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And here lies the object lesson about the danger of having a top-heavy system: your top prospects all come up at once, and if they are not exactly ready to go at that moment, there’s nobody of consequence coming up behind them to further strengthen the team. So to fill the remaining holes, the Tigers will have to either make impactful trades, and who knows whom they deal to make that happen; or they sign impactful free agents, and who knows for sure whether Baby Doc will spend what it takes to make that happen. It may not be now-or-never quite yet, but given the way the Tigers constructed the rebuild, it’s definitely the beginning of now. With the Sox gimpy and stumbling, we would normally have a golden chance to pounce if we weren’t so gimpy and stumbly ourselves. Maybe this is the year we start to find out just how serious and competent Jay Sartori’s team is at setting us up to move assets and patch holes Rays-style.

What made it bad was the the strike zone was morphing around all game, as it does with Angel and as was noted by the announcers; and also, it was a 3-2 count with one out in the ninth and Schwarber’s team down a run.

Kyle Schwarber is definitely up there with George Brett now in the pantheon of losing your shit during a game.

I sincerely love how he brags that everyone calls him "Sir".

I meant to come in here and guess 4/23 but I got waylaid by other things and didn't have time to get around to it. I will still take my victory lap. 😎

Apparently, Chris Fetter is making better progress with the pitchers than Scott Coolbaugh is making with the hitters.

So far this pitching staff has performed like one of the best in baseball, and that's not because of the defense, which is still among the worst in baseball. But while we expected some improvement from the rotation (and have gotten it), it is the bullpen that is really surprising me. And the interesting part of that is, Soto has done nothing to contribute to the improvement.

Well, at least Javy didn't strike out that time ... Yeah, this is the Javy who will frustrate you.

We would also have accepted “lose”. 😅

”Did I say win 90? What I meant was …”

That was the platonic ideal of a Javy Baez strikeout.

Safe as can be.

Torkelson so far looks to be at best an average defender who has the advantage of youthful athleticism. Yes, he’s made some great diving catches, but so did Derek Jeter. Unless he works hard on his defense and makes substantial improvement in his overall defense game from average at best to actual good, once Torkelson’s body ages and thickens they’ll probably have to move him off the field and into the DH slot permanently.

Carlton's close all right. Certainly in the top 25. If Skubal could be within even the top 1,000 pitchers of all time, that would be way more than anyome could expect from a typical ninth round afterthought pick. That would make him basically Brian Moehler (who basically had to career-collapse his way down to that). That's probably as good as any benchmark minimum to hope Skubal exceeds and be happy for his career if he does. If Skubal could be top 100 of all time, he'd be challenging for a plaque in Cooperstown.

Steve Carlton ... good eyeball comp.

And all on just the two homers. The bats must be able to overcome giving up three runs. We may be in a new Year of the Pitcher, though. Average scoring is under 4 runs per teams for the first time since 1972, and they adopted the DH rule in the AL after in response to that. It’s all because the natural response to two decades of Chicks Dig The Long Ball: pitchers used technology to supercharge their arsenals to maximize swing and miss, and defenses shifted to turn the mistake of not pulling homers over their heads in to outs that used to be hits. Deaden the ball so that all nine guys are no longer a home run threat, and this can all be fixed. It might be painful for a couple of years as pitchers and defenses adjust, but it would get fixed.

I feel bad for you folks who don’t have the choice to have a Dan-and-Jim radio overlay on the video like we out-of-towners do. It seems like they’ve really ramped up the in-booth and in-stands interviews with non-baseball randos this year. How many innings did they spend with Matt Stafford? Two, maybe? And who was the one kid they were talking to in the fourth inning? Some high school football guy or something? There were several other instances of that as well—every time I looked up it was the guy in the stands sticking his microphone in yet another who-knows-who-that-is’s face. And the camera lingers on these interviews more than on what’s happening on the field. I mean, it’s almost as though the baseball game is secondary to the whole broadcast. If I weren’t able to hear Dan and Jim talking about the game itself over these inexplicable video choices, I’d definitely be tuning into the opposing team’s telecast, just to avoid all the nonsense. The Tigers have a clear claim to being the 30th-best baseball telecast in the majors.

Yeah, you really don’t want any Castros up in a situation like that. They both press when they’re in that situation because they want desperately to be the hero and prove their worth, so they end up hacking and hoping. It’s rarely going to end well when it’s like that. But at least they didn’t roll over 1-2-3 in the ninth. There’s still some fight in this gimpy team. That’s all Hinch, I believe.

I don't know ... you do work at a liberal elite university in Taxachusetts ... 🙄😉😆

My wife is sort of yooper lite: Algoma, Wisconsin.

Ah, got it. I thought for a moment it was a serious objection!

Injuries is killing a lot of teams. Eloy Jimenez looks like he might have torn an ACL crossing first base a few minutes ago. They carted him off on a stretcher vehicle.

My wife comes from a rural area full of elderly people where they still use “dinner” to mean the afternoon meal and “supper” to mean the evening meal. I also believe “dinner” is the bigger meal.

Here’s a great video of Dan calling the hit.

Aw, c’mon, do you really expect us to believe that you don’t have a Sister, Christian? EDIT: Oops looks like I was just a little late to the joke.