Jake

Hit the ball hard, just didn't quite sneak by. I don't think they were getting him at first even if Coulombe got there.

Alright, some devil magic here...

Sam is not subjected to the batted ball luck demons

Who is this guy and what did he do with Jordan Hicks?

Tolle is pitching his ass off

Was unlucky to be in trouble in the first place given that the first two runners reached on bloopers

I can handle it as I was forged in the crucible called "watching Hagen Smith pitch"

5 innings, 4 runs, one of them should have been unearned, and we're trying to take Noah out back to shoot him

Cease was interesting when he came up because they were just killing his fastball. It started cutting on him and turned into a contact pitch. Took him a while to get it figured out.

There's that bad defensive catcher again

In the offseason, I read from an interview with Venable in which he was asked to explain some things about the batting order and he was (surprisingly IMO) open that he could not explain them because batting order is decided by the front office/numbers people. I assume that's still the procedure even if hopefully he's been motivated to do his homework enough to understand the reasoning behind the decisions being made on his behalf.

I'm not totally against trying to improve the team since you don't want to piss a way a chance to make a run, but yeah I'd say the goal is basically trying to win with the guys you believe you're going to keep winning with in the years to come.

Guessing they'll try to get one more from Noah.

Well I saw the mess-up as almost inevitable given the difficulty of the play he was trying to make. The TOOTBLAN from Boston ultimately gets us into good shape so maybe he's crazy like a fox

I won't be staging a protest if he gets demoted but I'd still prioritize development in general this season.

Bad decision by Miguel there. Defense not helping Noah a whole lot but at least we get an out.

I mean Teel always had what I'd call a good reputation for defense in the sense there was never much talk about risk that he'd need to move off the position or anything. Nobody thought he would be Yadi Molina of course. I think he's basically fine although he does let too many get past him. I think he's going to end up as an above average framer and average thrower.

Who?

Sheesh another lucky one, this time for two bases

Interesting, that makes me think he'll probably be sent down no matter what just to snatch back some service time and get more arms on the team. Something the MLBPA is trying to bargain about for the next CBA.

By the way, how much run do we need to give Junior Perez? I know he's run into a couple but I'm just not sure I see the point given his track record.

Nice throw and good job by Noah not to f*** it up with a slow delivery

The cutter sometimes works for him like a cutter and other times like a slider.

Yeah and I mean I don't think those two have all that much bearing on each other. Not really room in the starting lineup for Jacob right now and we don't need a lefty infielder on the bench. But I'm not disappointed with Jacob at all and I suspect we'll see him again unless he's used as trade fodder (in which case we'll probably see him again on the other side).

Luisangel has been increasingly hitterish. Think his roster spot is pretty safe by now.