ashbury

Pitch to contact. Concur. Kirilloff doesn't have good enough breaking stuff to get the strikeouts if he's called upon.

The first baseman's wife, obvii.

If Dobnak had been an off-season minor league signing, we'd be talking up his chances "if he can just find that one tweak." We're thin at starting pitching and one or two untimely injuries for a few weeks combined with underperformance from 40-man arms at St Paul will have us reaching down to AAA for whichever non-roster arm with enough stamina to start has the best results to date. If Randy performs, he'll have his chance - it's really all up to him, given how the major league season is played. Last year for the Twins was such an aberration, we forget. / ninja'd, in greater detail, by jmlease1

From this morning's b-r.com email digest: Byron Buxton (MIN) vs. Brady Singer (KCR): 13 PA, .538/.538/1.154, 2 HR If present trends continue.....

Looking forward to seeing how he does there. If he proves to be serviceable as Buxton's understudy, that could be big!

You are correct. https://www.mlb.com/news/rule-5-draft-results-2022 Weirdly, the official MILB player page has it as a waiver claim. https://www.milb.com/player/yoyner-fajardo-679938 I just thought the discrepancy a little interesting. Don't believe everything you read. 😀

Satire is apparently lost at this site unless it's labeled as such. So here's more satire. If you want the absolute shortest distance from home to the body of the runner, then throw to first base, as long as the runner is slow enough. Here's the not-satire part. Correa is an excellent shortstop. I presume the position he's shown in the screen grab is not accidental. The 2023 change in rules about infield shifts affects the logic just slightly, but when a steal attempt is developing there is some time after the pitcher releases the ball to pick the desired location to receive the throw from home. The ball in that screen grab is already partway to its destination. and Correa hasn't begun his lunge. If the location the ball actually arrived at was optimal, wouldn't Correa have been set up differently? The ball thrown by the catcher goes at a far higher velocity than a human can run. So the distance being a few inches shorter,, thrown a few feet toward the first base side, does not make up for the speed differential of throwing to where the runner must eventually arrive in order to steal the base. The little joke, above, about throwing to first if you want to minimize the distance, is just to help visualize that the shortness of the throw does you no good if the runner is already past that point. Throw to the optimal corner of the base, at 80+ MPH, and you'll beat the runner much more easily than throwing to a spot the runner will reach sooner., those few feet closer to first A throw at the same speed Vazquez threw, but to the spot that Correa clearly was setting up for, has the runner sliding hand-first into the glove that's safely holding the ball, with much less drama. You're certainly correct that no catcher can throw with pinpoint precision. And you're right that the infielder taking the throw must be agile. Vazquez did his job on that play. Correa, by contrast, went above and beyond his job, and made a play worthy of a Gold Glover. Greatest play ever by a SS? No. But a play that I don't think most infielders can make. He gave a master class on that tag. My post wasn't in response to any particular other post, and even less so to your first one which was relatively moderate in its praise for Vazquez's throw.

In KC there's rain in the forecast for the morning, and again for the evening, but the afternoon has a break in the weather for a few hours. Expect the plate umpire to call a generously large strike zone, to keep the game moving.

I guess Correa was caught napping on that stealing attempt, because he's out of position waiting for Vazquez's perfect throw destined to arrive several feet to the side of second base after tailing a bit at the end. Kangaroo Kourt will probably fine him.

It's a long season. Would be fun if that became their trademark.

Was thinking more like this: But your way is good too.

You're saying, he'll choke on a fish bone? What's the anti-jinx for that?

I appreciate the hat tip, and the memories of living in the Northeast (US, not Minneapolis) where lamb cakes are readily available.

A real surprise would be if he said it on TV.

"Now serving: Twins Daily, party of several dozen".

You left out the pluperfect subjunctive. "Buxton didn't get scrod."

Concur. His outro from the top of the 9th was pitch-perfect.

I'll ask Brock Beauchamp to add a "grimace" to the suite of Likes.

Buxton with the dagger!

Kirilloff does the job.

Vazquez!! As expected.

And perhaps even better tag. Guten Tag.

If my California math is correct, that would be 4 bits. / ninja'd by Professor Chief

Yes.