LWFS

Them Rays. They're hitting these balls hard and far tonight.

4 innings in, and the Athletics have stranded 6 runners.

Rays playing "REALLY Really, No Doubles" against slugger Matt Olson, with the four-deep OF array. They do this quite a bit, apparently.

Make that 3 HRs, as Yandy Diaz smacks his second of the night.

Two true outcomes for Sean Manaea through two frames-- 5 Ks, 2 HRs allowed.

Take the sign-and-trade guarantee off the table, and Syndergaard-plus-Smith-for-Betts might feel fairer... but I'm not sure it wins the day (there are likely at least five other teams at this poker table, one must think).

=Ceetar post_id=23538 time=1570044893 user_id=102] Diaz doesn't really control what happens after the batter hits the ball. He could throw the same thing, and as i posited above, those fly balls could go more dead center and be fly outs. Or be hit fractionally less hard.

Somehow-- damn the schedule-- the Flushingers still ain't got no game on tap. But I suspect that this Battle of the Bays is a strong candidate to yield everyone's postseason one-we're-with. The Rays are still fascinatingly cobbled-together-- Wendle! Pham! d'Arnaud!-- and all about multiple bullpen days, and this time, there's no Joe Maddon to spoil anyone's appetite for 'em. And never mind their fun, excellent crew (all-world all-around third baseman Matt Chapman and breakthrough local boy shortstop Marcus Semien, for two)... take one look at the Oakland greens and socks (which they're modeling tonight), and tell me that Oaktown ain't a pretty team to look at. https://www.whatproswear.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Matthew-Chapman-Glove-Khris-Davis-Bat-Cleats-34.jpg> Nastiest-curver-of-balls-this-side-of-Lugo Charlie Morton squares off with nasty-post-surgical-stuffmeister Sean Manaea.

Frayed Knot wrote: Couple of post-mortems: - It's the 'DUH!' statement of the year to suggest that Grisham needs to play that ball better in RF, but particularly so because the Brews were in a no-doubles set-up meaning he was far too deep to even think about throwing a pinch-runner out at the plate. The game was going to be tied anyway so his one job there was to dial back the aggressive charge and get the pill safely back to the infield. - Soto getting throw out at 3rd went uncalled by both the national TV and radio feeds until finally mentioned pretty much as a meaningless trifle after the fact. But as we well know (and the Nats do too) closing out one run leads is hardly a given -- about 20% are blown across the board while two-run leads are about half that -- so you'd hate to blow a chance at adding to it. None of the replays showed Soto running but it seemed like he should have had plenty of time to make 3rd so I'm thinking maybe some in-play celebrating was going on. Turns out that it didn't come back to bite them but I was sort of hoping it would. Imagine what THAT would have done tacked onto the Nats' playoff history! It's also possible that he-- perhaps somewhat misguidedly-- may have been trying to get into a rundown to guarantee the go-ahead run scored.

I mean, you see Nicholson from time to time. God, I want to see this one. I thought I was up for the last Tarantino in the same way, but here we are, three months later, and no-see, sirree. Weird thing about Scorcese movies-- the ones that get me on the first pass, I can almost never rewatch, or at least not with any ease. The middling ones-- and they're still pretty great-- are eminently rewatchable. Like, show me The Departed at any moment in the movie when I've got an hour or two to kill, and I'm up in that like Pooh in honey. Wolf of Wall Street, I've seen something like 12 or 13 times, in sections. Raging Bull, I've seen one-and-a-half times. But I loved RB.

Waitwaitwait. You're telling me Walker Lockett didn't have a single chart-topping month this season?

Nationals advancing due to a bullpen collapse. Huh. What a world.

He's struggled in the last month, and not just against us. Brewers can do something here against Hudson with a little patience, I think.

=Gwreck post_id=23484 time=1569984984 user_id=56] Uecker (listening on radio) said the Taylor HBP night have been wrong call but not enough video evidence to overturn.

A three-run single. Yikes, Trent Grisham.

Good work to get the walk from Hader. But, well... were I a Nats fan-- and if I were, granted, I'd be a very different dude-- I would much rather see Rendon up here swinging than Soto.

The Milwaukee fans gave the racist, homophobic, pitcher a standing ovation when he returned. They didn't forgive him. They didn't begrudgingly take him back. They gave him a standing fucking ovation. I suspect that scene sticks in the minds of minorities more than the average white fan. Nice city. Also, https://www.wuwm.com/post/ranking-milwaukee-still-countrys-most-segregated-metro-area#stream/0most https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-milwaukee-most-segregated-polarized-place.htmlsegregated https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/special-reports/milwaukee-violence/2019/07/10/milwaukee-segregation-how-we-measure-and-define/1523075001/city in the https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/03/05/390723644/why-is-milwaukee-so-bad-for-black-peopledamn https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/milwaukee-shows-what-segregation-does-to-american-cities.htmlnation, thanks to perhaps the most pervasive metro-area https://www.wiscontext.org/how-redlining-continues-shape-racial-segregation-milwaukeeredlining. *NOTE: In case you don't care to click through to what are some fascinating, in-depth articles, it's worth noting that each of those is to a different one, dating to a different time in the last 10-15 years.

Yeah, I struggled with that even as I was typing it. But what's more apropos there? Happy-aggro? Just-kidding-not-really? Hard pie?

It would START with something like Syndergaard and Dominic Smith, and possibly include Nimmo and/or a couple of minor leaguers (Ronny Mauricio?). (Another reason to hate the Diaz/Cano trade: Kelenic-- especially after this year-- and Syndergaard and mid-level pitching prospect almost certainly gets this done.)

Dark Ages? How about https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN201304240.shtml4/24/13 against the Doyers, which featured a fine if relatively-pedestrian-looking Harvey Day (with a slightly early hook following a Matt Kemp go-ahead two-run shot), a bottom-of-the-ninth-two-outs RBI single from O Captain, and-- lest we forget-- the Valdespin walk-off grand slam/this accompanying postgame passive-aggressive Mazel Tov. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d4/d4/d9/d4d4d9a6f1f14c8683cd402c0a005dd3.jpg> And as long as we're waxing on about that Nats series from 2015, https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN201508010.shtmlthe Yo debut/Duda game on August 1 (gutty deGrom going 6 innings without his best stuff; 2 HRs from Boo, along with the game-winning RBI double in the 8th) bears noting.

Rod "Throb" Barajas. With regard to turgidity jokes that spring Barajas was here and hit, like, three walk-off HRs, our cup ran over.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: I think Buck might be fun. Not the first, or third, nor 37,853rd word I think of when I think of Showalter.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: I think Buck might be fun. Not the first, nor the third, nor the 37,853rd word I think of when I think of Showalter.

Throb's a big league manager? No shipoopi?

Vic Sage wrote: Hire. Maddon. Now. Yyyyyyep.