ashbury

Muchos garcias, amigos.

Note: If you are reading this article from the forums, the author is actually Stew Thornley (as noted in the footer) and not John Bonnes.

Pictured: the Chancel Choir from Our Lady of the Gutter church in Požega, Croatia.

I don't know if you understand the magnitude of the risk to humanity you are suggesting by taking away Riverbrian's shirt.

I didn't say broke, I said poor.

[Doing a quick bit of math... maybe 20 pitches seen in a game, times 3-4 percent...] You're saying it's one pitch every game or two that he needs to lay off?

Better than a poor college student getting money working at a factory.

We laugh at fortune cookies, yet we trust economists. For that matter, why are Chinese fortune cookies written in English? Did that start only when Diehard went to work for them?

I stumbled into a free ticket to the Red Sox game against the Pirates on Thursday. It was a makeup game and a guy seated near me also said he'd gotten his tickets free from someone. (He also insisted that Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City is new, so our conversation was not illuminating for me. Only USAFChief is entitled to consider Kauffman "new".) I anticipated that attendance might be sparse - April games tend to be attended in the low 30,000s rather than the high 30,000s anyway, and a makeup game had to give many people problems. Here is a view toward the rightfield bleachers minutes before 2 pm game time: But here are those bleachers later in the game, so I guess people did finally show up on this sunny but seasonable (50 degree) April afternoon: My seats were not in the bleachers as I had been told, but rather the first base grandstand high in the lower deck, meaning it was shady, as you can tell, and therefore cold. Here's Tessie the Green Monster, said to be the little sister of Wally the Green Monster, posing with a young fan or three: The game itself wasn't very dramatic until the 8th - a walk and a homer in the top of the first off of starter Eduardo Rodriguez was a downer... ... while Pirates starter Chad Kuhl pitched mostly effectively: The Red Sox' first run in the second was fairly routine, arising from a pair of clean doubles leading to no chance for defensive prowess - if the triple is said to be the most exciting play in baseball, doubles can be among the least interesting ways to score a run. The Pirates got an insurance run in the sixth, again started by a double but this time with a less routine end-result due to a throwing error by the catcher to third base on an ensuing strikeout-and-steal. Still, it was a quiet game, one that had me wondering if I would stick it out for all 9 innings. However, for the 8th inning I finally moved over to the RF seats which were starting to empty again, to get some sun, and that coincided with Sweet Caroline and then the rally against the Pirates bullpen that erased the 3-1 deficit. I am not a big fan of Hanley Ramirez but I have to admit the guy is money at the plate and the bases were loaded for him when he (notice a trend?) doubled. (Not on the above pitch. ) This cleared the bases, but not in the way the fans hoped, as the runner from first, Mookie Betts, almost made it home safely but was called out via replay. So the score was only tied. But that merely meant that, after an instant walk to Mitch Moreland to try to set up a double play, Bogaerts could single home Ramirez (who had advanced on the earlier throw) for the eventual game-winner. Closer Craig Kimbrel allowed a leadoff single, but a flyout, caught-stealing, and groundout snuffed that small threat, and the Fenway Faithful went home happy. So, this was a game with a very slow leadup, which my non-American or non-baseball friends probably would not appreciate, to a brief but highly satisfying resolution, to which I'm sure those same friends would say "that's it???" I'm glad I got to go.

Moving on in the tournament, in a close case, because your defense was judged a little worse than the other team, seems like an unintended consequence of making the tiebreaker earned runs. Except, I don't see what the intended consequence was, versus just using "runs".

He botched a ball as a late-inning substitute in a game I watched in Sarasota for the big-league team, and that was at shortstop. And I think a butchered play I saw on one of the backfields was also at short, because Vielma was at second. Your observation means he qualifies as a Utility Mishandler, although I haven't seen him at third.

*shrug* We'll see what backhanded comments Paul makes, if and when Niko is promoted.

With the bat, perhaps, but what about the glove? Seems to me his defense continues to be far too inconsistent for someone like Molitor to put up with. He'll make a difficult play, and then on an easier one, mess it up. I'm dealing with small sample size in my observations, but it seems to me he finds a different way to mess up each time (misjudge, wide throw, overthrow, etc), so it's not just one correctable thing either. / edit - with regard to the fast start in Rochester, I looked at b-r.com and I don't see a line for him in 2017 at all. His line is on Fangraphs. Guess I need to file a bug report.

Oh, sure, pieces can be moved about. Much better now than the corner-DH-clogged days not so long ago with Willingham and Doumit as important players. I was just reacting, maybe too specifically, to what I believed to be the question of replacing DanSan's role. Agreed, virtually anyone good can take a roster spot, and then the manager must work out the details, given that reasonable positional flexibility is present.

Considering Palka and Granite for the same outfield role strikes me as about the same as considering ByungHo Park and Engelb Vielma for one infield opening.

Not to mention that he's on the DL. [Edit: OK, I got ninja'd. ] Strained oblique, which he claims will not keep him sidelined long. Still, if we're talking about moves to make RIGHT NOW!!!1! then he's not a candidate.