Perception

Well...that was...impressive?  This could be me, but putting Neil Ramirez out there to start -- given his HR tendencies -- well, that was the game right there.  I guess I would use Otero or Wittgren in games where you want it to be close and you need innings, reserving Ramirez for the mop-up man...  yet another one of those interesting reliever decisions.  In the meantime.. well, I had told my coworkers that the Tribe should offer Keuchel 1/$15 in March, and they thought I was crazy... like a fox.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/sayonara-ohio-the-democrats-buckeye-blues/
One can hope, though I think not...

So, in the meantime, I had another one of my favorite "Roll up the map of Europe" moments yesterday; to be sure, it was extremely nascent, but I thought it was going well... nope.  Oi. I should be used to it now, like so many other things...

Another amusing thing... one of my coworkers is a Reds fan, and I guess they are putting Votto in the leadoff spot to put runs on the board.  My coworker is a dozen years younger than I am, humorously... anyways, he offered the usual bromides about him being too good a hitter to leadoff, and then offered that he didn't remember Ichiro! or Pete Rose hitting leadoff.  I immediately pointed out that both of them did so, and extensively... Ichiro!, if you think about it, was the ideal one, with speed and some power and good pitch-taking skills (learned in Japan); I think we all tend to forget that Rose was a decent OBP guy, had good "bat control" skills, and, well, there really wasn't -- aside from Morgan, maybe -- a true "leadoff" hitter there, and I am sure Pete wanted to pile up ABs.  Anyways, aside from schooling the younging...I like the move?  I think the main objection is optics, in that we still see leadoff hitters as guys like Billy Hamilton, but they also don't get on base, and nowadays, of course, people realize the value of getting on base, whereas a generation or two ago, they did not....