hoosier

I see Frelick pretty solidly entrenched as 4th OF. He might get a start in the divisional round, but Lara should be getting the lion's share of the innings in RF at this point. His dismal second half (539) makes that disappointing first-half OPS (632) look not so bad. No way should he be getting starts in a postseason series.

Nice job with the jinx there

Poor AB by Luis, started with a chase, ended with the bat on his shoulder. Not sure why you would want someone who is still figuring out how to put together competitive ABs hitting second.

The peasant Bauers is banged up and needs a blow.

Lots of guys getting the day off today. Anyone know what is ailing Mitchell?

Megill hasn't pitched in a whole week, last two outings against Cubs he gave up first HR of year and first runs in like a month. Have to wonder, was this week just rest or is he going through something.

Definitely inclined to agree with the fatigue assessment, especially Miz and Drohan (I'm leaving Harrison out on purpose as he seems to have more that just arm tiredness going on). Miz hasn't really returned to the dominant guy he was before they gave him the little break. He'll probably get an adrenaline boost in PS but I am not entirely sure that will be a good thing. Hopefully he can retain the foundational changes he made since 2025 and the fatigue/adrenaline surge won't bring back the erratic Miz we saw last August-Sept. Henderson seems like the one guy who has managed to avoid the late season tank drain, or maybe it just doesn't show up quite as much in a guy with his repertoire. My guess is we won't be seeing any signs of either of the dominant starters we saw during first half of season. Hoping that Miz, Henderson, May and Gasser can piece together an effective foursome that can get them to the sixth inning in good shape.

I am assuming they won't want to waste one of the two extra ML roster spots on a guy who has shown himself time and again to be too combustible to be usable in meaningful gametime. Sure, he could eat a few innings in a blowout loss, but there are other guys--Stallings and Crow are the most obvious candidates--who can do that and aren't meltdown prone. The Brewers would have to have an extraordinary amount of faith in Sproat's ability to believe he can fix his problems on the fly. I think he has shown that is not going to happen and that his spot would be better used on a pitcher who still has a chance to contribute meaningful innings this year. Try to build Sproat back up from the ground during offseason but move on for now.

This might not be a popular take, but rewatching the ninth this morning, I didn't feel like Sproat was quite as bad as he looks on paper. On the third walk (Busch) Contreras missed an easy ABS that would have been strike three. A lot of his misses were close misses. I'm not making excuses for Sproat, he clearly failed in his reaudition and now we can say with 100% certainty we won't be seeing him till next year. But if William challenges that 3-2 pitch to Busch, things might have taken a very different course.

The standard, classic two-strike approach that you teach to high school kids is, be ready for the fastball and if you get off speed then foul it off. Easier to do that then look for something off-speed and try to catch up with the fastball you weren't prepared for. Obviously everything gets accelerated and more complex at the level Turang is playing at. I, who have never had to try to hit a pitch at this level, would think the specific situation calls for a non-guess approach. Maybe with the way Gausman was dealing that wasn't in the cards. But, yeah, if you have to go up there looking for a specific pitch, I would think it would be #1 and then try to ruin it if it turns up splitter.

Ortiz and Vaughn both struggle against righties whose lower arm slots result in pronounced horizontal movement. I haven't seen the numbers that would support or refute that, but that is Murphy's position.

https://www.mlb.com/video/trent-thornton-in-play-run-s-to-tyler-stephenson

Gotta love those sudden turns of the worm! Even better if you can get the clip of the Stephenson blast with Reds TV call.

With so many backend BP guys down today, need to get some add on runs to make this a little more comfortable.

What is with these swing decisions???