ashbury

If the Jays let me, I would. I don't let them pick my starter, though.

As expe-.... wait, what?

Your Wish Is Lewis's Command.

Click this instead.

I'm not liking.... something... right about now.

Does a full house still beat two pair in Canadian Poker?

There's actually a site that keeps track of this every day of the season. Currently the Twins number to clinch is 94. Any combination of Twins wins or Guardians losses totaling 94 locks up the Central for us. Cleveland has a much harder path to clinching, at 96.

What's our Magic Number?

George Springer is a fine baseball player, and also probably the one I find the most irritating. Maybe for the same reason I like Jorge Polanco. Those eyes when he's at the plate. He's an absolute pest. Get a couple of strikes on him, but he's hard to put away.

Granny dusts herself off and points the bat out toward the left field bleachers.

They've put an ankle bracelet on our First Baseman?

"Oh well, Granny..."

So, you and I are the opposite. I was born in Indiana, and I never grew up.

So the process matters more than wins and losses. Where have I heard that before...

I was curious enough to try to pin it down via Google, and it's attributed to Early Wynn, and he only stated that he would "brush back" his granny. So no ill intent there.

I was just channeling the old line (Burleigh Grimes? Early Wynn?) about a pitcher beaning his own grandmother, "but only if she was crowding the plate."

Squirrel would ban her own mother if it meant avoiding a jinx.

Um, probably not?

Third base coach windmilled you home and you beat the throw?

"Vazquez, in play, outs." Ugh. Good inning though. Let's sprinkle another good inning or two later this game to put it away.

Kepler for once got vaccinated though.

Looks like I picked the wrong game to tune in late.

Looks like the Angels called him up and he played in Thursday's game where he hit a homer against the Cubs. The timing for a trade offer might not be quite right.

Paddack's extension can be a starting point for thinking, but the two pitchers' contract situations are very different. Paddack still had two arbitration years ahead of him, so he had less leverage when considering whether to accept the team's offer to guarantee him some money. Mahle is already eligible for free agency after this season. Look at it a different way. Before signing his extension, Paddack had earned about $5M in major league salary*, which is good money but not quite at the "set for life" level for a variety of reasons. The Twins' offer did take him past that threshold. By contrast, Mahle has earned above $15M to date. Assuming he's invested wisely, the Twins can't really approach him and his agent with "we'll guarantee you life-changing money" because his life is already changed for the better. Paddack chose not to gamble on a far higher payday at some intermediate point, during which something unrelated might also go wrong, while still maintaining the potential for a good outcome in free agency further down the road. Mahle might see the gamble as less dependent on anything besides recovery from the elbow surgery, and he's better placed to shoulder** the risk if he wants to roll the dice. Paddack thereby assured his own financial future; for all I know Mahle might be trying to fund a charitable foundation next, for example. I think signing Mahle's going to be harder, because from the Twins' perspective the two situations are indeed pretty similar. The team will have to risk more, with more or less the same potential reward. * I'm taking my numbers from b-r.com, which I find sometimes to be unreliable for the kind of analysis I want to do. ** No pun intended, but there it is.