max silver

Are you suggesting he was "fake" injured last season?

Say what? Biggio's advanced stats are appropriately terrible this year, just like his play on the field would lead you to believe.

That certainly won't help Cavan's popularity around here.

With a more competent framer behind the plate he may have issued fewer walks.

Neither is the home plate umpire apparently.

Time to shelve that cutter, the pitch is absolute s***.

Collins should have gotten a good luck at Tucker's throwing arm on the previous play, terrible baserunning there.

Dude is a very slick fielder.

Yeah managed to limit the damage when things could have easily got out of hand. I don't expect Kikuchi will be given much leash the rest of the game though.

He doesn't really look like he has that kind of flexibility to me.

Maybe you can sense the future or something, the gift walk is a good reason to be annoyed.

Early on it looks like runs might be at a premium today.

I noticed yesterday that idiot for himself banned somehow, any idea what earned him a second timeout?

Nice lineup again today, I like how they've split up the lefties and righties at the bottom of the lineup. Maybe Espinal can be moved up in the lineup if continues to pound that baseball like he has been so far but all in all looks pretty solid.

You would have to think from time to time there are embarrassing situations that lead to in incomprehensible in game switches that get secret from time to time.

When you combine that with a guy that offers 90th percentile defence at both second base and third base and 86th percentile at short stop you have a guy that you might just want to keep long term.

Drunk posting is never a good idea (just ask Spanky!)

Good call, I forgot that Saucedo was even on the roster since he's the last option in a 10 man bullpen. If the starters continue to succeed we won't need to see him pressed into game action unless there's a blowout and some mop up innings are required.

Maybe it wasn't that the manager had a gut feeling but Moreno was having gut feelings after a bad burrito or something.

There are some interesting parallels between the start this year's team is off to compared to the 2021 team. Each team started off slowly offensively and missed key contributors from the lineup early on. The bullpen did a great job keeping the team in games both years giving the team a chance to win each night even when the starter was off of his game. The biggest differences are the quality of the starting rotation and defence. Early season defence was pretty abysmal last season as Gurriel resembled a deer in headlights most nights, Springer was out so Grichuk had to cover center field regularly, Bo really struggled early on and Biggio was a fish out of water at third base. The difference this season is pretty astounding as the infield has really been flashing the leather with regularity. Despite the occasional weakly hit ground ball sneaking through the shifted infield the early shifting has allowed the infield to make plays on a lot of well hit balls saving a ton of runs defensively. The front office will have some tough decisions to make when the rosters shrink at the end of the month. Two relievers will need to be sent down, but if I recall correctly the only relievers with options remaining are Thornton and Merryweather. Thornton's contributions have been immense as he allowed the team to keep the game within reach a few nights ago and he really doesn't deserve to be sent down. Merryweather has been pretty shaky at times so heading to AAA to iron out his command might ultimately be good for him. The return of Borucki complicates things further as he flashed a glimpse of what kind of late inning weapon he can be as he pumped in 97 MPH sinkers in todays game. A lot can change in a week in regards to performance and injury so ultimately some of these decisions may be able to be delayed a bit. All in all having too many effective relievers is a good problem to have.

You better get your eyeglass prescription checked dude. If you don't wear them it's time to start. Espinal has been having a statement series with elite defensive plays and home runs in back to back games.

Vladdy with the sweet pick to end the game!

Apparently it's too much to ask for a clean 9th inning nowadays.

Bo looks like he's starting to lock in. Once he gets his timing dialled in the AL needs to watch out.

You can see he wasn't happy with the outing during the congratulatory handshakes even though he shut down the Astros after the first.