spiritof66

It's weird to lose a game 3-0, after it was1-0 for a long time, and feel that the second highest scoring team in baseball never had a shot.

I'm blaming the dopey uniforms.

I understand (maybe incorrectly) that the idea behind managers getting tossed is that by showing his players he will fight for them, even act like a jerk for them, will promote some kind of good feeling or team spirit, not just for the balance of that game but more generally. Can't measure that, I don't think.

Just stand on first base, Westie. We need the baserunner.

Tight strike zone there, eh, Mel?

Not as bad as the uniforms worn by both teams, which are awful.

With apologies for interrupting, sort of, why do you call the automatic runner a "ghost runner"? A ghost is somebody you can't see or touch; you just act as if he's there. Those aren't qualities of the automatic runner. Growing up with no organized baseball (other than in school, from fifth grade on), I became very familiar with the term "ghost runner." We usually couldn't get enough kids to have anywhere nine guys on a side, and we'd play with just five on five or six on six, probably even fewer than that, especially if one or two kids had to leave early and we wanted to keep playing. The team in the field would not have enough players for a full defense. One of the ways we dealt with that was to move the (imaginary) foul line so center field was a boundary and a hitter could hit a fair ball only to his choice of LF/CF or CF/RF ("call your field"). Another was to have players from the offense fill out the defense, especially pitching ("pitch to your own man"), catching ("catch up"), or playing first base (or third base for a lefty batter). It also was prudent to have a guy who wasn't batting stand near the edge of the adjoining dense woods to see where a foul ball or bad throw went since losing a ball that rolled into the woods often meant ending the game or using a battered backup. On another field where I sometimes played there was no backstop and a kid from the team that was batting stood behind the catcher ("backer upper") to prevent the ball from getting away and possibly rolling down a hill and into a creek. If a baserunner had to leave his base to do something else that kept the game going, we pretended that he was still on that base, and he was deemed to advance along with the runner behind him. We called that runner an "imaginary man" or "imaginary runner" or "ghost runner" or "pretend man," as in "basis loaded with a ghost runner on third, two outs." Those names made perfect sense since we couldn't see or touch the runner (or hear or smell or taste him, for that matter). The kids in an adjoining neighborhood where I sometimes played similarly short-handed games used those names. My cousins who lived a thousand miles or so away used seemed to use "ghost runner" exclusively in those situations, as I recall. I can't figure out how that term became applied to the automatic runner instituted by MLB, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

With apologies for interrupting, sort of, why do you call the automatic runner a "ghost runner"? A ghost is somebody you can't see or touch; you just act as if he's there. Those aren't qualities of the automatic runner. Growing up with no organized baseball (other than in school, from fifth grade on), I became very familiar with the term "ghost runner." We usually couldn't get enough kids to have anywhere nine guys on a side, and we'd play with just five on five or six on six, probably even fewer than that, especially if one or two kids had to leave early and we wanted to keep playing. The team in the field would not have enough players for a full defense. One of the ways we dealt with that was to move the (imaginary) foul line so center field was a boundary and a hitter could hit a fair ball only to his choice of LF/CF or CF/RF ("call your field"). Another was to have players from the offense fill out the defense, especially pitching ("pitch to your own man"), catching ("catch up"), or playing first base (or third base for a lefty batter). It also was prudent to have a guy who wasn't batting stand near the edge of the adjoining dense woods to see where a foul ball or bad throw went since losing a ball that rolled into the woods often meant ending the game or using a battered backup. On another field where I sometimes played there was no backstop and a kid from the team that was batting stood behind the catcher ("backer upper") to prevent the ball from getting away and possibly rolling down a hill and into a creek. If a baserunner had to leave his base to do something else that kept the game going, we pretended that he was still on that base, and he was deemed to advance along with the runner behind him. We called that runner an "imaginary man" or "imaginary runner" or "ghost runner" or "pretend man," as in "basis loaded with a ghost runner on third, two outs." Those names made perfect sense since we couldn't see or touch the runner (or hear or smell or taste him, for that matter). The kids in an adjoining neighborhood where I sometimes played similarly short-handed games used those names. My cousins who lived a thousand miles or so away used seemed to use "ghost runner" exclusively in those situations, as I recall. I can't figure out how that term became applied to the automatic runner instituted by MLB, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

Notwithstanding the very encouraging starts, we still don't -- certainly I don't -- know what to expect from Bradish or Means this season.

That could be a way to get him on the IL for a few weeks.

Every once in a while Baumann throws a pitch or two that makes you think he could become a quality pitcher, but he never gets there.

Baumann putting the "garbage" in garbage time.

Good to keep Westie off first base. (If he'd gotten on, it would have been cool if he had just stood on the base for a pitch or two.)

I always have assumed it's to reduce the number of games exposed to cold, rainy weather and to generally lower early-season attendance,