.

Hey, you old guys (55+): If you're anywhere near a TV or computing device, you have to watch Miggy get his 3,000th hit, because there's a good chance this will be the last guy any of us will see hit that milestone. That is, if this table from last September in Fangraphs is to be believed:

It would have been funnier if he'd said at least 502 homers and a .310 batting average.

I don't know, I'm inclined to take Putin's word for this one. Even a stopped clock tells the truth twice a day. Plus, it's not as though Putin is saying they're pulling out and giving the Ukrainians a break. Blockading them to starve them out is still an aggressive act of war. The trick is going to be making the blockade stand strong against what I assume will be Ukrainian bombardment of their positions.

Well, this didn't take long to find—we are definitely among the most injured teams in baseball. Compare to 2021, when we were in the bottom ten on the most-injured list, which may help explain why we won as many as 77 last year.

I'm not happy with the way they seem dead on their feet, but I'm not quite so down on this team just yet. We are in an early stretch playing some of the best teams in baseball: the White Sox are projected this morning to end up with the ninth best record; so are the Red Sox; and the Yankees are projected to end up with the fourth best record. That's nine of their first twelve games right there. And it's not going to get much easier very soon: they have the 8-4 Rockies in town for three this weekend, and then they'll face championship series contenders Dodgers and Astros within two weeks after that. We've talked about this before. But also, guys who were supposed to be significant contributors are out. Javy is out. So is Riley. Casey is not available. neither is Manning. Chafin hasn't even pitched. Funkhouser isn't available yet. Cisnero had to go on the 60-day. Jake Rogers is gone for the season. Spencer Turnbull's prime is wasting away while he rehabs. If all these guys were available to play, we'd probably be feeling very different about this team. I know that the injury bug is biting everyone, but without researching it at all, it feels like it's biting us especially hard. And yet, as dead as we have looked on our feet, we have been remarkably close in games. Each of the last eight games, during which our record has been 3-5, have been decided by two runs or less. That's because our pitching, of all things, has really stepped. We're not striking any anybody out, but we're also not walking anyone, and we're not giving up any bombs. That has kept us close so far. Sure, there's been some luck in the pitching, and I wouldn't put money on a prop bet that they'll keep that up, but when it comes strictly to results, I'd rather be lucky than good. Considering the schedule they have had so far, I'm thinking we are right about where we can expect us to be.

April 15. Since Saturday, the Tigers are the only team in baseball not to homer at all. Surprisingly, they have not been the worst hitting team, at least on an all-around basis. Their slash line since then is .204/.336/.247, with a wRC+ of 86, "good" for 16th in baseball. That's due to their on-base skills during this period: their OBP has been .336, which is sixth-best in the game since Saturday. However, they have also scored only six runs since then, tied for last in baseball. And the moral of the story is: getting on base don't mean a thing if you can't bring 'em around to score.

It's starting to look like the idea is to starve them.

Just another whiny little bitch with no principles or scruples.

I blame Ian Hunter for fooling people about Cleveland.