That is all.
Game #81 Preview Suite
Notes: We have no idea what the Stars will look like tonight. Benn, Zuccarello, and Polak are staying home to rest up for next week so the lines will be shuffled all night. Imagine being in a spot where you feel you have to rest Roman Polak…Seguin has 18 points in his last 16 games, which should keep the CEO quiet for a few days…Bishop is hurt, though they’re fairly sure he’ll be ready for the playoffs, so it’s Khudobin tonight…Spezza has two goals in the year of 2019…
Notes: We imagine the Hawks will try and go out of the home schedule with a bang. Gilbert was sent down after his gift, so we imagine Colliton’s fascination with Forsling continues…Crow will start, and then they’ll pack him in ice and chrio-freeze him until training camp. Or they should…The second line actually had a strong possession game against the Blues, which is not something they’ve done a lot of even when they’ve been scoring…Anisimov’s line got its head kicked in. If you’re lucky, this is Arty’s last time in red…Same goes for Seabrook? Keith?
Game #81 Preview Suite
vs. 
RECORDS: Cubs 1-5 Brewers 6-1
GAMETIMES: Friday 7:10, Saturday 6:10, Sunday 1:10
TV: WGN Friday, NBCSN Chicago Saturday and Sunday
THE GOOD LAND: Brew Crew Ball
PROBABLE PITCHERS
Jose Quintana vs. Brandon Woodruff
Kyle Hendricks vs. Zach Davies
Probable Cubs Lineup
1. Ben Zobrist (S) RF
2. Kris Bryant (R) 3B
3. Anthony Rizzo (L) 1B
4. Javier Baez (R) SS
5. Kyle Schwarber (L) LF
6. Willson Contreras (R) C
7. Albert Almora (R) CF
9. Jason Heyward (L) RF
Probably Brewers Lineup
1. Lorenzo Cain (R) CF
2. Christian Yelich (L) RF
3. Ryan Braun (R) LF
4. Travis Shaw (L) 3B
5. Jesus Aguilar (R) 1B
6. Mike Moustakas (L) 2B
7. Yasmani Grandal (S) C
8. Orlando Arcia (R) SS
Everything is wrong. Everything is ruined. So why not face the team that’s given your whole front office and fanbase a psychosis when you’re at your absolute lowest? Maybe it’s a weird kind of immersion therapy. Have the booze nearby.
Despite how Cubs fans have acted all winter, the Brewers and Cubs were exactly as good as each other last year. In fact, the Brewers needed a historic finish over the last month to even catch the Cubs, rather than the Cubs “losing” it. But the difference in winter maneuvers is probably what has everyone on edge. The Brew Crew identified a weakness, catcher, and went and got just about the best possible solution to it in Yasmani Grandal (who at the moment has only succeeded in torpedoing my fantasy team, but that won’t last forever). And this wasn’t a bad lineup to begin with.
Of course, the Brewers main weapon is the bullpen. Josh Hader was so bored with just striking out everyone that he spent the first week seeing how long he could get away with throwing just fastballs. He threw his first breaking ball on Wednesday, after something like 48 straight fastballs. He’s striking out two per inning anyway. The Brewers won’t miss Cory Knebel when they just make Hader throw with his right hand on his off-days. Alex Wilson and Matt Albers are also carrying ridiculous strikeout rates. Jacob Barnes has been the only flashpoint so far out of there, and you can bet they’ll find more. It’s what they do. Knebel will be a miss, but if they’re the ones who end up with Craig Kimbrel, the self-defenestration count around town is going to quadruple.
I still don’t buy the Brewers rotation, but I suppose when it doesn’t have to do much more than four or five innings, you don’t have to buy it. Jimmy Nelson has yet to return and he’s something of the trump card. If he’s what he was, that gives them at least a genuine #2 starter in this league and a day off from throwing four innings for the pen. Brandon Woodruff impressed out of the pen last year, but he and Peralta’s record suggest they walk too many guys to ever be dominant. You’ll never convince me Jhoulys Chacin isn’t Jhoulys Chacin, and Zach Davies’s Kyle Hendricks impression has only ever looked good against the Cubs. The Brewers do the best they can to take their rotation out of the equation, but it has to sting at some point. At least that’s the hope.
None of this matters if Christian Yelich continues to be a Lantern. A 1.500 OPS so far on the season is pretty much everything you need to know. Mike Moustakas has also hit the ball hard when he’s hit it, and Lorenzo Cain is Lorenzo Cain. Jesus Aguilar has been wielding a pool noodle so far, but I’ll still hide behind the couch every time he’s up. Needles McGee in left also will come up with some annoying, game-changing homer at some point, which he’ll do against the Cubs until he’s 74 (though parts of him will remain in their 20s).
The Cubs are clearly not really equipped to deal with the Brewers at the moment. Jose Quintana has held a voodoo sign over the Brewers since switching sides of town, and he’ll get his first start of the year. Q looked good out of the pen to save Darvish last Saturday, and we’ll see if he means it about incorporating his change far more this season. Maddon’s biggest mistake last year might have been pulling Q in Game 163 out of fear of a third trip through the lineup, ignoring the facts that Q held down the Brewers all year and he didn’t have a bullpen at that point. Good thing he doesn’t have a pen now and we can see what he’s learned.
The Cubs can claim that things will shake out better with this relief group, but there’s no reason to believe that. Other than Pedro Strop, none of these guys have a track record of sustained success, and it’s here last year where Carl Edwards Jr. broke on Labor Day. You’ll remember the previous inning, Anthony Rizzo had solved Hader for a homer that gave the Cubs the lead and felt like a defining, season-turning moment. Then Edwards turned his curve into performance art and the lead was immediately lost. He’s never recovered, and very well might not ever. There’s nowhere for Maddon to turn until Strop, who has been curiously held for saves that never come. Maybe stop with that?
This being baseball of course, the Cubs could march up there and sweep the Brewers because it’s April and it’s weird and why not? We could use it. Or the Brewers could really rub the Cubs’ nose in it and wouldn’t that make for a comfy home opener the next day? What you got to say then, Theo?
vs. 
RECORDS: Mariners 7-1, White Sox 2-3
DATES AND TIMES: Friday 1:10, Saturday 1:10, Sunday 1:10
TV: NBCSN Chicago Friday, WGN Saturday and Sunday
WHY IS IT ALWAYS RAINING?: Lookout Landing
PROBABLE STARTERS
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Reynaldo Lopez
Probable Mariners Lineup
1. Mallex Smith (L) CF
2. Mitch Haniger (R) RF
3. Domingo Santana (R) LF
4. Jay Bruce (L) 1B
5. Omar Narvaez (L) C
6. Tim Beckham (R) SS
7. Ryon Healy (R) 3B
8. Daniel Vogelbach (L) DH
9. Dee Gordon (L) 2B
Probable White Sox Lineup
1. Leury Garcia (S) CF
2. Yoan Moncada (S) 3B
3. Jose Abreu (R) 1B/DH
4. Yonder Alonso (L) DH/1B
5. Eloy Jimenez (R) LF
6. Daniel Palka (L) RF
7. Tim Anderson (R) SS
8. James McCann (R) C
9. Yolmer Sanchez (S) 2B
For the past severeal years, it had started to seem like in the modern age of baseball, there are only two types of teams: teams that were trying to win, and teams that were trying to lose. The Moneyball era went to such an extreme so quickly that the way teams approached roster construction basically meant either you were going for it or you were intentionally tanking. The White Sox were, for a few years, in the former, constantly trying to win but always failing miserably, until they just decided to embrace what they were and start losing on purpose, but with purpose.
Over the offseason, the Mariners started to look like they were falling into the latter category, as they traded a few of their key players from 2018 away for younger, more controllable players or prospects. They started tearing down what looked like a damn-near elite bullpen by sending Alex Colome to – hey, us!, for Omar Narvaez, who was the Hawks best-hitting catcher from last year but a total butcher behind the plate. Then they traded Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to the Mets for top prospect Jared Kelenic.
However, what started to look like a rebuild quickly became more of a re-tool, as they traded Ben Gamel to Milwauke for Domingo Santana, because if there are two things the Brewers definitely needed, it’s left handed hitters and outfielders. That was less a move for the future and more a move to address something they needed now. Then they went out and signed Yusei Kikuchi, who was the best pitcher left in Japan after Shohei Ohtani came stateside, to a really creative contract that will keep him in Seattle for either three, four, or seven years, with both sides having options. Given that Kikuchi is 27, this was another move to build for now.
So in reality, what the Mariners did was build a team that could compete this year, but just for significantly less money. Clearing out the Cano contract may have cost them 2018’s best reliever in baseball, but so far the results have been fine. They took Oakland to task in the opening series in Japan back on March 20-21, and then smacked the shit out of the ball against what’s supposed to be a dominant Red Sox rotation before taking a two-game sweep against the Angels. They weren’t exactly designed to win in the same way as Boston or Houston, but they weren’t designed to lose either.
The thing that is so frustrating about watching how the Mariners went about this rebuild/re-tool movement this offseason was that the White Sox absolutely had the ability to do the same shit. Sure they missed on Machado, but had they been willing to open the checkbook up a bit and made moves like adding Santana and Kikuchi, or even some smaller moves like the Phillies made pre-Bryce Harper, they could’ve won this terrible AL Central. Seriously, looking at that Seattle roster, there’s almost no way they couldn’t win 95 games against this division. Instead, the Sox decided that they wanted to be even cheaper than Seattle and still not be good. Hooray!
For this weekend, at least, we just need to pray their bats cool off a bit and their pitching doesn’t stop what Yoan Moncada is doing. Simple!
As the researchers and analysts pick through the rubble of the Hawks season, a theme both the coverage and the players themselves have been harping on the past few days is that for the last month or so, something has clicked with the Hawks defensively. That they’re “getting” the changes Jeremy Colliton wants to make. I, of course, dismiss this out of hand because it’s my way and also happen to think this team sucks historically defensively.
Funny thing, the Hawks have improved the last month…and they still suck.
If you look at before and after March 1st, when everything supposedly “clicked,” the Hawks do show a marked improvement in most categories. They’ve dropped their attempts against per 60 from 59 per game to 55, which might not sound like much but it is. They’ve dropped their scoring-chances against from 30.8 per 60 to 27.4, which is bordering on a massive change. They’ve brought their high-danger chances against per 60 from 13.9 to 12.8, which is also something of a big drop.
The thing is, in those categories the Hawks are still near bottom of the league. The attempts-against per 60 is actually 10th in the league since March 1st, so hey, look at that! But the scoring chances against is 21st in the league, and the high-danger chances against mark is third-worst the past month. So while the improvement is better than the alternative, the overall total is still unacceptable. They may be moving in the right direction but there’s a lot of driving to be done on that road in that direction before anyone can feel satisfied.
I have to reiterate, if you go by expected goals against, this is the worst team in the past 10 years. Yes, it’s a higher-scoring environment, but still to be the worst on record is not something you’d want. Here’s another one for ya: this is also the worst penalty-kill in the past 10 years, by a tenth of a point. If the Hawks have a good PK weekend, they might overtake last year’s Islanders. So while the Hawks’ brass might point to any improvement and cling to any hope that Coach Cool Youth Pastor is getting through, they can’t mistake the overhaul on the blue line that needs to come. And if you want to blame the goaltending on the kill, the expected-goals mark on the kill is third-worst in the past 10 years. So without a miracle in net, the kill was always going to be this bad.
I like it when everyone’s right, don’t you?
As usual at this point in the season, not even a week in, it is folly and silly and other words that end in -lly to draw any grand conclusions. Anyone can have a hot week. Still, with as much riding on Yoan Moncada this season, we’ll forgive any Sox fan from having a chuckle at his first few games of 2019 (and basically we mean Fifth Feather, who needs all the chuckles he can get).
Last year did not go as a first full-season should for Yoan or anyone as prized as he is. He struck out a ton, played second base like he was being attacked by bees, and when he did make contact a bit too much of it was on the ground. Thankfully , this year has started in opposition to all of that.
Moncada has been something of a curious study because he clearly has a very good concept of the zone. He walks over 10% of the time. The natural conclusion is that with that kind of eye he should be able to get the bat to the ball whenever he wants. It doesn’t always work that way, and this is where Adam Dunn flashbacks occur for Sox fans. In addition, Moncada let a lot of pitches just go by him in the zone, only swinging at 60% of pitches in the zone (league-average was 66%). He was a bit too choosy, which if you have a Jewish mother like I did you’ve been yelled at about frequently.
That’s gone out the window so far, as Moncada is swinging at just a tick under 70% of the pitches he’s seen in the zone, and making more contact on them (85% this year to 80% last). Which is leading to some pretty hilarious numbers. The one that jumps out at me is that of Moncada’s contact, only 5% of it has been considered soft. Last year that was at 14%, which isn’t awful but clearly cutting that by nearly two-thirds is something to note. That mark is almost a quarter of the league-average.
To boot, Moncada is getting the ball in the air far more so far, at 52.9% of the time (40% last year). Now, Moncada isn’t going to carry a 22% HR/FB ration all year, and if he does it surely means the end of us all. But clearly, the fly ball revolution has now absorbed him into the cause.
As far as approach, a big difference we’ve seen this year so far is that Moncada isn’t helpless against a change-up. Last year, Moncada whiffed on nearly half the swings he took at change-ups, hit .205 and slugged .351. This year, on an admitted limited sample, he’s only swung and missed at 11% of the swings he’s taken, is hitting .500 and slugging 1.000. The obvious conclusion is that Moncada isn’t jumping at the ball the same way and being content to take a fastball out to left. Not rally the case here, as Moncada doesn’t really do much when he hits the opposite way but is murdering the ball when he pulls it. Either way, the Sox will take it.
If exit-velocity is your thing, Moncada’s average has risen from 90.6 MPH to 96.1 this year. Last year, the leading average exit-velocity was 94.7. So yeah, he’s cracking eight different kinds of shit out Rawlingses everywhere. Also, if you’re into this kind of thing, his barrel-percentage is nearly double so far over last year.
Again, anyone can have a hot week. And his .467 BABIP is not anything less than astronomical. But the changes in approach and the volume of contact (loud, not amount) suggests he will always carry a higher BABIP than normal, and that these changes are around for a while.
Put a couple beers in a Cubs fan right now, never that hard of a task, and I bet a good portion of them would tell you there’s a level of schadenfreude with the team right now. After they spent the offseason crying poor, the front office pointing fingers every outward but certainly not inward, and everything else, the Cubs are being undone by what they ignored and arrogantly thought would fix itself, the bullpen. And it being this early in the season, and only four games, it hasn’t come anywhere close to derailing the season. You can just see how it might.
At the top, and as I’ve repeated all offseason, you can remake a bullpen on the fly. The Nationals did it just two years ago (with Brandon Kintzler as part of that). The Red Sox simply ignored their bullpen in the postseason last year. There will be a bevy of guys on teams out of it who for no reason whatsoever are throwing 97 with a slider from nowhere that you can have for B-level and C-level prospects. This is probably what the Cubs will do, and most likely they’ll be fine. It just didn’t have to be like this.
I had wondered if Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer knew about the budget Tom Ricketts was going to hand them at the outset of the offseason. But as was pointed out to me on Twitter, the fact that they sent Drew Smyly away to extend Cole Hamels probably indicates that they did. So one has to ask if that really was the right move. Because if the thinking was that the pen as currently constructed was going to just right itself, it makes you think that pitching isn’t just a spotty mark on the record of this regime, but a clear blindspot. Remember, we’re still waiting for the first pitcher Theo has drafted to actually come up for air and do something here. Hendricks and Edwards Jr. are trades, and we’ll get to the latter soon.
Because what did the Cubs have coming out of last year? Pedro Strop, who is wonderful and insane and I love him but also has missed big chunks of time with injury two of the past three years and turns 34 this season. It seems to me that the Cubs want to treat their signing of Brandon Morrow as something other than bad, but it very well may be. Morrow only has one full season of being a dominant reliever and a whole lot of injury problems. He’s far from a sure thing, and yet the Cubs are happy to tell you his absence is the main problem in order to do themselves credit, as well as blaming Joe Maddon for having the temerity to pitch him three days in a row at the end of May. The end of May is when a pitcher should be in peak health. If he can’t do it then, he can’t do it, and hence is not a plus piece to have around.
Carl Edwards Jr. is a basketcase and has never proven to be anything else. Brandon Kintzler has one good season, and his ground-ball rate, his main weapon, has been dropping for three straight years. Randy Rosario doesn’t strike anyone out and was bad last year and can only claim to throw with his left hand. They couldn’t honestly sell Tyler Chatwood as anything other than a lottery ticket bought while drunk and using consecutive numbers.
Perhaps they thought they could count on Steve Cishek. Here’s the problem: the history of relievers who crack 80 appearances over the age of 30 is not really encouraging.
Zach Duke did it three years ago at 33, and the next season saw his K/9 rate drop in half and his FIP double. In 2017 Bryan Shaw reached 79 appearances at 29. The next year his walk-rate doubled. Only Joel Peralta survived that threshold in 2013 at that age and came back fine the next year. Or at least his peripherals did, but his ERA was still over 4.00.
The Cubs front office has been acting like the smartest guys in the room for so long now that perhaps they’ve failed to realize they’re getting passed.
Now you can also throw this at the Ricketts, who even if they took the “Look what you’ve done with our money already” tact can’t then tell the front office to go stuff it with such a clear weakness. But is that $13M net-spend on Hamels worth more than two relievers right now? If the multi-year commitment to Andrew Miller made them nervous because he’s already in decline in skill and physically, that’s cool. Don’t want to blow it all on Zach Britton? Fair, or at least understandable. I wasn’t married to Jesse Chavez. He’s a guy.
But maybe Joakim Soria? Only $7.5M per. Seems a better bet than Brad Brach.
It’s important to reserve judgement until we see what the Cubs do over the next few months. Maybe they hated the reliever market in the winter altogether and didn’t want to force it. Fine. But when they say they have the deepest crop of pitchers waiting in Iowa they’ve ever had, why should anyone take that at face value? Again, this isn’t a front office that’s produced a quality reliever or starter yet (Hector Rondon was their Rule 5 pick, but that just means he didn’t come through the system). The Cubs couldn’t wait to tell every beat writer about their technology and gizmos to measure their pitching in the system. But at this point, Cubs fans are more than excused for not wanting the labor pains, just the baby.
Actually, sounds a little like the Hawks and their blue line, doesn’t it?
We’ve spent a lot of time reading tea leaves with the Hawks and what they say in the press. You don’t have to decode much to get to the heart of what Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were getting at yesterday:
Kane: “Yeah it’s tough. It’s just crazy that our season’s gonna be over in five days and that’s it for another year. Pretty frustrating, especially when I think a lot of us feel like we’re in our prime and be able to contribute, and had good seasons. But that’s the way it is.
— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 3, 2019
More Toews: “And the guys that have been here for a while learning that no one really cares what you did years ago. We’ve gotta keep pushing ourselves to get better and better. The league’s getting better, our division’s getting better, so it’s tough. It’s a tough league.”
— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 3, 2019
Clearly, the two main vets are not exactly thrilled with the front office or some other veterans in the room. Let’s try to unpack it all.
-You can understand why the players might be upset at no reinforcements at the deadline, because they did scrap and claw their way back into contention. You can also understand why any competent front office is not going to give up any prospect or draft pick for a player to maybe help them get labeled by the Flames in the first round. That’s not how you build a team. Players’ emotions often don’t align with the cold calculation of a front office. And that’s fine.
Still, it’s got to go deeper than this. We know Kane is maniacal in the offseason about working on his game, and it’s clear Toews is transforming the player he is from last year as well. He’s even said it’s a multi-year process. They saw what happened in the summer, and you can be sure that when those signings were made both Toews and Kane were like, “But those guys suck.” Players know, no matter what they say for public consumption.
It’s also clear that both Kane and Toews know the clock is ticking. Kane’s two best seasons individually have resulted in no playoff series wins. Toews heard he was finished, remade his game and body, had a career year, and did it for a pretty puke-tastic team. Where you could apportion some blame for last year to Toews, you can’t this year. They know they don’t have that many times at-bat being able to catch up to a good fastball. It stands to reason they’re not very interested in wasting another one on the likes of Brandon Manning.
-And it wouldn’t be a huge leap to suggest that Toews’s quote there, about no one caring what you did a few years ago, was meant to land right at the feet of the alternate captains. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook can run to friendly, Canadian writers all they want to proclaim how much they want to stay, but their play has clearly been making another statement. Last night was another excellent display of Keith drained of fucks to give, which Hess summed up pretty well last night. As I tweeted, his indifference is bordering on open rebellion.
What’s clear, and Bowman has said as much, is that he and McD will go to THE FOUR and lay out what the plan is to not have them go through a season like this again. But that meeting is going to be a lot more contentious than the Hawks were anticipating. Toews and Kane clearly have expectations, and the cards to act on them. Keith is either going to need a serious come-to-Jesus talk from all parties, or he’s going to have to be launched. If Keith is going to continue to clearly demonstrate he thinks his coach is an idiot, that can fester and grow in a dressing room and become a real problem. You know what that looks like? The pre-Berube Blues.
If the Hawks are married to Jeremy Colliton, and I’m not here to tell you they should be but they are, then you can’t have your most decorated player undermining him at every turn. Hess said as much.
This about as pointed as Toews and Kane have ever gotten in the press, so relatively this is basically them shouting. This is what happens when you biff a second straight season. This is what happens when you make a bunch of noise about how this is a playoff team and then don’t do anything to back that up. This is what happens when your players think you’re either lying or incompetent.
The Hawks’ brass already had a serious selling job to do this summer. Turns out the biggest of it might be to their own players.
Now that the Hawks games mean nothing, it’s hard to imagine getting worked up about these games in any way, and yet seeing them play their asses off and outplaying the Blues, I found myself sitting on my couch feeling like this guy. As a wrestling fan myself, I can empathize with feeling emotionally invested in something you know isn’t what it’s presented as, and tonight that was me, constantly battling this desire for the Hawks to not drop themselves farther down the draft lottery (which, they can’t climb much higher anyway, so that’s dumb too) and rooting like hell for them to beat the Blues. Some things are bigger than logic. Fuck you St. Louis. Let’s do this:
– Just about everyone at this here site was unavailable to some extent tonight, so I took up the sword but still missed the first period. When I got the game on with about 17 left in the second, I was pretty surprised by how competitive and hard the Hawks were playing in this game despite the games now being meaningless as I said before. It was clear from the quotes from Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane today that these guys are pissed off about missing the playoffs again, and they definitely channeled that into a desire to fuck over the Blues and their playoff seeding hopes. There were still plenty of gaffes in here on the Hawks end, and we will talk about a few of them, but seeing them respond was at least notable, I think. If only they had cared about this season a few months ago. Maybe they can actually carry this piss and vinegar into next year.
– It’s still hilarious to me that the Hawks got Dylan Strome for Nick Schmaltz. Not that Schmaltz wasn’t and isn’t a fine player (though now one that is WAY overpaid), but we definitely knew what he was by the time the Hawks sent him to the desert for Strome, who had barely gotten enough of a sniff of the NHL to have any conclusion that he couldn’t hit the ceiling that was once considered very high. And yeah, his shortcomings are there, and have been all year. But dammit if he doesn’t make up for it enough with the vision and hands, and the pass he made to Kane tonight on the third Hawks goal was just another example of that. The Hawks are definitely coming out on top of this one.
– Let’s talk about some gaffes. Firstly, Seabrook and Forsling were out there together again tonight. Not for long, but any shifts of those two together is too many. That’s the whole gaffe. Please stop that. EDIT– Forsling didn’t play tonight, I just stink at paying attention to who’s out there. I guess I’ve just been traumatized by 7-42 so often that I just expect it even when it isn’t happening.
– Now the elephant in the room, which at this point has now sat on and destroyed your couch, coffee table, recliner, and television: Duncan Keith could not give less of a fuck about playing hockey for Jeremy Colliton. Truthfully, I wish I could show the level of contempt and disinterest in my job that this guy does and still have the level of job security he does. We know the give a shit meter was already on zero, but he just about sent it negative tonight, particularly on the Blues third goal. To have little interest in playing well at this point can be understood, given that the Hawks are fucked, but to just have no intent to even feign effort at this point is almost impressive.
– And that brings us to an important thought – the Hawks might have to pick between the wife and the dog this summer. It’s clear that the wife (Keith, because he’s made our lives better for years and we never appreciate him enough) does not want the dog (Colliton, because he’s smelly and keeps shitting himself everywhere) around any longer. But as can happen, we may see this summer that the Hawks have overcommitted themselves to the dog. Perhaps these two will come to an agreement over the summer. Maybe an addition of a real defenseman that can partner with him will turn Keith’s give-a-shit meter back up. Maybe Colliton really will get motherfucked into becoming a good coach by this blog. Maybe neither happen and we’re stuck in a bad marriage with a stupid dog (I don’t hate dogs, I love them, but this one is stupid) and we will be miserable again for another year. Who knows! Eat at Arby’s.
– We almost made it, folks. Two more.
