unclevlad

Semi-freaky stat of the night...

We're at pretty much the halfway mark of the season, and the Angels had only 1 walk-off win.  On a wild pitch.

1-1, bottom of the 9th.  Trout gets on;  Ohtani forces a walk.  None out, the relief pitcher ignores them.  Trout breaks, the pitch is a breaking ball in the dirt.  Trout was already diving into 3rd, and it's debatable if the ball got far enough away anyway.  One has to be VERY sure there...2nd and 3rd with none out is too good a chance.  The batter strikes out...then Mike Moustakas comes up.

The pitcher, yes indeed, bounces another...and Trout dives in safe.

2nd walk-off.  ALSO on a wild pitch.

Cue the Toccata and Fugue in D minor....

(as opposed to plotting?)

quitting work early to head to the beach

Oh dear....

Arguably the ugliest words a broadcaster or analyst can say..."I don't think we want to see this one again."

CWS.  Florida runs out of pitching;  they try starting a part-timer who, according to Kyle Peterson, can be great...or terrible.  Unfortunately, he's terrible, and knocked out in the 2nd.  4th inning, LSU continues piling it on;  it's up to 9-2 with a runner on 2nd.  Single to left;  3rd base coach sends the runner.

The throw comes up the 3rd base line, as the runner's coming down.  The catcher has to move into the runner's line to try to stop the ball...absolutely no choice.

The runner awkwardly hurdles the catcher, and comes down on the plate, safe...so the run scores.

Do not take that to mean he landed *well*.  His momentum carries him forward a few feet, but he's writhing on the ground, holding his, IIRC, left ankle.  He ultimately has to be helped off.

Landing on the plate generally is not something you want to do.  Foot can go out at a very bad angle, very easily;  the plate's somewhat slick, and the way the runner's momentum was directed, didn't bode well.  

Hopefully it's a very bad sprain only, as opposed to a blown Achilles or something along those lines.

EDIT:  the player came back to sit on the bench, with crutches and in a boot, to be there as LSU flips the script.  Florida's pitchers were just worn out.  18-4...and LSU sets a record with 24 hits.  Florida only had 23 yesterday.

How often does an ownership change, really turn around a team?  It's not like the Rockies are run like the Royals or A's or Pirates, whose owners consistently refuse to spend any money on the team.  Trying to retain pitching in Colorado is a nightmare.

jambalaya...that someone else cooked

The Florida-LSU game today got out of hand...it was 8-3 Florida after 5, then the roof caved in.  And then the floor collapsed.  And the foundation cracked.  9 runs in the 8th and 9th, when it was already a laugher.  

Freddy Freeman just got his 2000th career hit.  RBI double, pretty nice way to do it.

Banning the *((@#$ sugar bomb cereals, and particularly their mascots, is fine by me.

And food dyes have been contentious for quite a while.  The fact that the US *doesn't* ban any particular additive often doesn't have much relevance.

And food import restrictions?  The US has a ton of em.  Arizona and Cali are 2.  A coffee roaster I use from time to time shut down its Minnesota roastery, leaving only the Hawai'i facility...that's what they're known for anyway.  BUT...as part of it, they announced they could no longer sell African coffees, because importing foodstuffs from Africa into Hawai'i is not allowed. The big one from back in the day, insofar as Cali was concerned, was the fruit fly;  this goes back to the days when Orange County was named that for the obvious reason......massive acres of citrus.  This is, of course, before it all got turned into theme parks.

dive into the pool

I drove down the border highway, where literally, heading south and southeast, Mexico is directly off your right side...for QUITE a few miles, depending on the road you're on.  But if you're going into SE El Paso?  You'll be on one of those roads, and you'll definitely see signs pointing out the routes to the bridge.

Still, what I'm reading...the woman's reaction was panic, to start with, but it had to have its roots in what she saw, read, believed...something like the Wild West still happens out here.  That kind of overreaction doesn't just happen out of the clear blue sky.

News story reports there's a GoFundMe raising money for the family.  If you're motivated to do so, just google "gofundme piedra" and it was easy to find.

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

d

probably, but that would only apply if the grenade is moving past the character, not toward them.  Frankly, the size DCV is excessive in my mind as well (its not that hard to hit a ball someone tosses at you), but 8 (to be precise, 9 as you note) is what the rules say. I'd say 4.  Nobody is burning one of these things across the plate at 100 mph, you cannot throw a grenade as hard as Nolan Ryan throws a baseball, even if you had that kid of arm.

What's the difference between moving toward, and moving past?  I fail to see what that would matter.  It would matter if the hero's moving, but velo DCV is only based on relative velos. 

And how many levels of OCV does the batter have, in hitting a baseball?  That's a critical factor, but given that they spend an hour a day, doing nothing BUT practicing this, every day for years...it's pretty darn easy to say "a LOT."  Granted:  the base velo DCV of a fastball at 90 mph is 7.  Oh, also, the bat itself adds, what, +2 OCV?  Would the hero be swatting with his hand, or something else?

If the hero has an 8, then a DCV 12 means a 16% chance of hitting it.  Which sounds right when you only have *1* shot to do this, not multiple chances.

I wasn't even thinking the mook was cooking off the fuse.  The grenade simply doesn't move very fast.  Article said 30-35 meters was typical.  If the grenade's doing 10 m/s, that's 3 seconds transit time, plus the time between pulling the pin and actually throwing it...that's not long, but given that we're down to 1-2 seconds, 1/4 to 1/3 of a second to actually gather and throw it, becomes significant.

"Dreadful" doesn't begin to describe it...not 21 runs in 2 innings, for the first time EVER.

London game is on.  ESPN tapped Michael Kay and ARod to do it.  The subject of the continuing rise in strikeouts came up, and ARod made a really good point:  pitching coaches are WAY ahead of hitting coaches.  Hitting coaches have taught launch angle, launch angle, launch angle!!! for ages.  Heck, remember those Tom Emanski baseball training videos?  His swing video came out in 1986, according to Wikipedia, and they saturated ESPN baseball broadcasts in the late 90s and early 2000s.  It's all launch angle.  Launch angle LOVES the low pitch, it's an upper-cutting swing.  Pitching coaches downplayed the high, 4-seam fastball for ages, so this worked.

Yes, well, pitchers are going back to the high, 4-seam fastball, and hitters aren't adjusting...especially since so many pitchers can manage at least a mid-90s 4-seamer.

The velocity DCV is probably 3.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M67_grenade

Can be thrown 30-35 meters with a 4-5 second travel time (so possibly Extra Segment).  That's getting you into the 100 meter per turn range.

The size-based DCV...the length is 9 cm.  By RAW, 4 levels would be 1/16th size.  I like 3 point "half levels"...they're actually easy to work with, and the benefits of Shrinking are all in increments of 2, so using "half levels" is quite easy.  So I'd use +9 DCV from size.  Net DCV, 12.

Another consideration...HOW is it being deflected?  The M67 is a timed fuse...but how much is left?  Would "swatting" it trigger the last bit?  That, I don't know.  There'll be an indeterminate amount of time left before the fuse runs out in any case, and in the general case where Agile Hero is near the intended point of impact...it won't be very long.  Worse...the M68 version is an impact fuse.  Hitting it hard enough to swat it back would be more of an impact than striking a surface...so it'll go BOOM.  

So, the earlier you can intercept it, the better, but it won't be easy or necessarily safe.

Huh.  Not earthshaking news but what looks to be a long-term trend.

Neil Everett has left ESPN;  his last SC was last night.  Speculation is it's cost-cutting, which has been a major ESPN theme for a very long time now.  Everett was likely one of their most senior anchors at this point, as he'd started in 2000.  And senior translates to expensive...and Disney's trying to cut costs *extensively*.

Personally, I think ESPN generally is in a downward spiral, and this is only a minor continuation.  They're going cheap, cheaper, cheapest, as far as I can see.

<whispering>

psst...no one mention what the Angels did to Mr. P's Rockies tonight......it's much, much, much too painful....

I approve.  Too many athletes get overly coddled.  Hopefully the team spanks him too.

Also can't be considered a win for Putin.  If nothing else, he lost a LOT of face.

I wouldn't be remotely surprised if there's a vial of polonium with Prigozhin's name on it already.

Well, of course.  Who does Manfred work for?

And what ownership group of any size DOESN'T try to squeeze every last concession possible...and a few that shouldn't be?  I'm not limiting that to sports, BTW.

Then, may I suggest we pause posting on this for the time being?  No matter what actually happens, it's probably better to let the facts emerge, and many of us are probably following things to some degree anyway.

Russian forces are likely totally out of position to even slow Wagner down...especially considering they were a significant component.  Russia's military incompetence is playing a role as well, or multiple roles even.  What *can* they call up to move into position, how bad is *their* state of readiness, given the terrible state we've seen from the troops in Ukraine?  

Another question is, what will the republics like Chechnya and Dagestan do?  Is it possible that unrest could spread to Belarus?  

This is going to be a nervous summer.

On 6/21/2023 at 7:10 AM, Starlord said:

 

Make that the entire baseball NATION.

Atlanta jumps to a 5 run first inning lead.

Then it's Elly time.

6th inning right now.  He just finished a CYCLE.  It's his 15th!!!!! game and he's got a cycle now!  His slash line now is .367/.424/.667.    

Reds are up 11-7 with 1 out and runners on 1st and 3rd (de la Cruz).

Oops, he just tried to steal home after the pitcher threw to first...but..............  Oh well.  He tried to catch the 1st baseman napping but didn't have the lead, and the 1st baseman wasn't napping.  

And realize that indoctrinating the next generation has been part of the conservative agenda for some considerable time now.

I suspect that this incident is going to find its way into any number of classroom exercises and case studies in several fields.

<sigh>

The Navy's now saying that a secret sound detection/analysis system used to track subs, detected a sound consistent with an implosion, at the time when contact with the Titan was lost.  They informed the Coast Guard, but it wasn't spread out because of the obvious chilling effect it would've had.  

So it is likely it went down as feared...one second fine, the next..........  

I will say, PURELY from a personal perspective, I'd rather have it happen like that, than a days-long linger......  but still.  FAR better to never happen at all.

No disrespect to SDSU but the Pac-12's days still appear to be numbered, at least as a power 5 conference.  Which further suggests that the Realignment Carousel will be back at full speed...sooner, rather than later.

Interesting.

Wizards trade Chris Paul to the Warriors, for Jordan Poole.  Is this trying to appease Draymond, or reflective of other issues with Poole?  

Warriors actually save a good deal of cash.  Poole got signed to something of a risky extension...4 more years, over $120M, because he'd shown flashes, but didn't really have a real track record.  And this year was definitely not up to that deal.  Paul's contract only has 1 more year, and he may well retire. 

I don't think the changes make the Warriors contenders, whether Green returns or not;  I tend to see it as a stopgap, and maybe I'm reading things into it...but getting rid of a problem player and contract. 

And to absolutely no one's surprise, Wembanyama to San Antonio.  7-4, 240...but really smooth.  HUGE!!!!!!!!! hands.  Really nice form on his shot.  This isn't a Manute Bol.