Cromagnum said:

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The Sun said:

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Cromagnum said:

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Carlos with a bomb.

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You watching last night's game? Delayed post?

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Lunchtime at a bar. I missed the first part of last night's game and thought this was a new game.

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Enjoy!

How much does a 1-7 start hurt? The Fangraphs projections for the A's went from 34% playoff chances before the season to less than 11% now. And of that it's less than 4% for the Division. That will leave a mark.

Cromagnum said:

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The Sun said:

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Cromagnum said:

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Carlos with a bomb.

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You watching last night's game? Delayed post?

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Lunchtime at a bar. I missed the first part of last night's game and thought this was a new game.

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It's the reverse Travolta in Pulp Fiction bit...

You also just essentially lost the tiebreaker against your biggest competition.

Fat Bib Fortuna said:

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McInnis said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Time of game: 2:33

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I noticed the first game was shorter than that. I really think the game was better at that pace but I doubt it will ever go back. Nothing MLB has done has seemed to help much.

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This is a Baseball Reference page that you might spend all weekend on - lots of year by year stats for the whole league including average time of game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/misc.shtml

In the small sample size of 2021, it's at 3:16. It's been over 3 hours since every year since 2016. In 1986, it was 2:48, so 35 years later, the average game is 28 minutes longer.

You can compare a ton of categories on this page, the most glaring one to me in a quick look is # of pitchers used per game per team. That number passed 4 per team per game a few years ago, and is now at 4.5.

That means every game is getting lengthened at least 6 times for a pitching change. Albeit some of those come between innings, but the visit to the mound by the catcher, then by the pitching coach, then by the manager to actually change pitchers, then the new guy warms up - that's forever.

In 1986, the average number of pitchers per team per game was 2.88. It's a great page to distract you up until game time!

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Pitchers not being able to pitch as many innings is definitely a factor, but that table also show that the number of pitches per PA is also steadily increasing. Of course those two things are related. In 1991, the first year that stat is shown the number of pitches was 3.68. It's now 3.96. That's an increase of 7.6%. Game lengths have increased by about 12% in that time. That's probably due to today's swing for the fences instead of trying to make contact philosophy. I guess if you strike out you don't have to run to first.

Mathguy64 said:

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How much does a 1-7 start hurt? The Fangraphs projections for the A's went from 34% playoff chances before the season to less than 11% now. And of that it's less than 4% for the Division. That will leave a mark.

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I hope he goes down after all the **** he spewed about Houston

I have some sympathy for Tyler Bauer, because if they punish him it will be very similar to what they did to the Astros, and probably worse because Bauer was against using substances on the ball.

Like the Astros only got drawn into this due to Mike Fiers, Bauer is only getting drawn into this because he was outspoken against it, and then basically said, "Well, OK, then I'm gonna do this too."

Making an example of him as if he is "the cheater" would be more total MLB horse**** of the same type where the Astros were made the poster boys for a league wide issue.

Can we talk about how filthy Javier has been in his first 2 starts. Again, just 2 starts so don't go nuts, but there is a lot to like.

Here are the #s
8.2 IP
2.08 ERA
0.92 WHIP
5.71 xERA (when there has been contact, its been hit hard)
1.72 FIP
3.33 xFIP
31.4% K%
5.7% BB%
25.7% K-BB%

The biggest improvement so far is a significant jump to strikeouts with a solid reduction in walks. His K-BB% is up over 9 points. Its not Bieber, deGrom level, but its similar to what Yu, Cole, Nola were last year. I think this is mostly attributed to ditching his worst pitch (changeup), adding a curveball, and getting better results on his slider. He's also adding some velo.

Now for the bad. He's getting hit less, but when he does, he's not getting much soft contact. Based on Fangraphs his hard hit% jumped from 28.6 to 38.1, statcast has it worse 29.3 to 47.6. The main reason this hasn't lead to damage yet is that his flyball % has dropped significantly. He's been barrelled twice and it resulted in a flyout and a triple, no HRs.

EastCoastAgNc said:

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JJxvi said:

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I have some sympathy for Tyler Bauer, because if they punish him it will be very similar to what they did to the Astros, and probably worse because Bauer was against using substances on the ball.

Like the Astros only got drawn into this due to Mike Fiers, Bauer is only getting drawn into this because he was outspoken against it, and then basically said, "Well, OK, then I'm gonna do this too."

Making an example of him as if he is "the cheater" would be more total MLB horse**** of the same type where the Astros were made the poster boys for a league wide issue.

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He danced on the Astros grave and went on about how immoral cheating was. Then he turned around and did it himself. I hope nothing but the worst for him.

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He turned from a well above avg pitcher to an elite pitcher because of it. Do the Dodgers give him 34 M a year if he's got a low 4 ERA (4.04 from 12-19) and not a sub 2 ERA like be posted last year? I sure a hell don't think so.

Anyone think Bauer is obviously cheating to prove a point. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the league and cheating

astros4545 said:

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Anyone think Bauer is obviously cheating to prove a point. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the league and cheating

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That may be a secondary reason, but the main one is to achieve success and more money.

Yuli keeps moving on up.

Its too bad for him that the league are just lazy ****s and will gladly throw someone under the bus to make the problem appear to go away.

Luckily, Bauer strikes me as the type that wont go bowing and scraping to say "I'm sorry, so very sorry, please we are so sorry," like Crane did, but I'm not sure what one player is really going to accomplish.

astros4545 said:

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Anyone think Bauer is obviously cheating to prove a point. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the league and cheating

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I think there is a chance he's doing this as a way to deflect from something he was doing last year. He's being loud about it because he either would get caught continuing it to justify his huge salary or he would have to stop doing it and have his numbers get worse.

On a side note anyone notice Arrozarena is starting off like a pile of who know what? Even espn called him out a bit today. Last year everyone got a pass on roids with no testing. Not this year. I wonder if the magic chicken and rice juice has worn off.

astros4545 said:

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Anyone think Bauer is obviously cheating to prove a point. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the league and cheating

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I'm amending - I think this is part of the case. Especially now that MLB has said they are going to start monitoring stat cast for pitchers.

He basically said when he was asked about the Astros revitalizing pitchers and increasing spin their rates that the only way to increase spin rate significantly is through substance use. He acknowledged change in mechanics can improve spin rate, but as adamant the only to increase spin rate significantly is through the use of substances.

I think you're ultimately going to see him say see, check the data on the inning(s) from the dirty ball versus the data on the inning(s) from the clean ball and see the difference. He's trying to prove his point, and I think think, ultimately stick it (pun intended) to the Astros as well as some other organizations.

I do agree with others that he was using substances because everyone else was. Now that MLB has said they're going to use stat cast to monitor pitchers, he's found a reason to play off his past use of substance as something more righteous.

Farmer1906 said:

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Yuli keeps moving on up.

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I like it. Yuli has shown patience this year and with the way Carlos has been swinging it the past few days, offers Yuli some more protection as well as the potential for more runners on base for Carlos to drive in seeing as Yordan is going to clear the bases after each at bat .

Kluber had a pretty awful start today vs the Rays. Pulled in the 2nd inning

Machete has hit Manea well (5-10 in his career). This is a good opportunity for him to bust out of this awful slump.

There are definitely worse places to spend money in Vegas, but my general advice is don't bet on baseball.

ClickClack said:

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Lance is better at home right?

I'm in Vegas and am thinking of putting a few hundred on the stros tonight but also feel like the A's are a little due. And lance can be erratic.

Any advice appreciated

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take the A's under in the 1st 5 innings

A's should have their bullpen horses ready for today
After extra innings on Wednesday

ClickClack said:

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Lance is better at home right?

I'm in Vegas and am thinking of putting a few hundred on the stros tonight but also feel like the A's are a little due. And lance can be erratic.

Any advice appreciated

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You can't spell Lance without an A C E.

All in on Astros to cover and Oakland under.

ClickClack said:

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Lance is better at home right?

I'm in Vegas and am thinking of putting a few hundred on the stros tonight but also feel like the A's are a little due. And lance can be erratic.

Any advice appreciated

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If you bet on the Astros we will lose. That's how we got our first loss.

The jinx is real yo.

astros4545 said:

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Anyone think Bauer is obviously cheating to prove a point. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the league and cheating

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I've been thinking this exact same thing

Deluxe said:

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astros4545 said:

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Anyone think Bauer is obviously cheating to prove a point. Pointing out the hypocrisy of the league and cheating

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I've been thinking this exact same thing

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I think that's going to be his excuse when he's caught. He'll make himself out to be a hero for standing up to big bad Rob. He can take that and shove it straight up his <censored>.