Transmogrified Tiger

I will admit that as recently as a week ago Rizzo's full season line was making me a little uneasy since optically I wasn't getting the sense he had a monster May. Very glad to see that wasn't reality.

That's the right call. Would that have changed anything with the rest of the play outside of Gimenez being out? Are they allowed to tell the runners to go back to 2nd and 3rd in hindsight?

If I had to guess, it's keeping his pitch count low enough so he's still a MLB possibility for later in the week, even if he isn't getting called up for sure.

Montgomery is gonna have to hire Happ to get a fair shot at the rotation isn't he

ah yes well this seems like bad thing [tweet] [/tweet]

Yep, he did it that way to cheat a little to get the DP, the throw came in glove side and it's slower to catch that and then step straight towards the mound. I don't want to lose sight of Rizzo's slide being the worst part of this, but 'there's a reason this never happens' is also accurate.

The downside is that with 8 and 9 in front of him, it's more likely that a later at bat is a bases empty, 1 or 2 out situation

Sharma had some pretty extensive quotes from Rodriguez after the game where he didn't sound terribly upset. Maybe he was putting on a polite face for the media but his words made it sound like he wasn't thrilled but he wasn't angry either.

I'm so excited about him. He's so good. I think once he gets a couple years of savvy and experience under his belt he could be special. At this rate, he'll have 4 years starting for one of the biggest clubs in Germany and regular champions league appearances under his belt by the time he's Kellyn Acosta's age. Admittedly this is where my soccer-watching abilities let me down when it comes to evaluating players, so it's likely I miss a lot of nuance with guys in a withdrawn midfield role. Just watching that game though I winced at McKennie making about a half dozen tackles that were probably cardable offenses. Like you say though, a big part of that is just developing the savvy to snuff out attacks in a less dangerous way, and if he's getting regular run at Schalke then that's more than enough validation for me.

Lots of games will be on Fox so if you have antenna reception you'll get a decent number of games that way. Outside of that, a trial/one month of any of the streaming services that offer FS1 would be your best bet. I believe the most economical would be Sling's Blue plan, $25/month: https://sling.com Fubo TV might also be an option: https://www.fubo.tv/lp/World-Cup/ Here's the TV schedule: http://worldsoccertalk.com/world-cup-tv-schedule/

11 walks in his first 9 outings, 6 in his last 13 appearances. 1.59/2.76 ERA/FIP in that latter stretch. Not you, too. Something evil lives in Chatwood and Wilson, and they need to be cast out. Let the record show that i have always been a Chatwood skeptic. Wilson though, decent odds he’s a dime store version of Edwards going forward, which is fine for his role as 6th most trusted reliever.

Sham luck. His BB/9 is a ghastly 7.65. His GB% is 32.6%. His WHIP is 1.5. His FIP is 4.65; his xFIP is horsefeathers' 4.95. His ass has been saved by managing to strand guys so far at a rate that he is very, very unlikely to sustain. Do not trust this monster. 11 walks in his first 9 outings, 6 in his last 13 appearances. 1.59/2.76 ERA/FIP in that latter stretch.

The slide is several things, unnecessary, probably against the rules, and should be against the rules, but the contact itself wasn’t dangerous or malicious. The view from the 3rd base dugout can be misleading because Rizzo actually pulls his left leg back to avoid hitting Diaz high. Worst case scenario the collision of Rizzo’s legs to ground forced that motion which wasn’t hitting DIaz high and wasn’t dangerous.

Random, probably uneducated thoughts, from back to front: - can we really not do better than Alex Bono, even for a youth movement? He has nothing to do in this game but I’ve never been all that impressed - Palmer-Brown and Lichaj have been fine, Zimmerman looks much more refined and it’s not hard to see 4 years of play making him a CB contender for ‘22. Similarly, Robinson had a nice assist and generally looked the part, which is exciting considering Villafana is the closest thing to a consistent LB at the moment. - McKinnie is gonna be quite the enforcer some day but the newborn puppy enthusiasm/sloppiness that a lot of these young guys have results in a lot of dangerous tackles in his role. He also has some stiffer competition than other spots with Acosta and Roldan in the pool. - Rubin had a couple moments of attacking flair but nothing super noteworthy. - Weah might end up being a bigger star than Pulisic(not a better player, just more famous) because he’s gonna get a lot of goals in his career. Still has that 18 year old sloppiness but the talent, physical skills, and daring are all there. - Pulisic has been oddly quiet, he’s kickstarted several attacks but otherwise hasn’t really imposed his will like you might hope against a Bolivia B/C squad. - If you showed me Josh Sargent’s picture I would’ve bet $100 his last name was Rapaport. His goal was a huge blunder by the keeper but still well taken.

weah, pulisic, and sargent starting in this friendly [tweet] [/tweet]

Not his plant leg I never thought it should be overturned based on the technicality of the rules, but come on; anyone who sits here and acts like that was totally clean is full of it. They got away with it because it was within the latter of the law, but we'd be horsefeathering furious if that happened to the Cubs. I didn’t say it was clean, only that he didn’t hit the guy’s plant leg(which would have been even more dangerous). My immediate thought is that Rizzo definitely didn’t need to slide that way to make contact(even if he technically was within the rules, which I’m not sure he was even after review), and also that Diaz has responsibility for clearing the runner since Rizzo didn’t exactly need to fully extend his arm to still reach the plate.

I would guess that he got the opportunity to see a bunch of replays and get riled up about it. What I can’t figure out is what Maddon was vigorously chatting with the other ump about after the call went in his favor.

How so? sliding into someone's plant leg when they aren't looking is pretty dirty Not his plant leg

Time to polish off this old chestnut Start Montgomery

Hancock pitched yesterday and Montgomery isn’t gonna go more than 5 innings max. It’s about rest, not performance.

Who told A-Rod to talk about contracts, his analysis is wrong, his math is wrong, just stop man

Didn’t he get some level of access taken away? Hopefully he’s not allowed within a 5 block radius of Wrigley.

How long until we stop making excuses for pitchers and say it’s the ball when they give up homers that barely get out? It’s the same for every team every day and it’s been like this for a couple years now. It’s just the ball at this point. It’s not like the wind which varies day by day. Not complaining about you specifically but just a general statement about the ball in general. The home run had less than 50% hit probability, it was into the first row in the shallow alley.

Quintana was pretty hard done there, juiced ball pop up home run and then a foul ball comes around to score on a poor route from happ

Obviously foul, geez