Hail Ants

Unfortunately life has kept me from seeing much of this week's games. Despite the scarcity of highlights, I saw Jesse Litsch leaving the ball where Jesse Litsch can't afford to leave it. And that was that.

The worst part, for me, about not seeing the games in real time is the dearth of defensive information. I know! Wilner mentions a great stab by Scott Rolen the other night. Did I see it? Of course not. Fuck my life! Worse yet, I own a PVR! Was I recording tonight's game? Of course not. I'm an idiot (FML).

So, I've decided to quit fighting off our inevitable robot overlords and let the machines run my life. For games I don't see much of, I'll rely on numbers and witchcraft to assign my Mechanical Goat of the Night/Simulated Hero-figure depending on the outcome of the game. I'll use Fangraph's WPA data and do it coldly and dispassionately like Charles fucking Bronson.

Mechanical Goats for 5-1 Loss to Detroit: Adam Lind, WPA -0.135; Jesse Litsch WPA -0.256.

Update! After some errors in the live boxscore last night, the cruel light of day has let Adam Lind somewhatoff the hook. The fly out/throw out double play has been attributed to Scott Rolen, much to my dismay. Lind still did the most damage offensively, but Litsch's punished mistake mean he took the most off the table. So go ahead and ignore the below paragraph.

Well isn't this interesting? I turn myself over my algorithmic foes and they immediately fuck up. Adam Lind's WPA is calculated incorrectly, as a quick scan of the play log shows him being dinged for an "out advancing" with 2 outs in the first. Alex Rios was put out on that particular play, so he should be docked the 0.76 WPAs, whatever they are. After Lind, little Litschy and his gopher ball delivery service would wear the Kevlar hooves. The robots tell me Vernon Wells's GIDP in the third with two on and one out was the single most damaging play of the night. Stop me if you've heard that one before.

Other Stuff of Varying Value

• Alex Rios has three walks in three games. I'll start polishing my lobo, the zombies can't be far behind.
  
• Travis Snider listens to Paul Wall? All the maturity in the world can't stop a 21 year old white dude from being a 21 year old white dude.
  
• The Tigers may not be a great team, but they do feature a lot of excellent right handed bats. What better place for the Jays to debut a young lefty for the second year in a row. Good luck Ricky, I hope your dodge bullets as well as Purcey did last year.
  
• I should have mentioned it yesterday, but they let us do a second edition of the Walkoff Walk Furious Five podcast this week. You can find it on iTunes if you search podcasts for Walkoff Walk. My soup recipe is killer!
  
• Any left coasters, alcoholics, night owls, or criminals looking for something to do tonight can join me as I live blog the Angels/A's tilt on theScore.com. Grab yer phone and comment from the comfort of your own slumber! Sadly, tonight's game has been postponed due to the untimely death of Nick Adenhart. My thoughts are with his family and friends.

Amazing Update

Ummm, there really are mechanical goats!!