Jim French Stepstool

Not good news, but if any starter develops an owie he would be my choice. Not to disparage the work he's done, but it's unlikely he starts in the postseason & even as a BP arm you have three LHP working out of the pen now, plus Gasser throwing well in Nashville. Worst case you're looking to cover maybe two starts.

Quintana gave up a couple ambush hits in the 2nd, then started to nibble around the plate a little & immediately STL went into patient mode, as if they knew he was suddenly going to start nibbling. Really perfect timing, and it cost him. Outside of the Payamps adventure after 2 outs/w no one on the guys who followed Quintana looked very good. Rotten luck on the K by Monasterio after the foul off the knob. That was key. As was the K by Durbin w/two on. Just a nice changeup, low but over the plate.

Definitely ugly for the first 6 innings or so. But AFA the comeback is concerned, I think a lot of teams that come back from 5-6 run deficits have walks, errors & stuff like that mixed in. Giving up too many walks was one of my bugaboos during the recent stretch where the team was a couple under .500. It's no coincidence guys like Collins & Durbin are often mixed in to these comebacks. Great plate discipline from both. I think with Collins in particular it's gotten him good pitches to hit. Do those of us who got the sarcasm get a prize?😁

Fall all over themselves? No. Just comparing him to Monasterio re overall value. I think in large part, their defensive mindset is built around guys like him & Perkins. Come important games you'll most likely see them both out there w/a late lead. AFA building a team around him? No, of course not. I'll mention again though, he's hitting around .265 since 6/1. I know that's only one number in a plethora of analytics but it probably would surprise a lot of people to learn that. I know it surprised me.

That was due mostly to the L/R thing (which IIRC you put no importance on) & trying to find an alternative to Durbin when he needed a day. I remember going on record here as saying Seigler was getting too big a piece of the pie there. He didn't produce despite what was a fairly good approach at the plate. Monasterio can play 3rd but is looked at as more of a 2B-SS option. Ortiz being a guy you might want to hit for & (to a lesser extent) Turang being a LHH has a lot to do with that.

Certainly entitled to your opinion. It's kinda related to the recent Jansen-Haase debate. You'd be hard-pressed to find a GM who would value Haase over Jansen. Pretty sure it's the same thing here. And that takes nothing away from Monasterio.

I don't know what any of this validates. Joey Ortiz is going to continue to be the regular SS as long as he's healthy. And he should be. No one (at least not me) had any thoughts that Monasterio couldn't come through tonight as he did. He's put up terrific ABs lately, and put up probably the best one of the entire game to finish it. We're lucky to have him. This is about versatility, it's about attitude, it's about willingness to fill a role with a smile & the proper attitude. That crap is invaluable. Oh, and since June 1st---well over three months--- Ortiz is hitting .265. Given his glove, most teams w/o an all-star caliber SS would play Ortiz every day if he hit quite a bit less than that. I think we should just be thrilled to have a guy like Monasterio who fills his role so well.

That's fair (But you omitted my favorite one, albeit not a late-season slide. The Mets were ten games behind Chicago in August 1969, and were in 1st less than 30 days later). But there's a reason why those incidents are so famously remembered---they very rarely happen. I get wanting to finalize, but totally understand people doing the math & making what seems a pretty obvious call, too. And, it's Thomson🙂.

I assume you were referring only to their last three games before today? 8-9 in their last seventeen.

Regarding Fickell/Leonhard: Once Fickell showed a real interest in the job Leonhard was pretty much cooked, understandably. To me, the most intriguing part of Leonhard as a HC was the contacts he made both in college & the NFL over the years, and what sort of staff he could've put together based on that. It might've been something impressive, or a big nothing burger. We'll never know. Something like that can't be overlooked, especially when we've seen the back-and-forth, hire, fire & rethink sitcom that has been the Fickell coaching staff, As for Mac, right now he may have bigger concerns---like his own position.

Yeah, that would be ideal. It's why they brought in some size for the Dline, to occupy blockers. And it worked fairly well in the first two weeks. I'm just concerned that what we saw today will be similar to what's in store now that the Mid-American & Sun Belt portions of the sked are over. Like with the Oline, stay tuned I guess.

There's nothing more boring, and ineffective, than throwing play after play because you HAVE to. Also, I was a season ticket holder for about 14 years, followed the team closely both before & after that time, and never remembered an offense that did what you're describing, unless they were protecting a late lead (which they did often, and quite successfully). They were heavy on the run a lot of those years because it worked, and apparently the staff had this weird thought that winning games was more important than getting on the Sportscenter Top Ten. I'm all for balance, but this ain't it. Unfortunately they're stuck with what they have, and Ohio & MTSU are in the rear view mirror.

Unless Peterson has his hand on the ground they aren't designed to get any pass rush from the Dline; save for some tackle or guard totally whiffing on a block the LBs are the only pressure you'll see.

As to the game........ What was most disappointing to me was you had a chance to at least make some kind of a statement early on. You got the 4th down stop, then in Bamas' next possession they had a 3rd & 9, you came THIS close to getting a sack but were a split second late, and Zachmann was probably on his man for about 3.5 seconds & it needed to be four. Frustrating. After that it was a downhill spiral of incredibly stupid penalties, O-line play that started out poor & by the 4th quarter got all the way up to mediocre, and a defense that for the most part had to stop pressuring with the LBs because the Bama QB was pretty much always finding the right spot to throw the ball to. I mean, they still tried it but the guy was always one step ahead of what we tried to do. Really impressive. Riley Mahlman looks like he might barely be adequate as a LT, and if healthy Renfroe is OK. The rest of the O-line is too inexperienced, not very good, or both. We'll see how/if they develop as the year goes on. If the offense continues to fail in keeping defenses honest between the tackles, they'll have big trouble no matter who you line up at WR, in the slot, or how much you try to spread the ball around. When you're in the spot they're in you need to lean on what proven talent you have. I thought the secondary might be one of those areas, Rico Hallman in particular, and he's really struggled the last two weeks. Had his hands full w/his matchup but he wasn't very good last week either. We'll just have to see what capacity there is in future weeks--for guys to get better, and for coaches to develop.

The last few innings were..........strange w/regards to the strike zone, both ways. It got me pretty p***** at Frelick for going up there with the bases loaded & chasing the first two he saw. Hopefully a more normal zone tomorrow.

See my post above regarding run prevention & how it ties into their success. And we aren't talking about a small change defensively going from Ortiz to Monasterio. Plus, he's hitting ninth. Baseball history is littered w/all kinds of successful teams that had someone in their lineup that gets pinch hit for if the situation calls for it. I think that's what we'll see from here on out, save for a day off or health issue as I mentioned. Not to say Monasterio can't play SS at an acceptable level. But we're talking about someone who has changed games w/his glove. He's also had a stretch, as @BruisedCrewalluded to, where he raised his average about 50-60 points. Let's hope he has another one of those in him.

In the last two games of the series, that's absolutely true. The culprit was Texas being able to string together 5-6 good ABs in a row in an inning in each game. In the midst of the disappointment the fact is Texas played & pitched really well. I thought Brian Anderson over-emphasized the rotten batted-ball luck, but it was there to an extent. Let's remember the cornerstones----run prevention, mixed in with intelligent ABs from the neck up & smart, effective baserunning. When those things cook AND you barrel some balls, we saw the results; two extremely long winning streaks. Preister, Woodruff & Misiorowski performing well this weekend is job one for me.

Yeaaaaaah, hoping Ortiz gets hot--while that would be great--has nothing to do with why he's in the lineup. Barring health or a needed day off, Ortiz will be at SS from now until they're done playing in '25.

I like Gasser a lot. I'm just not sure how he'd fit onto a post-season roster (remember, you don't really need 13 pitchers for a playoff series). Quintana I assume will make it, & with Ashby and Koenig that puts him in an either/or position with Zastryzny unless you carry five LHP. Yoho had some opportunities with Megill, Miller, Anderson & Mears down. But there seems to be a trust factor with Fedde that he's going to come in & throw strikes, and in fairness he's mostly been OK. I'd like to have seen Yoho pitch a little more when he was here, but the more regular work he receives in AAA leaves him in better stead in case he's needed down the road. Very impressive inning in Pittsburgh though.

That's a memory of the '23 season I'll always remember. Got swept---at home---by a terrible A's team, and swept the eventual WS champs on the road. However we fare in the PS, these last three games won't have anything to do with it one way or another, frustrating as they were.

This was the series of the one ugly inning. Today the bottom of the 3rd. Texas only scored two but it really set the tone for the rest of the game. Peralta gets the 1st out, then gives up what was at the time a 'no big deal' single to left. What made it a bigger deal was he follows it w/back-to-back walks, then later the balk. Some good takes mixed in with a few of the well-known uncompetitive pitches. The type of sequence you hoped was behind him for good, but not today. Hard to find a lot of fault with the offense today & yesterday, save for a big hit or two at the right time. Can't complain too much with 22 hits or whatever it was the last two days. Yelich continues to amaze me though. Hits 3-4 balls hard yesterday, hits a screamer today in the 1st, then looks mostly lost in his final three ABs. Had an AB where he K'd on four pitches, none of them strikes. Just strange. BP is in good shape, all things considered. It's to the point where you wanted Koenig & Uribe used today if there was a lead. One last thing-----it would've been nice this week if Bochy had mentioned to us that he was going to have Willie Mays playing CF & hitting 9th.

I mentioned the other day how I thought this would be a good day to sit Contreras. I wasn't confident that it would actually happen, though. Maybe, just maybe Perkins is emerging a litte bit given his last handful of ABs.

If by 'moving forward' you mean '26 then I agree. Right now he clearly has folks ahead of him. He's shown the ability to adapt, add a pitch, which is certainly a plus.

Strange game. Obviously nothing wrong with the quality of the ABs. But even beyond that you look at the Texas lineup & feel there isn't a whole lot that can hurt you, and except for a stretch of 5-6 ABs in one inning, that's exactly how it played out. And a large portion of that stretch came vs a pitcher (Ashby) who's been hot. Very odd. If I tried to find someone to beef about I guess it would be Patrick. You could put together a highlight reel of his outing & make it look like he was dominant; he mixed the FB in with the other stuff really well. Yet, three walks in 4.1 innings---and none of them were vs people or situations where you'd be pitching around someone. And two of them scored. He does things that make you glad you have him as organizational depth, but also does things that make it clear why there are others ahead of him. Maybe overanxious in his 1st AB back, but Hoskins didn't exactly endear me swinging at ball four w/a man already on & Turang due up vs a RHP.

When I was in Milwaukee for the NCAA games in '14, I walked over to the Oregon fan section before their 1st round game, pointed out to the floor while the team was warming up & exclaimed "Hey, look!!!!! It's the Nike test lab!!!!!" Then left, quickly.