Moose Milligan

I've been harsh towards him in the past but I am happy to eat crow. What I've grown to appreciate is his plate discipline.

Phillies seem to have a pretty crappy bullpen.

Fantastic play by Ruiz!

Hahaha, ok.

You said luck is ALWAYS better than skill. And no. No it's not.

That's not a plan.

Garceau has been solid, IMO. He mispronounces names though and it's a bit irksome. I give Thorne a pass on that because I think he could read the phone book and make it sound delightful. Garceau's voice is fine but it's not THAT fine. McDonald is great. And I love it when Palmer gets brought in. I've heard Newman so far and she is bland. I don't think she's terrible but she's a far, far cry from a Miller, Angel, Chuck Thompson, etc. Botox and hair coloring. Whoever did his work did a good job. $%@#, I look older than Jim Palmer and I'm 38.

Looks like he went to the Cubs minors when we traded him over there but he wasn't bad. But the results were pretty immediate, like night and day when he went there. He was terrible here. a 7.23 ERA in 23.2 innings. Granted that's a small sample size, but when your ERA is 7.23 it's probably going to be a small sample size because you're so bad and can't accumulate any innings. He goes to the Cubs and they send him to Iowa he goes 2-2 with a 3.56 ERA and a 1.582 WHIP. And then up to Chicago, where he goes 4-2 with a 3.66 ERA and a 1.123 ERA. The next year, 10-5, 2.53 ERA. And the year after that, lights out, 22-6, 1.77 ERA. So...yeah, the turnaround for him upon landing in Chicago was pretty immediate. Pretty sure they just let him do what he wanted and their coaching staff just worked with him in a way that was comfortable for him. They let him do what made him a good pitcher and worked with that.

For Arrieta, it was that he threw slightly across his body at TCU. And when he got to the Orioles, instead of letting him do what made him successful in college and making him one of college's best pitchers, Adair (IIRC, it was him) just had to iron it out and make him do things his way. And obviously it didn't work. When he got to Chicago, they let him essentially get back to doing what made him a good prospect in the first place and he flourished. Throwing across your body isn't good, it puts a lot of unnecessary strain on the shoulder. Arrieta did it and does it, but it works for him. Every pitcher will have issues sooner or later, most likely as it's been well documented that throwing overhand is an unnatural movement that stresses the arm. It's why college softball pitchers can throw a ton of pitches, because throwing underhand like they do is more natural. You get some guys like Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton who can throw and throw hard forever but of course those guys are outliers. Just because a pitcher doesn't have ideal mechanics doesn't mean they need an overhaul, especially if they're already good at what they're doing. There's so much focus on preventing injuries with pitchers when it's just inevitable that most of them are going to get injuries. IMO, the Orioles downfall with Arrieta was that they tinkered too much with his mechanics because they were so afraid of him breaking down instead of fostering what made him successful and saying "Hey, his mechanics aren't amazing but the results are pretty damn good. Let's leave them alone for the most part and maybe teach him a new pitch or something to add to his arsenal."

Valaika has been better than I expected.

Pathetic play by Davis last night, hard smash to his left, all he had to do was get his body in front of it but instead he just stabbed at it with his glove and he, of course, missed it. I think they gave the Phillies a hit on it and it probably was. But the fact he couldn't move a couple feet to the left was bad. Not like he had to dive to stop it or anything.

Ah, Davis. Ol' reliable.

Ok, if Chris Davis goes deep now, we'll have seen it all.

Tonight just got weirder. Wow.

**** is really weird tonight, I just saw an add for a Budweiser in a white can with zero alcohol.

Sulser showing why the Rays left him off their playoff roster last year.

Don't deserve to win this game. Hays playing so deep, that was dumb.

Cole "full pack" Sulser.

You can watch another 200 games, I don't think you'll see anything like that again. What you just saw was super rare. Wasn't even dropped, just terrible communication on something a little league team could have done a better job on.

Let's go Sulser. Enough heart attacks for one night.

Unbelievable. We got so f'ing lucky right there.

Well they blew this one.

Needs to happen for a longer period of time before I become a believer. But we're a quarter of the way through this "season" so far. If we were a quarter of the way through a standard 162 game season, I think people would be excited. So, I get it. I don't think we're giving up as many homers, either, but I am too lazy to check. So less walks, more strikeouts, less homers, better defense = improvement. If they can keep it up, then I'll be a believer. Maybe these guys ARE getting better. I'm not saying they're 1985 Dwight Gooden, but they're better than what they were.

I think everyone here who's old enough to remember 1989 (I do, barely) wants another 1989 all over again. A team that played over its head, got lucky, played great defense and was in it until the final weekend. @DrungoHazewoodcan sum up that team better than I can, he's done a masterful job before.