Cool Hand Lucroy

Sconnie?

I actually kind of like these new uniforms, but I preferred last year's version. The powder blue with white always looks nice. The salmon piping is a cool feature. My biggest gripe is that these aren't really weird enough to be City Connects, nor are they traditional enough to be good daily uniforms. It's a little bit uncanny valley for me.

This is a banged up group, so I'm not surprised by the start. In some ways, being 8-7 feels about right. Right now, everyone in baseball, save for about three teams, is clustered somewhere between 6-10 and 9-6. This is all just fact-gathering right now. The fact that I have gathered is pretty simple. We need more trustworthy high-leverage arms and for our good hitters to be healthy. I am fully expecting to see Williams up for Matos/Perkins/Lockridge at some point, and I don't know if Ortiz is long for the roster either. Maybe we also see some pitching guys come up too. I'd imagine Logan Henderson is back. We'll see, but the one constant during every April losing streak is a lot of fan complaints over a roster that resembles the July-August roster as much as I resemble Mike Trout.

This team needs to do some bullpen reshuffling on Monday. And to get healthy. We're 15 games in, so everything is a big whatever, but you'd expect these guys to do the little things right. Not doing that, especially on defense, has been a really big problem this past week. Hoping they can continue to hit and win a slugfest here, but they're really going to have to get guys right or bring up some new 6th-8th inning arms soon.

I don't know about this. Rengifo and Matos are pretty much what you get at the bottom of the roster. Depth has basically been THE reason for the Crew's success. They do a great job of finding 23rd and 24th guys who do everything you want in that role, including putting up really tough ABs consistently. Where we should be spending more is the middle of the roster, I think. When you lose two of your best sluggers, there's just nothing but David Eckstein-Hamilton types, and a lineup full of those is a struggle, even though I really like a lot of them individually. The pitching will be alright. Enough youth and talent there to get this team far. I would expect we'll see some high-ceiling young positional talent up here by mid-May. Never fun to go on a losing streak, but my biggest concern is the bullpen. Not a lot of trust there right now, with anyone. Might not be long before Yoho gets another look or Zerpa works his way into the ninth.

Two ugly performances in a row. I thought the defense was very good until the ninth, but that game was teetering all night. Big swing from Bauers, then nothing at all against a team that's really struggled to get outs. Not a big deal this early, but you'd certainly like to see better baseball.

More worried about Turang than any of the other injuries at this point. I'd IL him and give Pratt a taste so as not to mess around, but maybe it's pretty minor. Not a good effort today, as others said. Day off will hopefully do them good.

Tough one so far. Nice to get game 1 because the other two pitching matchups were going to be a toss-up and a Red Sox advantage. Lots of baseball left today, but hard to complain about a 3-3 opening roadie and an 8-4 start given the way of March/April baseball.

Think I saw left side tightness. Hoping not an oblique.

Curious to see how this works out, but you knew Logan was going to pitch pretty much no matter what, so fine to give him a start. Testament to the organizational depth that the 27th man is a guy with solid MLB experience.

Broadly true, but it is consistent with Murphy's Ashby usage last year, so I get the concern. The tendency to extrapolate Ashby's usage rate this week (and down the stretch last year) out to all of 2026 is probably misguided, but I get where it's coming from.

I hope you're right. My nightmare scenario is everyone hoards their challenges for the final innings, and the pitches that get challenged are basically all 50-50, and you get a closing situation that's just fundamentally different from the rest of the game because now its functionally being umpired by a software entity. I don't think the system was designed that way--it's designed to correct obvious errors. But baseball also has a long history of aiming for every microscopic edge, and ruthless ABS challenge efficiency might well be something we converge toward. When we get close enough to that, full ABS will be the only option. I don't like that one bit, but I should probably start preparing for it.

Tough day for the offense. Some hard hit balls find gloves, only managed to put together one real inning, Rays got the big clutch hit against Megill. That 2-1 pitch to Perkins kind of illustrates the issue with ABS. Who the heck actually knows if that pitch was a strike. The umpire says no. The box says yes. It's probably within the system margin of error, and so now we defer to the robot instead of the human. Even had the roles been reversed, I'd feel the same. It just forces the question of what you're gaining with this system. I don't think it was designed for pitches like that, where a seam clips a computer-modeled corner. It's just a little bit uncanny valley for me, but you can't really fight it, I guess. Us Luddites are losing everywhere, so why should baseball be any different? I was too optimistic about the challenge system, I think. Totally agree with the lack of PHers in the ninth. Letting Mitchell hit against the lefty and then going with Perkins over Lockridge against the righty was the weirdest possible platoon advantage.

Like to see the offense back him up! Been a well-pitched game so far, both ways. The difference is just that Diaz is seeing the ball ridiculously well.

So far, I'm not liking it too much. I think part of it is that they ARE keeping those boxes on the screen for broadcast, and the boxes are the official ABS boxes. So, as a viewer, I know the outcome as soon as the catcher taps his headgear. Then, there's a delay that's probably like 5-7 seconds, but it feels like forever because I already know what's going on. I'm still giving MLB time to work this out (and myself time to get used to it), but I'd like either the system to be faster (theoretically, it should basically be instantaneous) OR for the broadcast to not actually show the strike zone box on the screen. I'd prefer this second option. Part of the joy of the system is that it tests everyone's understanding of the strike zone. But that's only interesting if it implicates the viewer as well. We should be watching these games wondering whether our instincts about balls/strikes are correct. Just giving us the answer immediately kind of spoils it for me. I say that as a big fan of the challenge system in theory, over the fully automated ABS. I advocated pretty fiercely for it in one of these threads. These first three games are only three games, and MLB still has time to figure some of this out. BUT I'm getting closer to adjusting my priors a bit. If we can't either reduce the wait time on these challenges OR give viewers the same information the catcher, umpire, hitter, batter, and everyone watching in-person has, then I might rather have full/no ABS than a challenge system. Possible it's just a matter of getting used to it as a fan, but it feels more intrusive than either the pitch clock (which I was mostly fine with) or banning the shift (which I hated a whole lot and still don't like in theory but can confidently say has impacted my enjoyment of baseball not at all).

I'm really surprised it took them so long last year to have a big comeback. For the past three years, this team has just felt like one that's going to keep coming at you. Woodpeckers fits. I didn't expect them to win today, but I was not at all surprised when then put up 2 in the first and then kept traffic on the bases all afternoon. There are A LOT of guys on this roster that can give you quality ABs. Regifo's single in the 8th today was the hit of the game for me. Just a great AB, fouled of a tough 2-2 pitch, took a close sweeper to get the count full, ripped the next one.

Man, today is what's so awesome about baseball. It's an early season series against an opponent everyone expects to be bad, the first two games were blowouts, the Brewers' starter wasn't very good (and had to suffer some subpar defense), the offense kind of hung around but didn't look like TOO much of a threat, and then all of a sudden Yelich is hitting a three-run bomb to give them a last AB win. I don't know that I've gone from feeling so meh about a game to being so excited so quickly in a long while. Sweeps matter. Even in March. Even against bad competition. Fun day!

I've never heard of half these guys! And the ones I have heard of are way past their prime.

I thought Vaughn's exit was weird, though it was like 11-1 at the time, so easy to chalk up as blowout decision-making. Has Quero played first? Just going with Bauers/Contreras there? Yelich? Outside of Bauers, I think William has like 2 games at first? I don't remember Christian ever playing there. Maybe they are confident this will be short-term for Vaughn? Kind of a weird situation, but maybe I'm missing something. Black can play first, right? I trust all will become clear.

Should be a fun game against MSU for the Badgers. Fun Final 8. 3 Big Ten teams, plus the old WCHA group of Duluth, Denver, and North Dakota. Throw in Quinnipiac and Western Michigan, and that's a nice mix. Hockey seems to have come through conference realignment okay, though I absolutely miss the days when every weekend featured Wisconsin-Minnesota or Gophers-St. Cloud State or UMD-Mankato. Hard to beat those atmospheres. Bet nobody misses the trips to Alaska, though.

I think you're right. Philosophical difference, and to each their own. It would obviously suck if we lost Chourio for the year. But that's a really low risk, and some things aren't about how they might impact my team. Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch has a great line about sports teaching one to appreciate blind, irrational loyalty. I love that. But sports also have taught me that it has limits. I think international competition is a clear one. If your primary reaction to watching England make a deep World Cup run is "this is super risky for Arsenal," I think that misses the soul of why I love sports.

I mean, this just feels like a way less enjoyable way to look at sports. I care quite a bit about how players feel. They're human! Venezuela winning was cool. The risk of significant injury is no different than any game, and what the WBC meant for that team puts the stakes right up there with playoff baseball. I know it doesn't feel that way to domestic fans focused solely on their team. But it felt that way to a large part of Venezuela and the Venezuelan diaspora, and trading that to shave a few measly risk points off a position player (even a pitcher, but definitely a position player) just feels like it borders on joyless. It just ain't up to us to decide how players and teams risk manage the WBC. Nobody seriously makes this argument about international hockey players or World Cup qualifying or summer Olympic basketball. I really don't see why this is any different. We can hope our players put the Brewers above everything, but making that a stringent requirement is asking them to trade a whole lot, even in exchange for a lot of money and fame.

Nice to see the Badgers win. I'm a Minnesota State grad, so hoping they can upset WMU tomorrow. As a friend said, if you're emotionally invested college hockey playoffs are the most intense sporting experience you can have, save maybe World Cup penalties. All the drama of the NHL playoffs, with single-elimonation stakes.

Fun game. Good settle from Miz. Yelich with a couple hits. Good ABs up and down the lineup. My favorite moment was Hamilton's bare hand play at third. That guy fits right in already!

Absolutely knew Rock was going to talk about Yeli cutting bags, lol. He ain't wrong, though!