GOOD TIMING ON THIS THREAD IMO

You need to look at more than their performance so far this season. Baker/Liriano are a solid 1/2, Slowey is a solid 3 and Perkins/Blackburn are just fine for a 4/5.

I think Slowey has more potential to be a 1/2, tbh.

Also, is the game on in Minnesota anywhere? I can't seem to find it- must be blacked out

mlb.tv works in boston

sweet just set up a link to it online*

*kidding**


**PM it to me

you can't watch it in minnesota (well maybe if it's not on tv you can?)

guh, really wish they brought in brendan harris here in the 7th for tolbert, we'll see how he does

edit: good result though! GOGOGO TITLE CHARACTERS

sacrifice. guy on second and no one out. (yeah, i would rather put a real hitter in the #2 spot and let him hit, but as long as it's tolbert i don't mind hte bunt there.)

but what about the span bunt in the 13th, runner on first, 0 outs, DOWN BY ONE? you're bunting denard span there? that's horrible.

willie, agreed I kinda flipped a **** there

way to get gardy ejected cuddyer... god that **** is so lame

Cuddyer is a pussy, thats all I have to say.

imo bunting in the first inning and playing for one run is bad, doubly so when the runner is already on second base. It's old school so Gardy loves it. Willis walked the leadoff guy and then we go ahead and give him an out for free. It makes zero sense to me anymore.

I appreciate a later inning sac bunt where one run in a close game has way more value; but this first inning stuff is stupid imo.

I'm not listening or watching, what happened with cuddyer/gardy?

he took a ball inside and then pretended to get hit by it, replay showed it was a few inches away from him, gardy got ejected obviously

in other news,

wow very nice win today, thought we were ****ed after seeing verlander's stats through the first 4-5 innings

ok- you have a point. when it's tolbert batting, who is going to make an out 70% of the time anyway, i think your point is a little bit overrated, but you have a point. it is probably a little bit better to just let him hit to the right side or something.

but you are wrong here. moving him from 2nd to 3rd with no outs is better than moving him from 1st to 2nd.

well, ok, kind of. if tolbert was up again with span on 2nd and no one out, in a tie game in, say, the 11th inning, then yeah, that bunt is going to have more value than tolbert's actual bunt in the first inning.

but when you are down by 1 in the bottom of the 13th, 2 runs has twice as much value as 1 run, right? and bunting span is giving up like 25% more "out" than bunting tolbert (because his OBP is that much higher), and moving the guy from 1st to 2nd is not as valuable as moving him from 2nd to 3rd, and bunting (span) to set up tolbert is not as valuable as bunting (tolbert) to set up mauer.

LUV U Crede!

Edit: By the way, what's up with Mauer and his hitting slump the last couple of days.... .333?? Come on buddy.

willie, I wasn't referring to the Span extra inning bunt specifically when I said later inning sac bunts. I was speaking generally. For example, up 4-3 in the bottom of the 7th when the leadoff man reaches, a bunt there has more value than a first inning bunt, as one run at the end of the game there is v. important.

Also, there's all kinds of advanced stats these days that prove my point about the dumbness of sacrificing a runner from second to third.

Expected runs for sac bunting a guy from second to third:

runner on 2nd, 0 out--1.068 runs scored in the inning, historically
runner on 3rd, 1 out--0.897 runs scored

Expected runs for sac bunting a guy from first to second:

runner on 1st, 0 out--0.783 runs scored
runner on 2nd, 1 out--0.699 runs scored

So it actually is doubly worse. .08 difference vs a .16 difference, how bout that, heh.

pretty absurd games today and yesterday, Baker almost with a nice start hope he figures it out soon

He's started the last three games by pitching at least 5 innings of shutout baseball. Imo he might just need a quicker hook for a while.

Yeah his WHIP, baa, k:bb, etc are all in line with his career numbers. I've just been attributing his struggles to running bad. I also agree that Gardy has left him in too long at least a couple of starts.

HR/FB is off the charts imo.

I watched the replay on FSN tonight and Baker got hosed on the 2 out double that started the scoring for DET. Kubel missed a ball by about a foot that bounced and went over the fence for a ground rule double and then the floodgates opened. DY would have missed it by 8 feet. And Span would have caught it in stride with a smile on his face. So, not playing our best OF cost us 5 runs imo bbq ldo.

(Also, if I heard the broadcast correctly, Gardy didn't get the bullpen up until the 5th run scored, which I found weird)

At least he didn't sit Gomez for DY tonight. I'd say he essentially chose Buscher over Gomez. I don't know if it is good or not, but its much better than choosing DY over Gomez. At least he is gaining a platoon advantage at another spot.

Delmon Young leaves team to be with ailing (insert relative --- I didn't catch the end).