ashbury

She raised 3 good kids, and 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Yes but, as it was, Duran made only 3 pitches to register his out, so unless he woulda gotten 3 outs on 1 pitch each, we can thank Byron and Jovani for collectively saving our bullpen ace a little wear and tear! Who knows which game in the near future that this will pay off?

Pitch him late-until-it's-close, you're saying?

I would. A division rival is coming to town on Monday. Better to have a more-rested bullpen when the games potentially count double in the GB column. And no bullpen survives on just 3 arms anyway. I'd plan on Alcala for the ninth, Thielbar for the eighth, hope Mahle makes it through six and we only have to close our eyes and pray during the seventh with a tandem of Pagan and Sands. Actually I'll work Mahle like a rented mule*, close my eyes during the entire bullpen ordeal, and hope an eight-run lead is enough cushion. * No. Shoulder fatigue concerns will actually override any one game's needs.

Key play: Vazquez's base hit in the 8th. Not so much for the insurance run it brought in, but because without it the chance of Buxton coming up to put the game out of reach* was about zero. * barely, as we found out

I can get used to this. Please use this headline freely during the season.

At least you can't accuse anyone of being front-runners.

Ash's Mom: "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." (She was renowned for her malapropisms.) Matt Wallner has his chance now to affect these discussions considerably.

Nice? Nicest of the day in the majors, according to baseball-reference.com's Game Score metric.

Now we can ask, to whom does Carlos go when he's scuffling, and what does that player's chart look like?

Yes, he truly ... knocked it out of the park?

None taken. It's just a what if scenario.

The idea is to raise his batting average when he puts the ball in play. He's generally around .250 and the league is closer to .300. If he can trade some of the useless balls in play into base hits, at some cost in strikeouts, then it's a net improvement. Also, home runs don't count as being "in play" for defensive purposes, so getting the HR back up would be a good thing even if the BABIP stays .250.

And the pitcher they traded for him, Kolby Allard, is on the 60-day IL. The proverbial trade that helped neither team?

We say we like players who speak from the heart and don't give us Bull Durham style corporate PR. Then we throw Sonny Gray's words back at him when he guts out a decent performance without his best stuff. I'd like to see the season play out further than this, before singling him out. (I realize that wasn't the thrust of this article.)

Presenting your MLB-leading ERA, the Minnesota Twins! As expected.

Viable shortstops make great trade bait if you ever genuinely have too many of them.

Which kind of IPA is Hanson not a fan of? The kind that tastes the way Pine-Sol smells? Or the kind that is basically grapefruit juice?

Or a drinking game.

High praise, indeed. LOL. To paraphrase another responder, I could be on something. There's every chance this variant could turn out to be stupid.

The inning changes are a good point. Of course if the innings go quicker, the opposing pitcher won't have as long to sit and cool down, so the current number of warmup pitches could be reduced to maybe just one or even dispensed with. But since I'm framing this whole idea in terms of it being a spectator sport, there does come an important question of when the broadcaster can fit in the revenue-producing ads. During the inning, batters can have a time-limit on their walkups (walkup music would be limited to four notes ), but I wouldn't want to rush them quite as much as I think you're suggesting - the new pitch clock enforcement seems pretty balanced to me, but rushing the batter while the pitcher stands comfortably on the mound between batters in this faster version of the game seems like a tilt favoring the pitcher too much. Nine outs per inning? Whew, that will be a lot of runs, unless the one-pitch rule suppresses offense a lot more than I anticipate. (As I said in another response, there's at least some evidence to think that offense might go up a little.) It's some interesting outside-the-box thinking though. Back in the early days of the game, there were so many errors that in effect you did have nine outs to a side. Instead of nine outs, though, what about every batter in the lineup comes up during each inning, and you naturally place your "clean up" hitter ninth, and on that plate appearance it's like Little League where he keeps going until you can put him out?

The Brian Dozier dead-pull approach was somewhere in the mix for my speculation. Cutting out the dead parts of the game, from a general fan's perspective, was the first motivation, but the dreary sameness of BB/K/HR and especially the nibbling by pitchers was in there too - if you're going to walk, get it over with quick, if you're going to strike out, ditto, let's see some action on the bases okay? Larger park dimensions or a deadened ball are in line with my ambivalence about maybe balls hit out of play should just be foul, even the moonshots. But a moonshot every game or two is entertaining. Just as inside the park HRs are. I'd like more balance. Maybe a one-pitch AB would be unbalanced in worse ways, who knows? I'm skeptical about legislating away the current unlimited relief pitching. Fake injuries will arise to defeat that. And if a starter stays in though struggling, we'll see an increase in lopsided games that you just want to get over with - even 2 hours will seem long. I'm kind of with you on finding a way to reduce all the max-effort pitching, though - nothing legislated the strategy to save your best stuff for when in a jam, back 100 years ago, they just did it, and I don't know how to bring it back.

Scott Baker's a fun example, and pitchers like him who kind of lack a deadly out-pitch might be the real beneficiaries. The current stats I cited are highly biased by the current rule on unlimited foul balls, so maybe the net effect would tilt toward the pitcher more than I thought; that would be dull. I can't think of an equivalent batter who thrives on fouling off the tough pitches in order to finally get a mistake he can hit. Arraez? Hit BA might go down a lot. (A quick google search for batters who hit lots of fouls turned up only Ross Barnes and Luke Appling from decades ago, Brandon Belt had that 21 pitch epic a few years back so I'll go with him as a possible posterboy.)

I think Kelly's quote was more cautionary than hopeful, and he wasn't advocating giving every prospect 1000 AB. He was talking about sophomore slumps after a good rookie year. Highly touted outfielder Joe Benson never got his 1000, for example.