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Good news, got another run. Bad news, Sweeney is starting to suck a lot more in every aspect of his game.

Great, that's one run.

Man, Laureano sure did make that one close at third on McKinstry.

MVPKinstry!

Four hits, no runs, eleven strikeouts and no walks on 91 pitches through six. He's got to come out for the seventh, right? Who do we have that's available, besides Maeda? Guenther again? Chase Lee again? They are still optionable and we need the guys we won't be optioning to get a breather after yesterday, right? I think he comes out in the seventh to see if he can get three quick outs. Tell you what, though: I'd like to put up another four or five runs here so we can get GarbageTime-san into the game to eat up some outs.

We got a little lucky on that Baez tag up from first to second on the flyout to right. If the throw were on the bag, he was doubled off by a mile. But it wasn't, because the Tigers' new calculation is that in the end, we will net more bases and runs being very aggressive on the bases than by being moderate and advancing only on sure things—that by putting pressure on the defense, we will gain more bases than lose outs. And it worked this time, because we got another run out of it. I like this new strategy, and I hope I'm cognizant enough to remember that I like it when it inevitably happens that it looks like we took a stupid chance and made an out or even lost a game because of the aggressiveness.

We are not long—who knows, maybe days—from finally hearing from the administration that they give less than a s*** about approval ratings and they're gonna do anything they want on behalf of "the American people"..

Glad I don't have to listen to this non-baseball interview during the game, but sad that I have to see it take over my TV completely in between pitches, and share the screen during pitches. Did they have any in-inning interviews during yesterday's game that Dan called? I didn't see it all.

Javy Baez paying a lot more dividends at the plate this year!

We did hit the ball pretty hard off Kremer that first inning, so, good sign.

I didn't specify regular season. I said international rules, which practically by definition means tournaments, although Cuba was using them in their professional league when I watched some games there in 2015, which was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that. They do allow ties still—the most recent one was in 2016, which is why the Cubs finished 103-58-1—but my impression is that ties can be declared only when games would be suspended by darkness or equipment failure, or in the 2016 case, by weather with a subsequent league decision not to make up the game. I don't believe it can be a discretionary decision between teams to save their pitching. If weather or darkness is not an issue, they play the extra innings regardless of whether they want to or not. Is that not correct?

Of the Pipeline top 100 guys we have in the minors right now—Max Clark, Kevin McGonigle, Josue Briceno, Thayron Liranzo, and Bryce Rainer—which of these would you be willing to give up this July in exchange for an established major leaguer who gives us a much better chance of going deep into October or even November this year?

I looked into upgrading the panel a few years ago and it ran into the high four figures. I'd rather sell.

I not only agree, I could see Briceno getting sent away in a package this July.

That chances the Tigers trade Max Clark while he is still a top prospect is zero, +/− 0.

Placing runners on base at the start of an extra inning to bring the game to a quicker conclusion was used in the 2017 WBC. It was also used in the 2008 Olympics. That was before its introduction to America, by which I assume you mean the majors. It wasn't exactly the way MLB uses it to a "t", but the premise was very much the same. I would hate to see MLB adopt tie games after 12 innings. I would regard that as a far worse bastardization of the game than placing runners on base to start an extra inning. That would probably not be as bad to me as eight-man batting orders, but that would be a matter of minor degree to me. Reasonable people can disagree on this.

Our wearing signs are when we turn on the TV, the living room lightss dim; and when we run the bidet, the bathroom lights flicker.

I’m not sure Skubal isn’t one of those Koufax-types who is so dominant that you can know exactly what’s coming and you can’t hit it anyway. Anyhow, I do think of him as snakebit because even though the Tigers are 2-3 in his starts, he and his 2.83 ERA aren’t the main reason.

Eugenio Suarez hit four home runs tonight!

My wife and I came thisclose to getting the ball rolling on getting a second car that’s electric. It was basically the day before Trump announced the tariffs on the whole world. We’re holding off for the moment. But it would definitely be handy for tooling around town and the suburbs if we need to, and we could do round-trips to Milwaukee on a single charge so that would work great. We’d still have the hybrid for long trips and second car needs. The main concern she has is pressure on our electrical grid. We have close to maxed out the fuse box and she worried adding another plugin charger in the garage would fry it. I don’t know about that.

Either the Tigers or Skubal himself are weirdly snakebit when he starts. We are 2-3 on those occasions so far.

Thanks. That was the first thought that popped into my head as well.

Obviously too distraught on the day of Pope Francis’s funeral to gather his thoughts properly.

Not true. It’s the second time since 1911: the funeral of Pope Pius X was on August 24, 1914, on which day the Tigers took two from the Senators, 3-1 and 11-0.

This Tigers team is the one I’ve been dreaming of since I started getting into sabermetrics and analytics over a quarter century ago.