ashbury

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB5VD_Z5Zvg Heck of a band! I think they have a chance to go far.

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

Riverbrian is starting to rub off on him.

I didn't say broke, I said poor.

Lack of errors is not a good way to judge a defender, but 2 errors in 12 chances so far in 2017 doesn't sound totally copacetic to me.

[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?

Addendum: The Diamondbacks played Chris Herrmann in centerfield for 10 innings last year. You can write anyone into a lineup, QED.

Teams do all kinds of things for 19 games. Long-shot guess, they were trying to trade him, in advance of having to let him go, and seeing if he could play acceptable CF might have increased his value? Didn't work, if so. Nah, it wasn't his first experience in CF. Never saw him then, no idea.

A thoroughly Minnesotan post. I recall hearing similar, midway through the 1987 League Championship Series. "Waal, at least dey didn't embarrass us, dontcha know."

He's really pretty slow, his arm is weak, and he took comically bad routes to the ball at times. Only the last of these looks like could be remotely coachable, at this stage in his career. He's Willingham-bad* in left, and you have to hit a ton to be an asset in that circumstance. It's basically like posting a lineup with two DHs. I don't hate the guy, I just don't see his bat being strong enough to be a DH in the presence of better options when they come, and he isn't an asset on the field. He's kind of like the basketball "tweener", who isn't fast enough to defend or score against the quicker guards and isn't strong enough to defend or score against the stronger forwards - the guy can play, but where? * I have a ton of respect for Josh Willingham, who was one misguided dive away from permanent disability due to his bad back. But it didn't change the fact that he was a statue in left field.

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

This way of looking at things is basically the other side of the coin from Casey At The Bat, except with Flynn and Jimmy Blake coming after Casey in the lineup. Mauer's not batted 7th that much, so Flynn and Blake aren't coming up next. Instead this year we have Sano. And even when it's not been Sano, and is some other right-handed batter, few such guys make it to the majors being terrible at hitting right-handers and yet are inserted in the middle of a lineup. Probably in the dark days of 2011-2014 we could find certain instances where that was the case, and then I'd be all-in on asking Joe to pick one he likes and just give it a rip even if it's the first pitch. But there is one thing in common with Casey At The Bat and the desire to see a swing instead of a walk: the tacit assumption that once Casey does swing, it's going to be hit safely. But it's only a probability. And it's easy to grant that Joe probably will hit safely more often than Trevor Plouffe and those of his ilk. But a lower probability, with higher payoff due to another duck being on the pond, makes it a closer choice than "empty OBP" suggests. I can't count the number of times I've issued Moderator Notes over there, only to have them be ABSOLUTELY IGNORED.

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".