Snopek

Well the bright side to Robert batting sixth will be the 6-run homer he’s gonna hit in the first inning.

The "they're not great" comment feels really out of character for Stone. I read all of his tweets in his voice and when I got to that part my brain didn't know what to do.

Hoping Robert doesn't slide back to down to 6th or whatever.

It feels a little more nuanced than that. Alternating wins and losses while the focus is on resting players isn’t exactly thrilling to watch. It’s possible to appreciate the big picture and be excited about the team and playoffs, but still be bored with the loooong wind down of the regular season.

I'm well aware of that, but what does that have to do with my response to your post?

Didn't realize it was an either/or situation. Problem solved.

I am definitely dumb enough for this to make some sense to my weirdo brain.

I'd say understanding the game and having the physical skills to excel at the game are completely different. Wouldn't you say managers understand the game well? We've seen many non-all star catchers managing in the big leagues.

All backups are generally bad. That’s why they’re backups. Decent chance trading for more depth position players would have just meant getting mad at different names. I’m with you on the lack of homers though. That’s frustrating.

True. At least it was a good year to find that out, as opposed to being in a tight race.

Man, going from over a months worth of these fairly dull, mostly meaningless games right into the playoffs is gonna be wild. I’m gonna lose my mind. The division title celebration will be a fun and much needed jolt of excitement until then.

Anyone have a recommendation for a decent gamecast thing to follow the game while pretending to work? Or are they all equally slow and clunky?

This is good analysis.

I’m not sure what some of you were expecting to see with the lineup. Yoan getting a breather is not the end of the world. The rest of it seems pretty straightforward considering the state of things.

Thanks in advance for the 400 wonderfully sarcastic “we’re doomed!” posts you just spawned. There’s no way to prove you’re wrong, just like there’s no way for you to prove you’re right. This is dumb. @Dick Allen now this is what miserable looks like.

I think you have me confused with one of the ‘live and die by every pitch in the game thread’ folks. Sure, I’d like to see them playing better right now, but getting healthy is absolutely the most important thing the rest of the regular season.

Couldn’t agree more. But again, not expecting things to play out perfectly does not mean being miserable.

Ah yes, so much misery in my post. Back to the old ‘if you’re not 100% optimistic, you hate life’ thing. Great stuff. Yes. Absolutely. No one is arguing that, or at least they shouldn’t be. As long as everyone is healthy, I think this is the best team in the AL on paper. But that is very different than saying “once the lineup is healthy, everything will fall into place.” A lot of things have to go right for that to happen. Can it? Of course. Will it? Sure hope so, but I’m not expecting everything to align perfectly. That’s silly. Okay, back to my miserable existence.

On paper this makes sense. Just like on paper the bullpen is untouchable. It’s not that simple. Baseball is weird. But keep stating your hopes as facts.

Except time isn’t exactly on your side in the postseason. I’m not sure we have the luxury of letting him fail in big spots in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong, I still think he’s the best option all things considered. It’s not an ideal situation, but you just hope he can start putting things together before the calendar flips to October. If there’s no real signs of improvement by the final week of the regular season, I think you have to start limiting his role.

Health is still the most important thing, but it’s getting late enough where I’d like to see them start stringing together a few good games in a row. Let’s see a little consistency for a change and some looks at the team most of us think they can be in the playoffs.

It gets funnier and funnier each time. Not unlike these.

Wow, those names. This reads like a mad libs. Don't forget Brett Lawrie has 2B locked down, so maybe Tim can fetch us a Billy Butler type veteran bat.

Vaughn’s gotta start doin some stuff #analysis