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Should Have Heard It Through The Grapevine

Should Have Heard It Through The Grapevine

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I work at a winery. A customer has wandered into the tasting room. He’s been rude and brusque to the reception staff (and possibly a little sexist).

Customer: “So where do you grow your grapes?”

I turn around and look through our enormous balcony windows that overlook our vineyard.

Me: “You see those two hundred meters of vineyards that you had to drive through to get to this tasting room? There.”

He was less talkative after that.

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Deadspin | Ranger Suarez, Red Sox aim to halt Tigers’ win streak <div id=""><section id="0" class=" w-full"><div class="xl:container mx-0 !px-4 py-0 pb-4 !mx-0 !px-0"><img src="https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/28664568.jpg" srcset="https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/28664568.jpg" alt="MLB: San Diego Padres at Boston Red Sox" class="w-full" fetchpriority="high" loading="eager"/><span class="text-0.8 leading-tight">Apr 5, 2026; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Ranger Suarez (55) pitches against the San Diego Padres during the first inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images<!-- --> <!-- --> </span></div></section><section id="section-1"> <p>It is not about how you start, right?</p> </section><section id="section-2"> <p>The Boston Red Sox are hoping that is the case for the first month of the long and winding Major League Baseball season.</p> </section><section id="section-3"> <p>Following Wednesday’s series-closing win at the Minnesota Twins, Boston kicks off a challenging seven-game homestand against the surging Detroit Tigers on Friday night. The four-game set extends through Monday’s traditional 11:05 a.m. start on the Patriots’ Day holiday in Massachusetts.</p> </section><section id="section-4"> <p>“We’re (three) weeks into the season, and we feel like we haven’t played anywhere close to our best baseball. And it could be way worse,” shortstop Trevor Story said. “Once we get rolling and once we get to doing the things that we know we can do on a consistent basis, we’re excited about that.”</p> </section><section id="section-5"> <p>The Red Sox were on the verge of being swept in Minnesota, falling down 1-0 in the first inning before scoring the next nine runs on the way to the 9-5 victory. Story hit a three-run home run and drove in five, while Andruw Monasterio went 3-for-5.</p> </section><section id="section-6"> <p>Connelly Early backed it all up with six innings of one-run pitching, and now Boston will turn the ball to left-hander Ranger Suarez (1-1, 5.02 ERA) for Friday’s start.</p> </section><section id="section-7"> <p>Suarez looks to build off his best performance in a Red Sox uniform last Saturday at St. Louis, as he allowed just three hits and struck out six while shutting out the Cardinals through six innings. </p> </section><section id="section-8"> <p>“He moved the ball around,” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “It seems like his arm was a lot quicker than the first two (starts). It tells me he feels better.”</p> </section><section id="section-9"> <p>Suarez made starts for the Philadelphia Phillies against Detroit in each of the last two seasons. He went 0-1 with a 3.46 ERA across a combined 13 innings.</p> </section><br/><section id="section-10"> <p>Meanwhile, Detroit hopes to bottle up its recent success as winners of six straight games, including a 10-9 comeback victory over the visiting Kansas City Royals on Thursday. An up-and-down season has seen the Tigers go from 4-4 to 4-9 and back above the .500 mark to 10-9.</p> </section> <section id="section-11"> <p>Riley Greene’s two-out, two-run double tied the score and Colt Keith’s walk-off single capped a three-run rally in the ninth inning to seal their third straight one-run win. </p> </section><section id="section-12"> <p>“Part of our DNA is our willingness to do anything, but the other part that comes with that is we’re going to play ‘til the end. We’ve had to do that,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “These are funky wins with one run, or coming up late. … Our guys play all 27 outs.”</p> </section><section id="section-13"> <p>The Tigers, who banged out a season-high 14 hits, held a 6-1 lead after five innings before the Royals posted a six-run seventh. The game also included nearly two hours of rain delays.</p> </section><section id="section-14"> <p>Dillon Dingler hit a two-run homer — his team-leading fourth of the season — in the fifth, while Greene’s heroic swing capped a 3-for-4 day.</p> </section><section id="section-15"> <p>“We’re being clutch on both sides, with our pitching and hitting, but we’re playing really clean, good baseball right now,” Keith said. “We’re showing it on the scorecard. We’re winning.”</p> </section><section id="section-16"> <p>Like Suarez, Detroit starter Casey Mize (1-1, 3.94) is also coming off his first win of the season after throwing 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball to beat the Miami Marlins last Saturday. He struck out five.</p> </section><section id="section-17"> <p>Mize is 0-1 with a 3.95 ERA in five career starts against the Red Sox. He struck out eight in a 6 1/3-inning road no-decision on Sept. 26 of last season.</p> </section><section id="section-18"> <p>Detroit has won the last two season series.</p> </section><section id="section-19"> <p>–Field Level Media</p> </section></div> #Deadspin #Ranger #Suarez #Red #Sox #aim #halt #Tigers #win #streak

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IPL 2026: Living on the edge—The risk and reward of the wide yorker <div id="content-body-70873054" itemprop="articleBody"><p>In Punjab Kings’ first match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 against Gujarat Titans, Arshdeep Singh was entrusted with the final over of the first innings. The left-arm pacer ended up bowling an 11-ball over—the joint-longest in IPL history. Across that over, Arshdeep largely tried to go short and wide to the left-handed Rahul Tewatia, which resulted in multiple wides; against Rashid Khan, he switched to yorkers, both at the stumps and outside off.</p><p>Twenty-four matches into the season, the PBKS bowler has delivered the most wides so far—18, four more than Mumbai Indians’ Shardul Thakur, who has 14. Of Shardul’s 14 wides, 13 have come while bowling wide outside off. In Arshdeep’s case, 11 of his 18 wides have come while operating around the tramline outside off.</p><p>What often shows up as poor execution is more often than not a calculated attempt to keep the ball away from the batter, with modern T20 batters favouring the leg side for their big shots. Even deliveries just outside off stump are now being whipped over the on-side with ease, thanks to the natural swing arc and high bat speeds.</p><p>In response, the bowlers have moved further away from the stumps, forcing batters to manufacture shots square of the wicket, particularly in the point and square regions, where power is harder to generate.</p><p>“If the batter is set and there’s a longer boundary on one side, you use that and keep the ball away from their strength. If the batter is new, you attack the stumps. When you feel the yorker is coming out well, you go for it. When the batter is set, you go wide. You just have to adapt before the batter knows what’s coming,” Arshdeep explained after the win over Mumbai Indians on Thursday, after picking three for 22, continuing to back his wide line tactic. </p><p>That constant adjustment, though, often pushes bowlers closer to the wide line, where the margin for error is smaller.</p><p>One such option is the wide yorker, aimed just inside the wide line outside off stump. It is one of the hardest deliveries to execute because of the precision required—more often than not, it ends up as a full toss or a slot ball. But when nailed, it is extremely difficult to put away.</p><p>“That’s probably one of the hardest balls to bowl,” Delhi Capitals pacer Lungi Ngidi said. “You’ve got to land it on a yorker length, just inside the wide line – everything has to be perfect. If you land that ball, it’s a huge advantage in an over.”</p><p>Since his IPL debut in 2019, Arshdeep has bowled 99 wide-line yorkers – joint second-most with Harshal Patel, with Avesh Khan leading the list with 104.</p><p>Despite the risk, the tactic remains popular. In the 2021 season, there was a more than 46 per cent increase in attempts to bowl around the tramline, resulting in 114 wides—an 87 per cent jump from the previous season’s 61.</p><div class=" article-picture center"><img src="https://ss-i.thgim.com/public/incoming/46b9qn/article70873083.ece/alternates/FREE_1200/unnamed.png" data-original="https://ss-i.thgim.com/public/incoming/46b9qn/article70873083.ece/alternates/FREE_1200/unnamed.png" alt="" class=" lazy" width="100%" height="100%"/></div><p>The shift became even more pronounced in 2022, when wides across the season rose from 521 to 861—jump of 340 (65.26 per cent). While part of that increase was due to the addition of two teams—Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants—and therefore more matches, venue conditions also played a major role.</p><p>That season was held across four venues in Maharashtra during the league stage—the Wankhede Stadium, DY Patil Stadium, Brabourne Stadium, and MCA International Stadium. Smaller boundaries, flatter pitches, and heavy dew made execution significantly harder for bowlers.</p><p>Since that spike, the increase from 2023 onwards has appeared more gradual. The average number of wides per season, which stood at around 530 until 2021, has now risen to roughly 810. The ongoing 2026 season is not included in that average, but it has already seen 289 wides in 24 matches and is projected to finish close to 900 at the current rate of six wides per innings.</p><h4 class="sub_head">What changed in 2023?</h4><p>That season introduced the option for teams to review wides and no-balls. With technology in play, the margin for error has reduced. As Ngidi pointed out: “The margins are very small. The review system helps now because earlier, you could bowl it correctly and still get called for a wide.”</p><p>Ahead of the 2025 season, another tweak followed—the introduction of the moving wide guideline, where the line shifts with the batter’s position. This has made adjudication clearer for umpires and players alike. It made an immediate impact last season as the wides bowled while attempting the wide yorker dropped from 182 to 101.</p><p>For bowlers like Arshdeep, operating around the wide tramline is a risky trade-off, where the margin for error is minimal. But in a format where batters dictate terms, it is a risk they are willing to take. Because on the days it comes off, the wide yorker can set up the game for the bowling side. </p><p class="publish-time" id="end-of-article">Published on Apr 17, 2026</p></div> #IPL #Living #edgeThe #risk #reward #wide #yorker

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