The Magic Continues
Going into today’s game, the Astros were 47-0 in playoff games when leading going into the eighth inning. Today they are 47-1.
Going into today’s game, Astro’s relief pitcher extraordinaire, Ryan Pressly, had not given up a run in a playoff game in his last 24 innings. Today he gave up 3 in 2/3 innings.
After Tiger centerfielder Parker Meadows struck out to start the eighth inning, the Astros’ probability of winning was 80.7%. By the time the Tigers finished batting in the top of the eighth inning, the Tigers had a 5-2 lead and the Astros’ probability of winning dropped to 6.7%.
It looked like A.J. Hinch’s magic touch with the bullpen finally ended when he brought in Jackson Jobe to start the seventh inning with the Tigers’ holding a narrow 1-0 lead. Jobe’s first pitch nicked the Astro batter and by the time Hinch removed Jobe, the Astros were up 2-1 with runners on first and third with one out.
Hinch brought in Sean Guenther and the magic started all over again. On his second pitch, Guenther induced a groundball double play to keep the Tigers within one run. In the top of the 8th inning, the Tigers scored the tying run on a wild pitch, and then took the lead on pinch hitter Andy Ibanez’ three run double. Guenther held the Astros in check in the eighth inning and Will Vest closed the game in one-two-three order in the ninth inning and the celebration started.
With the Tigers win, they now face their division rival the Cleveland Guardians in the division series starting on Saturday. See my Video of the Day.
The Big Lie
Per the NY Times tonight.
When told by an aide that Vice President Mike Pence was in peril as the rioting on Capitol Hill escalated on Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald J. Trump replied, “So what?”
When one of his lawyers told him that his false claims that the election had been marred by widespread fraud would not hold up in court, Mr. Trump responded, “The details don’t matter.”
On a flight with Mr. Trump and his family after the election, an Oval Office assistant heard Mr. Trump say: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
Those accounts were among new evidence disclosed in a court filing made public on Wednesday in which the special counsel investigating Mr. Trump made his case for why the former president is not immune from prosecution on federal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
Made public by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, the 165-page brief was partly redacted but expansive, adding details to the already extensive record of how Mr. Trump lost the race but attempted nonetheless to cling to power.
The brief from the prosecution team led by the special counsel, Jack Smith, asserts that there is ample evidence that Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office were those of a desperate losing candidate rather than official acts of a president that would be considered immune from prosecution under a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer.
“The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct,” prosecutors wrote. “Not so. Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.”
Integrity and character matter. Vote for him at yours and the country’s peril.
Project 2025-Chapter 2, page 77
The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power— including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people. Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states.
Fortunately, a President who is willing to lead will find in the Executive Office of the President (EOP) the levers necessary to reverse this trend and impose a sound direction for the nation on the federal bureaucracy. The effectiveness of those EOP levers depends on the fundamental premise that it is the President’s agenda that should matter to the departments and agencies that operate under his constitutional authority and that, as a general matter, it is the President’s chosen advisers who have the best sense of the President’s aims and intentions, both with respect to the policies he intends to enact and with respect to the interests that must be secured to govern successfully on behalf of the American people.
As I read Project 2025, I cannot help but think that the authors when referring to America’s families and faith communities, are referring to families and faith communities that look and act like the author defines as families and faith communities. I have a hard time believing that they think of families the same as black American’s think of families, or as Muslim Americans think of faith communities.
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Quote of the Day: “Yeah, it’s tough,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “We talked about it before the game started. So, it creates challenges as a team because you’re getting to see different arms, different angles, different stuff, different situations of the game. You could come up with men in scoring position, with bases empty. You have to adjust. We were a hit away the last two games from taking the series.
“But baseball, you tip your hat to them, and you move forward.”
Orchid of the Day: The Detroit Tigers one more time.
Second Orchid of the Day: Jordan Baker, the plate umpire in the Tigers’ game today. Based on what I saw on TV, Baker umpired one of the best games of the season. He was so good, he was invisible. He was so good the announcers said he was having a strong game. I will let you know how he graded out.
Onion of the Day: No onions when I give out two orchids.
Question of the Day: Do you believe in magic?
Video of the Day: FULL INNING: Tigers RALLY for 4 runs in the 8th!! (Andy Ibáñez plays hero!) (youtube.com)