allquixotic

I hope you both have a lot of fun. My mom has a fond memory of a game at Memorial Stadium with her father. She was confused, and said the game was boring, because the other team couldn't hit anything our pitcher was throwing. My grandpa had to explain to her that this meant he pitched extremely well, and everyone was cheering and celebrating. It was a Jim Palmer no-no. August 13, 1969. This was the beginning of her fandom.

Holmes may not be available tomorrow, so if it's a close game, we may have a real chance in the 9th tomorrow. Win the series. Might need a team meeting to talk about batting, though. We had chances tonight before Holmes came in, and we absolutely squandered them.

Normally I'd say Holmes = game over, but making him pitch 5 outs with men on base in the 8th is a tough ask for any closer who's accustomed to pitching a clean 9th only. If you're going to beat Holmes, this is the setup to make it happen.

I get charlie horses in my legs BAD when I eat Chipotle. It's not that I don't get enough potassium, but their insane levels of sodium push the potassium out of my system. I wake up screaming because of the pain. I have prescription potassium packets for this, and I've only ever had to use them after eating excessively salty food. If I eat normal, I'm fine.

3 outs left. I know the scoreboard says 6, but face it, Holmes isn't going to give up a run. If we don't score in the 8th, the Yankees win.

Facing Clay Holmes is not an improvement over Cy Gil. After all, if you take out the "la" from his first name, he's Cy Holmes. I'm pretty sure Holmes can't pitch 3 innings, though, so we'll have a window. A small one.

I expect these O's to deliver a series win, but a 4-game sweep is extremely improbable. Tonight might be the loss.

Welp A lone 2 run bomb in the bottom of the 5th wouldn't be a disaster, if we could, you know... ... Score.

You were right, unfortunately, but he did get more pitches out of that AB than most of our guys tonight. A few more of those and we can deny Cortes an 8+ IP game.

Lol, CB Bucknor stared at Gunnar's head like he was contemplating a super late strike call, then figured, "eh, too late." It was clearly a ball, but it was a Bucknor Strike and he let Gunnar get away with it for a walk. Adley gets a hit!

I want robo umps, but for those against robo umps, I have a counter proposal. Collect comprehensive and fair statistics on all umpires throughout the season. In the off-season, the worst 5% of the ML umpires, as determined by some calculated metric, either lose their job or get sent down to a lower level of pro ball. Replace them with the best minor league umpires. That would result in more Quinn Wolcotts and Pat Hobergs, and fewer CB Bucknors and Angel Hernandezes. Stack ranking is common in tech; the game would benefit from umps getting the same treatment. Maybe, for those who get bumped out of the major leagues, they get one more chance in the minors. If they are in the worst 5% of minor league umps the following year, they get fired. That way, a single bad year doesn't necessarily end an umpire's career.

12 pitches. It's gonna be a long night offensively.

Gunnar got Bucknor'ed.

Yesterday and today the Yanks look snakebitten. They hit some baseballs right at our guys. Soto continues his ML-leading walk tendency, but it doesn't help them when Judge GIDP.

You mean a strike zone that's effectively random? Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if a manager gets ejected.

Heck yeah Westburg! Nice diving catch!

Nestor Cortes kills us. Crafty lefty / junkballer. Exactly the kind of guy who can put movement on the ball and be deceptive so our mistake-hitting lineup can do nothing. I would suggest an approach of attrition. Since pitchers are on a strict pitch count these days, our guys should look to hold until 2 strikes, then defensively swing at and foul off anything close. Just wear out his pitch count as early as possible to open up their pen. Holmes pitched last night, so even if we do see him, he may be a little easier to hit if he's fatigued. Of course, if they can actually barrel up some balls and get hits off of this guy, even better - but so far that hasn't happened with the O's against Cortes. By far the worst outcome would be to go up there and roll over early in every AB, giving him quick innings. Seeing a lot of pitches, even if we don't score, is a decent compromise. The Yanks can't pitch Holmes for 4 innings.

BEAT THE YANKEES!!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Grayson: 5.2 scoreless IP, and Cionel shuts the door on the sixth. I think I did well with the thread title.

I feel like I deserve rep for the thread title from Malike 5 scoreless by Grayson. Effectively wild.

Grayson doesn’t have much control but he’s getting them out somehow.

Hot as an inferno compared to the usual temperature it has been lately. And the early start time this year puts the sun higher in the sky for longer.

I’m here!

What guarantee is there that he returns at all? He may never pitch at the ML level again. Some just never recover from an injury like that. Or he may not return until 2026 or 2027, pissing away half his career re-injuring himself over and over in the minors. It's very typical these days. All this medical technology, all these stats, and we have essentially zero ability to keep guys healthy. It's incredible.