adambr2

I'm still having a tough time seeing why we needed to splurge for JBJ. I hope he reminds me sometime soon.

Why 3 or less?

Robertson is like Keston Hiura without the upside.

Well they had to go with someone. Even if they were going to let Hader go 2, that would be 4 innings in 4 days which seems like the kind of overuse they want to avoid. I'm not even totally sure he gets the 9th. I think he will but I wouldn't be 100% on it.

I always loved Jace. What a gamer.

No doubt. Houser is just...limited in his ability. I'm still not a big believer over the long run that he's going to be a 3 or 4. There's a ton of red flags on his peripherals right now. I think he'll be a serviceable 5 at best and I still much prefer him in the pen. However, the drop-off in the starter abilities after Burnes/Woodruff/Peralta (and honestly, there's a big difference between these three) is pretty drastic and I don't think we have any better options right now. I wouldn't want to follow Woodruff and Burnes, either.

Yeah, I thought no one could ever touch Cubs fans in misjudging flyballs, but Padre fans are definitely giving them a run for their money.

That was way too meaty of an 0-2 pitch. Got away with it.

Networks just love the sac bunt. I don't think I've seen a successful sac bunt in MLB history that wasn't followed by a camera panning to the dugout to see said player getting high fives from everyone in the vicinity.

That crowd is not wearing their masks anyway. I can't speak for all businesses but in Central Wisconsin it's extremely loosely enforced. Walk into a Walmart and I would guess it's about 70% compliance at best right now. Go into a Kwik Trip and it's more like 50/50. I haven't heard of a single business around here that will straight up force you to leave if you don't have a mask. Most have signs, but they don't enforce it.

I thought that was upper deck, not a routine fly to McKinney.

Too aggressive of a plate approach against Lamet. They are not picking up his slider at all.

There's other ways to protect the arms of Woodruff and Burnes without going to a 6 man rotation. I trust Counsell will be monitoring them both closely. He is not going to just ignorantly run their arms into the ground. We want less innings out of Lindblom, not more.

For #15? Yeah I'd do it. You'd be wise to extend Rodgers after I think.

Unfortunately, that's not really what's playing out right now, as the British variant is causing a ballooning of COVID infections in children despite the ever-increasing number of vaccinated adults around them right now. Concerning for sure, and comes at a time when even the most cautious schools have largely reopened this spring. It'll be interesting to see if a shut-down/return to virtual discussion starts soon in hot spots. But has the British variant presented more of a lethal threat than the original strain of COVID? My understanding is that it has not. I also certainly understand that modifications to policy may evolve over time as we learn more about the variants and the effectiveness of potential boosters against these variants.

I'm a little surprised by the post for a few reasons, many of which you noted including that masking is, at least at this point, largely a business-led policy in a lot of cases and businesses can only feasibly do all one way or the other. But, the CDC has already released updated guidance that eases guidance for those that are vaccinated and includes a lot of 'situational guidance' as well for when one house hold/person IS vaccinated and one isn't, etc. They've also removed most restriction guidance on outdoor activities altogether. To my knowledge, the vaccine was finally made available to all persons 16+ in all states either at the end of last week or beginning of this week. In short, I think that you haven't given enough time for the CDC to react and give updated guidance to a 'fully available vaccine' scenario as of yet. I understand. I acknowledged that. If I came across as "CDC is going to make us wear masks forever", that wasn't my intent. I don't know what's going to happen. Just more my personal opinion that they should eventually ease mask restrictions and that the long-term practice of vaccinated individuals masking up in public is overkill.

I agree with all of this. I certainly don't want to throw all caution to the wind, but now that the vaccine is available for everyone 16 and older, there will come a point likely sooner rather than later where people are going to simply say "OK, you've had plenty of opportunity to get a shot, I'm not going to go out of my way to protect you anymore if you are unwilling to protect yourself." The group I do worry about, though, are the 12-15 year olds who are not yet eligible to receive a vaccine, but are seemingly more susceptible to being infected by the variants. Good point, children are definitely something I considered when posting this, but the overall risk to them I think is pretty well established as being microscopic. Specifically, there have been 307 deaths in the 0-18 age group out of a total of almost 4 million reported cases (actual number likely much higher). https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-on-Ages-0-18-Yea/nr4s-juj3 Now you add in that they are likely to be around a majority of vaccinated adults and the risk is reduced even further. There's just an extremely small risk to children in a mostly vaccinated country that probably compares favorably to many other risks.

I'm sure I will ruffle some feathers with this, so let me be clear this is just my totally unqualified opinion. I think the practice of fully vaccinated people (2 weeks since 2nd dose) wearing masks is a bit silly. Even now you have fully vaccinated folks riding their bikes with masks on because they think it's the "right" thing to do. When in reality the risk to themselves and others is so microscopic that it likely compares to pre-COVID tines when they would have felt ridiculous about doing such a thing. Right now I understand that CDC needs to err on the safe side because it's a big mix as to who is vaccinated and who isn't. And I know businesses have a right to set their own guidelines. But this summer, we'll reach the point where pretty much everyone in the US who wants a vaccine will have had one. Those who haven't probably aren't getting one. I don't think it's the moral responsibility of those who chose to get the vaccine to reduce an already fractional risk simply because those who choose not to are preventing herd immunity from being achieved. While it's first and foremost important that lives are being saved, another purpose of the vaccine was supposed to be our means of achieving normalcy again. If we're still masking up when everyone who wants a vaccine has had access, we may as well plan to do so forever and concede that we aren't seeing normal again. To be clear, I understand many vaccinated people are masking up based on business and CDC guidelines who are going to err on the safe side for some time yet, my point is that eventually they really shouldn't have to regardless of whether or not herd immunity is achieved.

24 hours after Moderna 2. Minor chills and aches last night and today, nothing too major. Still going into work today. Definitely learned I prefer to sleep on my left side last night and it was definitely uncomfortable not to be able to.

Actually there was a pretty big rumor/discussion in the offseason about Burnes being traded to the White Sox. Never went anywhere of course. As you might remember he was the guy the Orioles really wanted for Manny Machado in '18. There are very few names in MLB that I would straight up trade Burnes for 1 to 1 for right now. Acuna comes to mind. Not many others.

Yeah I agree. You can't keep him up based on the fact that the team is winning anyway when the winning and Hiura's performance have nothing to do with each other. Now obviously they still believe Hiura is a special talent and I'm sure they want to give him a chance to turn it around. I just think the time will come when he probably will be sent down to give him a chance to turn it around in AAA and face a lower pressure environment and see if he can figure some things out. I don't know when that will be, but if they wait til the AS break at this level of production I'd be shocked. I want to look for any reason in his game logs to think that he's turning it around and I just don't see it. Even when he gets a hit he's just unable to continue to string it together and usually follows with an 0 for 4. Keston has struck out in over 43% of his PAs this year. For some perspective Keon Broxton has a career rate of 38.5%.

What a trash strike call on Tyrone.

Isn't....that the definition of a bad read?

Burnes isn't going to be able to sleep tonight. Allowed a whole 5 baserunners and almost let them score in 2 innings.

Those were the right calls. They just missed. But I agree the call on Shaw for Paddack was a lousy one.