Joseph Zarr

2-2 count. Sparks just took a massive rip on a dead center cut 94 mph heater and missed. Whewwww. That was a pitch for Sparksy to mash.

Wow. Ump gives EBJ the benefit of the doubt on a possible K looking. He works an 0-2 count full and takes the free pass. Sparks up. Also, this just in: EBJ has changed his pre-swing set up. That is brand new as of tonight. Simple basic stance. I LOVE this. I sincerely hope he keeps this into the last week. Gotta simplify.

AND, they pinch run for EMJ. Fascinating choice.

EMJ delivers (of course he does!) with a gapper drive that is cut off in left CF but he stretches it into a double and is in scoring position. He is AMPED. Man, I love him so much. Up to EBJ for the biggest moment in his vastly disappointing offensive season.

Wilken with a very uncompetitive K looking. Sigh. It's up to EMJ.

They do have Wilken and EMJ up after Miller K'd swinging. SO, they have a chance with their two power bats.

Highly likely at this point. Their offense is truly a battle within every night. They have four players - including blue-chipper EBJ - batting sub 0.200 with 0.530 OPS or lower. The struggle is very very real. Hence, why I said the loss of Scott was so damaging - he can actually hit XBH's.

Payne is an absolute problem for opponents. 4 SB. He just hit a broken bat bloop and neither the SS nor 2B could get to it in a mad dash for the flare. The ball caroms off the leaping SS glove and then back down off the 2B charging into the shallow RF grass. Payne sees the miscue and swiftly grabs 2B with nobody covering. What a weapon to get on the heels of the playoffs.

Well, that didn't happen. What's the point of your thought exercise? The Packers grabbed three turnovers. They won the turnover battle. This isn't an excuse. Games are never perfect. Packers didn't play well. But acting as if there are zero positives to take away is just a hum bug take.

We have consecutive scoreless frame from Seminaris. It's predictably 0-0 with the Shuckers bats always ones for drama. I'm just thankful Seminaris experienced some early success after a truly rough past month. Keep it going, young man!

Gentlemen. I already like Payne more than I reasonably should. He has an 'It' factor. He just has something there you don't see every day. With a young man his age? He carries himself with a sure confidence you just don't see all that often at his age. AND, he is backing it up with some crisp fundamentally sound baseball.

Payne continuing to show an approach at the dish well beyond his years. Really good eye and patient approach. Just worked an 0-2 count to 2-2 and ripped a one-handed pull sinker over a leaping second baseman. Really nice knock. Just a smooth easy swing. He then swiped his first base. Advanced on Garcia's ground out. Scored via a Guilarte (who continues to play fantastic baseball himself) Sac Fly. Just fabulous baseball.

Don't take my word for it. Enjoy: I'll add my personal lil Walling-ism..."Walling stans unite! <looks around...see I'm the only one standing...continue standing tall and proud>"

My baseball gods, Walling absolutely obliterated that 3-2 offering. Holy smokes. That ball went over the RF wall and over the shed out there. 384 down the RF line. 107 mph jack. Sheeeeeesh.

This is the second game in this Delmarva series the Mudcats bats and their collective approach has sent the Delmarva starter to the showers in the first inning. They should do that in every playoff game. Seeing Sykora hit the showers in the first frame would heal a lot of 2024 wounds. 😂

Very much a hand/wrist thing

I should post here more often! (No I shouldn't)

Re: Dinges. 2-2 count. Fouls an inside rising heater off down the 1B line. Took a high rising heater (maybe high 90's! Chris Edwards is saying almost 99 mph) too high and inside and it went smack dab right on his glove hand/wrist. Threw his helmet immediately into the dirt and broke it. Trainer and Nick Stanley came out. He was moving his hand and fingers but they pulled him after asking him to ball his wrist and flex it back and forth up-and-down.

Watching now. Will report back. Took me a moment. I saw 'Ball in play (runs)' during Walling's AB arriving back at the farm after a day at a friend's farm and nearly drove into the wetlands...

Please score more runs again. Let's start there. Please don't lose to the Rockies at Home again. That is all I ask for.

That's fair. Yeah, I'm nowhere near that level of histrionics. I know what the Packers have in LaFleur. Heck, the Packers pumped out over 400 yards of offense and average over 7 yards a play and were very clearly rusty. I trust him to right the ship there - though, obviously, with J-Love hurt that is going to change things in the near term. I still think they should have fun with this. I'm dead serious about simplifying things and trying split back looks. Option looks. And heavy play-action off of that. Jacobs improved as the game went on and he got comfortable. We have to love what we saw from RB 2. And, defensively, I mean they didn't play consistently well but I certainly saw flashes. That game was absolutely not lost via Jalen Hurts' feet which is a big plus - we've typically been obliterated by QB's who can run. Their containment package was a major plus for me. There were some rookie mistakes. There were absolutely phantom penalties (shocking). The missed open-field tackles and the interior run defense (sadly, yet again) were the most glaring concern for me. Good plays are going to beat coverage. There were some perfect and well-executed play calls called against certain Packers looks. But, at the end of the day, the defense with all the warts still gave the offense several opportunities to win the game despite their inability to hold a lead when they got it. They also held them late inside the 10 yard line giving the offense yet another (tho unlikely) chance. I mean, 24 hours removed from the experience itself I'm at: It's week one with a new defensive scheme and an entirely new defensive staff with several rookies playing key positions and they played in a foreign country with 90% humidity wearing the wrong cleats with the worst reffing crew in the NFL and the B-Squad broadcast booth. I don't know why the sky is falling is a sensible take. What I see is an over-reaction due to years of disappointments. I get that. I don't think it's rational when we step back. But, I absolutely get it.

We are preparing for a late-season LHP Adam Seminaris start at Rocket City for game 5. We had a 3.79 ERA from the well-performing middle-relief arm. Since the calendar flipped to August? 6 GS, 19 2/3 IP, 38 H, 25 ER, 11 BB, 18 K, + 0.300 BAA, + 2.00 WHIP ERA today: 6.22 'Ugly' would be the only appropriate word here. Can he find some semblance of his earlier form?

Heck, at this point I'm way more interested in going with something entertaining and fun. Let's break out a heavy two back Option offense with Willis.

OK, I went back and watched the Scott AB this past Sunday vs Montgomery. I would gather something may have happened in a left CF gap drive to open the 3rd frame. Scott sprinted in pursuit and definitely looked to pull up and jog it off well into CF territory. In true fashion, the ball found him a few more times that inning and he looked to be running with a discernible hiccup in an overly deliberate and ginger stride. He didn't see another AB. He didn't see another ball in his direction. He was pulled for Hall to start the fifth frame.

I'm at the point of this season where I don't anticipate EBJ will suddenly figure out how to make that inexplicable swing set-up work. I've mentioned it on several occasions this past month. The more I see it, and the more I see the predictable results, I just find it extremely hard to buy-in to it magically working. It is a serious problem in his game. If he can't commit to simplifying everything in his swing or if the org can't impart to him the desperate need to do so, well, that's just a road I don't even want to contemplate traveling down. The real loss in the Shuckers line-up in this do-or-die stretch is they lost OF Connor Scott this past Sunday. We haven't heard anything since and we haven't seen him this entire Rocket City series. Hopefully, it's just a nagging something like O'Rae dealt with but his loss in the middle of their line-up is significant. He's been a real plus since coming aboard. His absence is very much felt. It has led me to go back to Sunday's 10-0 shellacking at the hands of the Biscuits to see if I can't deduce what may have happened. Speaking of O'Rae, it would be really nice if he figured out how to be a lead-off in Double-A. He continues to have brief moments, yes, but these are happening amidst a prolonged struggle. The walks are a plus - the K:BB ratio is still solid. But, boy oh boy, the overwhelming feedback from his over 200 AB performance continues to be: has to get stronger in the off-season. There is no other option. He continues to be consistently overmatched in this League at present. This isn't me being a debbie downer - it's a credit he continues to battle - but it's fair to propose this placement was over-aggressive. OR, in the very least, it gave O'Rae and the org the clear directive for the coming 7 months of work before next season.