Transmogrified Tiger

Giants have and would block it

pretty salty about that 0-1 call, not hard to see that being the difference in Bryant being on base or not

If the Cubs are incredibly good this year, like best in the league good, they will lose 60 games. Two *months* worth of crummy starting pitching, blown leads, weak contact, and striking out in clutch. Happens to everyone, the best teams, that ones that pay all the money, whatever. Sometimes a bad thing that happens in an individual game is just that, a bad thing that isn't a team's character flaw. When it's the 6th game of the season, and you're freaking out about not spending enough when Neris blew the lead and like 2 guys signed for money than him, it's definitely that and not a character flaw in the team.

Sometimes relievers will give up runs

Christopher the bar is so low please stop tripping over it

darkly funny that the ump had a tight zone the whole inning and then Seiya steps up and immediately gets called for a pitch 3 inches outside

The Pirates are a great example of a team that looks pretty good if you assume positive outcomes happen at a disproportionate rate, and also don't assume anything negative unexpected happening. No one on the roster projects to a 120 wRC+, half of their 'good' hitters you need to assume unexpected 2023 progress continues(or starts, in the case of Cruz), and the bottom of the lineup is pretty dire for being a depth based lineup like the Cubs have largely done. The pitching will get reinforced with Skenes at some point but it will be muted compared to his reputation(he's not facing any lineup a 2nd time yet, and his cautious buildup means he's not gonna make 25+ MLB starts). Even with Skenes the rotation isn't going to carry an offense on its back, and they don't project to be a particularly great defensive team. They won 76 games by beating pythag by 5 games last year, and that's about where they are this year in my estimation. That could serve as a springboard to a better 2025 if they're smart about their additions and lucky about who plays well though.

The White Sox also play tomorrow so there's less runway to wait and see how conditions change.

Little has thrown on back to back days once in his professional career, and the one time he did it the second outing was 0.2 IP and 7 pitches. It's not something he's accustomed to, and there's no reason to push him into the unknown in cold, crummy weather to try to steal another inning when they have 7 other pitchers they can call on(several which could go multiple IP) and an off day tomorrow. Said another way, some other managers are probably just starting Brown today since he's likely to get the most outs, but instead of having e.g. Brown go 3.2, Smyly go 1.2, and Little go .2 in order to get to the 7th, they (correctly) believe the best matchups to succeed with those folks are having Little pitch the first and then (probably) Brown pick it up from there.

If you're planning on Little throwing multiple innings today, I don't think he throws 18 pitches at the end of last night's game. I suspect he's there to go one inning against the top of the order that is somewhat lefty-dense, then they'll have Brown and possibly Smyly go multiple innings behind him. I'd guess Brown goes first to face the more RHH heavy bottom half at least twice and since he's had more rest, but the game can dictate that. With the off day tomorrow you can have a quick hook and all of your best relievers are on 2 days rest. This would also provide an explanation of why Little did throw in the 9th yesterday, process of elimination. He didn't want to use the late inning circle of trust(Alzolay, Neris, Merryweather, Leiter) in a blowout, Almonte was down from throwing on Monday, and they're hoping for length from Smyly/Brown today. With Cuas throwing the 7th and 8th that only leaves Little.

The NL Central as a whole is playing at a 116 win pace.

PCA’s looper

I know either way he's going one inning to matchup with Blackmon/Jones, but what's the logic for letting Little pitch the 9th in a decided game if that's the plan

good grief Cody

you're just saying that because they're .500 now and winning by 6 runs against a bad team

The Rockies OF defense has reached the level of performance art

guessing Statcast clocked Cooper as high as 8 ft/s on that one

This is pretty similar to how the other LHSP lineup, right? Only difference is in the 8/9 spots, where it's Madrigal over Busch and Amaya over Gomes. But v. a LHSP those are pretty coin-flippy decisions based on other circumstances.

Gotta be a piggyback/bullpen game for when/if game 3 happens. Maybe a calculated gamble that it won't happen this week.

Harden was also really strong: 5.1 IP, 0 R, 5 H, 10/3 K/BB

Batted balls with an exit velo above 85 mph are 0 for 20 today Batted balls with an exit velo under 85 mph are 3 for 6 today

shout out to the wind, I always liked you

I struggle a little bit with the macro lens for this type of situation, because in a single at bat so much that may or may not repeat itself in the long term can manifest. It's also prone to us seeing what we want or hope to see, we want Busch to be a success so him having an 'almost' moment burns brighter in our memories than the inning before when Seiya missed a backup slider that he could have sent to the moon with 1st/3rd & 2 out. You could write an article with very similar tenor about that moment, and about the differences in being a strong hitter v. making the leap to be an elite bat, etc. That said, my unscientific opinion after watching Busch for the weekend is that I'm reminded a lot of Happ. Both are very patient, let the ball travel and will try to use all fields, and they're of similar stature and from the same side of the plate. That'd be a very nice outcome because even with the higher bar at 1B, a 115-120 wRC+ from Busch would play very nicely in deepening the lineup to consistently be 6+ hitters of strong quality. But what makes Ian Happ work well is excellent pitch recognition, and watching Busch's at bats against Gray I don't think he was picking up his repertoire very well(swinging through a 2 strike fastball, and not tracking the slider particularly closely). Contrast that with Happ seeing the ball well enough that he went 2/3 w/ a 2B off Gray, and that's the small sample comparison I'd make about Busch's ability to make the jump at the MLB level.

Boog being flustered speechless by people not drawing a line between ghosts and aliens is the best thing I'll hear today