What? The ball didn’t even hit the dirt. It was just way outside. He had a better stop before that one on a ball in the dirt. But earlier in game he had a guy in no mans land off 1st dead to rights and threw the ball into rightfield too. His defense is so over-rated. Dude is terrible. Definitely one of the worst players in the league.

Loved the way Bauer kept pounding Cruz inside. He hangs over the plate. The ball that hit the knob of his bat that was initially called a hit batsman was over the inside corner. The ball that did hit Cruz in arm was just barely inside off the corner. Cruz can glare and get ticked all he wants. You go hanging over the plate like that then that is exactly the way the pitcher should pitch you. I loved it. Kudos to Bauer. Not many guys pitch like that anymore. One of the many reasons offense is way up.

Except ours!

Only positive things about Naquin from now on. Here goes: he popped up to the catcher in the 9th today.

If you don't want to badmouth Naquin anymore, Civ, I'll take over.

I'm willing to share

Of course after the game Bauer talked about how great Roberto is. Just another reason I don’t like Bauer.

HB - for the record I went back and looked at the sequence to Kepler where the drastically outside pitches happened.

The first wild outside one happened at 0-1 and it did not bounce but was caught very close to the ground. And thrown hard and quite outside. Hand was doing his best to "channel" the Andrew Miller slider to lefties.

The second one was even more outside and most definitely did bounce. That is a wild pitch 9 out of 10 times, that stop by your "friend" was by no means routine. It was way out there, hard, and bounced quite a bit before it reached him. No way he should have been able to move that far and still be able to corral that thing.

Even the pitch that Kepler ultimately struck out on was the same thing as the first slider I referred to, Perez caught it outside with his glove down on the ground.

The fact that Brad Hand had the confidence to throw those 3 diving outside bouncers/near bouncers to Kepler with Byron Buxton (of all people) on 2nd base with no outs is unique and valuable. Hand even ended up winning the battle on one of those pitches.

Buxton stayed on 2B. Buxton would have scored from 3rd because the next batter Polanco drills one to deep right center. Instead, Buxton goes to 3B on the tag up, but now 2 outs.

They intentionally walk Nelson Cruz (duh) and pitch to lefty Rosario. Again, first pitch way outside and low as they pitch him the same way.

At 3-1 to Rosario - Hand FINALLY throws him a simple fastball and challenges him instead of all those crazy sliders and gets a swing and miss. But Hand goes back outside with a fastball at 3-2 and walks Rosario.

CJ Cron up. Bases loaded (all due to Moroff's botched 2 base popup misplay) and Hand gets Cron to pop out to right field. Moroff owes Brad Hand a dinner for that Houdini act that bailed him out.

Look, I am not smart enough to know if Perez's lack of offense this season will offset whatever he gives the pitching staff. Luckily I don't need to know I'm just a fan.

But in this game, Perez showed ME (if no one else) where his value lies. He enabled Hand to disregard any fears about what pitches he might use. With a top baserunner on 2B. In the most crucial of situations.

I've seen enough baseball to know that Perez gets all kinds of credit for how that 9th inning win played out and that what took place often does not with other teams and other catchers.

Find it in your heart to at least give him that.

In general, I think catchers do not get enough credit for calling a great game.

we're down 3-nothing in the top of the 5th. We have two hits but singles by Carlos Santana. J Ram and Allen have each drawn walks, so now we're up to 6 guys with OPS over 000. We've only struck out 6 times among the first 14 outs. Make that 7 as Miller just fanned with 2 on.
Q: Miller, who's Miller?
A: The guy playing 2nd base until Kipnis returns.

5 runs 10 hits off Carrasco in 4 1/3.

Who could imagine 5 runs and 10 hits in one game That sounds like a week's worth of production for our offense

Neil Ramirez, who we know stinks which is a good reason to bring him in with the game far far out of reach, quickly surrenders a couple more runs, although one unearned on a Santana throwing error.

too bad we're no longer in Goodyear, this would be a good time to bring the 20 year olds in for the final few innings.

This is painful to watch!

Not anymore it isn't:

Jose with his first hit of the year!
BAuers with his first hit of the year!
Carlos with his 4th hit of the day clears the bases.

We trail by only 5

previous 5 seasons, Carlos in March and April totaled 86 hits in 455 AB .189 average.
5 hits in 10 at bats this year.
See there's lots of good things to report about our offense.