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I've been thinking more about what Abbott said, that he considers the shooter to be "pure evil". "Evil" is a handy term to use in cases like mass shootings because for a lot of people, "evil" is code for "Satan". That's because evil, like its antithesis "good", is a religious concept, not a behavioral concept. The religious people who still make up the strong majority in this country believe that "good" and "evil" are personality traits endowed by supernatural beings which control our behavior. God makes us do good; Satan makes us do evil. So those people who believe this was an act of evil, specifically, seek to portray mass shootings as a spiritual failing, not a physical or social or policy failing. This has huge and obvious implications for gun policy in America. If we have a strong belief in the presence and power of "evil"—if we believe that there is some supernatural being who is the source of all evil, a being who influences evil and leads people to act in an evil manner—well, then, there's nothing we can do to stop it. Whatever power we might have must pale against the power of this supernatural being. So, all we can do in reaction is to wait for the evil to happen, and then shoot down or lock up the bad guys driven by the evil, and trust that those bad guys will eventually receive their truly just punishment after they die. That is, in fact, the exact policy that civilizations have been following for centuries, and which many—including the United States of America—still employ today. On the other hand: if we believe that people act in a certain way for a reason—whether it is a physical problem such as brain damage or mental illness that leads people to do really bad things for no apparent or logical reason; a systemic failure that creates an incentive to behave badly; and /or a policy failure that makes such weapons so easy and convenient to obtain—then we can fully embrace the idea that we can do something to stop this behavior by changing the systems, and then actually undertaking the hard work to do so. The key difference is that in the former case, the only way to combat the problem of mass shootings is to petition really hard to the Supernatural Being of Good to defeat the Supernatural Being of Evil, and to touch the hearts of men to be good. You know—thoughts and prayers. With the latter case, the way to combat the problem is to apply scientific rigor and analysis to understand the physical problems that lead to inexplicable bad behavior, to understand the systemic problems that lead to warped incentives, or to understand how policy failures enables one to easily carry out this act, and then test and improve the methods to combat these things that lead to the behavior. In the former case, we push off the responsibility of change to beings we trust but cannot interact with, and simply wait and hope for results. In the latter case, we take on the responsibility for change unto ourselves and undertake the hard work to make results happen. That's the policy consideration at hand, as it relates to mass shootings. So what's it going to be? Do we carry on with the traditional policy of reacting to acts of evil with thoughts and prayers? Or should we try something else for a change?

The sad thing that occurs to me is that it might be only foreign journalists who can effectively ask this question and stick with it when the politicians deflect. I think part of it might be the access issue. Deflection works on American journalists because they have to think about a long game in which they have to protect access to Washington insiders for themselves and their news employers. Access is a must-have for them: If access is withheld from them, their effectiveness as political journalists reporting to Americans is severely damaged, and their employers have to mend fences to regain that access. Foreign journalists don't have really to worry about that: access is a good thing for them and a strong nice-to-have, but in the end, they can always report on American politics back to their country without having access to Washington insiders.

Ironic, maybe, but not surprising, since the focus was on right-handed pitching for most of the tank.

The rest of the season.

And how about a .300-hitting Miggy? Who offered that one up as one of their bold predictions?

Miggy with the walkoff!

Here's a pretty fun article in the Athletic if you have access to it. It's a guy's attempt to track every baseball used in a selected major league game, i.e., Tigers and Guardians. Spoiler alert: the number of baseballs used in this game was 115.

I'll bet he noticed the pain and tried to pitch through it a long time before this.

Yeah, I get it, it's the prevailing mentality of young men competing together to defeat an opponent, whether we're talking about sports or we're talking about war. The individual is expected to fully subsume himself to the group's goal, and to do anything, including perform through pain, to help achieve the goal, because god help you if you admit you're hurt and pull yourself out of commission, only to lose by the margin that would have turned on your contribution.

Not 100% sure, but I think you're agreeing with me that the messaging here is probably influenced by state politics. I also notice in the tweet that the original statement was attributed to the director of the Texas DPS, while the statement changing that story was issued by the Texas DPS, not the director. I wonder whether that's an intentional or accidental distinction. If it's accidental it might mean nothing, but if it's intentional, that would mean the institution DPS would be at odds with and is contradicting the messaging of its director.

God damn that warrior mentality, trying to push through the pain and getting hurt worse because of it. Especially true for a guy who's going to get every chance to succeed.

Well, A.J. has to work here, so what else is he going to say, right? But as long as he gets major input on getting this franchise's processes out of the red and into the black, I can't see him bailing on us. I believe if he does bail on us, it will be because promises to him were broken.

Mize picked up the splitter again on his own during the offseason.

They need every possible vote.

Feels like the least likely scenario here is that this is all an honest mistake.

"We need to do a better job with mental health" = "we need a more effective way to blame Democrats for mass shootings".

I'd think at that point they would have to assume multiple bad guys, right? If they can't identify exactly who the extra armed people are and what their purpose is, what else could they do?

Doesn't he say stuff like that on the TV broadcast when he's doing color there? I'd be really surprised if he doesn't.

I think the parents' issue is: why are the cops not going in to engage the shooter and rescue children while he is inside murdering them? And if the cops are not going to go in to do it, someone has to go in to stop the guy and/or rescue children. Otherwise the shooter is going to murder all the children.

Until he was ten, by which time he'd already grown to 6'1" and 210 lbs.

Almost a Little League Home Run!

He's even top 20 on RA9-WAR, which is results-based and doesn't adjust for BABIP or LOB%. In other words, as good as his results have been, he's actually been a little unlucky. Speaking of luck: Justin Verlander has a 2.8 RA9-WAR with a 1.5 WAR. Two reasons: (1) .195 BABIP; (2) 95.7% strand rate.

It definitely should have been double errors on Segura and Herrera, but only Herrera got dinged for one.

So ... what's the latest with Casey Mize?