Balta1701

They get 2 if the first one is successful.

Servais is just improving his challenge success percentages today.

It was a jammed left thumb that cost him substantial time in 2018.

There was no 1 definitive angle, but if they had 2 different frames with matching time codes, they could say it with much more certainty.

I think he's out.

Well first of all, "Stop the spread, keep hospital numbers down, keep deaths down" - we completely failed at all of that by any standard. 800 people are still dying of this thing per day. The numbers we are seeing right now - 20,000 deaths a month - seemed nightmarish a year ago. Second, the problem right now is we don't know the answer to your questions. What we know right now is that there are variants currently out there that the vaccines are far less effective against and that transmit more easily. The 90-95% success rate is against the original "Wild type". Those numbers seem to drop to 60-70% against the South African variant, which is why the J&J Shot was shown to be less effective - because it was tested in part there. Those numbers mean that the virus will still be able to transmit itself fairly effectively unless an overwhelming number of people (80% or more) get the shots. So, what fraction of people will refuse the shot? I don't know. Will there be any other manufacturing errors, like the one that just fouled 15 million doses of J&J? I don't know. If I set a May 15 deadline, and that enables more rapid spread of one of these variants, that is a problem. But, the bigger problem is that this is biology. The first vaccinated people have only been out in the world for a couple months not. Prior to that, if the virus mutated into a variant that was more able to affect vaccinated individuals, that variant would not have been selected for. Instead, the first round of selections was for things that were easier to transmit - those are the ones going around right now. The biggest threat out there remains that we will unwittingly produce and spread a variant that shows substantial immunity to the current vaccines, because all of a sudden we could be back to square 1, or at least close to it. So, if you say you are ending mask mandates on May 15, and a new variant has popped up in the US and is spreading in June - there's a problem. If you give 1/2 doses, and that creates a lot of people with partial immunity to the virus, you create a scenario where evolution of the virus is more likely. Dr. Fauci has specifically said this - he gives next year for a worst case scenario on mask mandates, because he doesn't know what the virus is going to do. Hopefully we can beat that timing, but it is not required, and doing things like "Single vaccine doses" and "vaccinated people not wearing masks" could absolutely set us back.

Having a team that thinks it can make the playoffs is not "Sad".

No "6 out innings" would certainly be of use in accomplishing that goal.

I never said I'm worried about him! All I said was he is probably working on a lot right now, fielding drills he's never done before, a whole lot of batting cage work, and a whole lot of video work, and even in his early 20s that's a tall order physically when he also has to play a full 3 hour game every day.

His approach at the plate looks good, but to my eyes he is being completely overmatched by offspeed stuff, particularly at the bottom of the zone. I don't think that should be surprising as he's never seen MLB-quality offspeed pitches in his life! But, that means he has a lot of work to do.

There is a big, big, big difference between "I want to see what this guy can do on my 2018 team that is slated to lose 100 games, because if I can get even a bench player out of a Delmonico or a DH out of Palka that means I don't have to spend extra money on an Edwin Encarnacion or trade for Mazara in a few years" and "This team is slated to go to the playoffs this year and this guy will start 140 games on the way there". If we're ready to throw in the towel on the season and trade away anyone who's a FA at the end of the year, then it's fine to allow Madrigal to have the whole year to work through problems. No one is, except for today's lineup. The standard was supposed to be different when we're trading for veteran guys rather than trading them away.

With a dominant performance from Keuchel, the best defense of the year, and 2 stolen bases by Madrigal.

In that lineup (yeah), I probably go Grandal 2, Abreu 3, Collins 4, Robert 5. Gun to my head maybe I put Lamb 6th?

Who against?

I know he got a hit yesterday, but he hasn't looked good at all to me yet offensively. Vaughn should be taking extra days of BP, working with the hitting coach, and also having to do whole lot of fielding drills. That's going to be tiring! He should be getting extra time off. If this is going to work with him, then he needs to be on an incredibly fast learning curve, and that's a lot of work.

Well, Keuchel didn't look particularly great against the Halos, but that was first time out and their lineup is pretty good. Let's hope for better results against a much weaker lineup.

Personally, I've thought he looks completely outmatched at the plate, particularly on anything offspeed. He looks like a guy who has never seen offspeed stuff that well controlled before, and is swinging no where close to things. That said, he almost certainly has never seen this quality of offspeed stuff before, so it isn't surprising that he looks that way. His setup and approach are still ok, but he's outmatched by the pitches themselves...for now. How long will it take him to get used to that, and figure out what pitchers in the big leagues have? No idea. Could be days. Could be way longer.

Yes, but without any real enforcement.

But they don’t need to go through a store or pharmacy unmasked.

This sounds like a discussion we have had before. Perhaps 11 months ago. The published rule of thumb I saw last fall was that you are something like 20 times less likely to transmit the virus outside. Now, we know if you put 400 people in a club and 1 person has it, 400 wind up with it. So, pack in several hundred people outdoors into a section at a sold out Rangers game, with a lot of them in their seats for 2.5 hours and removing their masks to eat, and sometimes spending time in concession lines, could you get 20 new cases from any contagious person in that ballpark? Worst case scenario, sure. Shouting loudly or cheering makes this notably worse. Now, have 25% vaccinated like in Texas, and you still could readily get 15 cases, and that’s enough to transmit it down a chain and still kill someone. Spread everyone out with 1/4 or 1/3 capacity, suddenly there’s 5 feet from the next family - maybe a case or two from the whole ballpark. As a public health issue - not a major transmission site any more. Or alternatively, have a vaccine passport so that 80% of the people in the ballpark are vaccinated, same story - maybe a case or two, and they don’t get transmitted.

Well they are. I doubt you will find many grocery stores with 11,000 people in them at once.

The big league game is very different from the college game.

The reports said the Rangers are sending a lot of money.

Nick Madrigal can absolutely stay this bad. Andrew Vaughn will get better. I don’t know how soon. Might take a long time, he never played in the minors so we really don’t have context for this.

He was supposed to be a strong fielder and base runner. That’s why he was drafted. I would rather him be an excellent fielder and base runner hitting .260 than what he is now hitting .350.