40+ Good Start

 This wasn’t the way Travis Jankowski envisioned his first game in home Phillies whites going. 

Jankowski, who grew up rooting for the Phillies in Lancaster, ran off the field to the sound of boos after being picked off second base in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night. The play short-circuited a potential game-tying rally and the Phillies ended up with a 2-1 loss to the Washington Nationals in front of just 15,030 on the night Citizens Bank Park opened to full capacity.

"I had much higher hopes,” Jankowski, a 29-year-old former San Diego Padre, said of his Phillies home debut. “It’s all part of it. Hopefully we’ll move past it and I can bounce back and continue to bring what I can to the team and help us win.”

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Jankowski had been playing at Triple A for the Phillies and was called up when Roman Quinn suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon rupture last week.

After doing little against Washington starter Max Scherzer, the Phillies got a leadoff double by Rhys Hoskins against reliever Daniel Hudson in the bottom of the ninth. Jankowski was called on to pinch-run for Hoskins as J.T. Realmuto came to the plate.

Jankowski misread a ball in the dirt, got caught between second and third and was chased down by catcher Alex Avila for the first out of the inning. Realmuto then struck out and Brad Miller flied out against Brad Hand to end the game.

“Probably just trying to do too much,” Jankowski said. “I saw a slider in the dirt. I was expecting a ricochet and it just hopped right in his glove. I couldn’t do much after that. I was kind of stuck in the middle there. Really no excuses. Just a bad read. That one’s on me.”

Manager Joe Girardi understood Jankowski’s mindset.

“The thought process is not bad – you’re trying to move up on balls in the dirt,” Girardi said. “But it’s the read. He didn’t read it away from (the catcher) and it has to be away from (the catcher) for you to advance.” 

Jankowski’s baserunning gaffe was one of several little things the Phillies did poorly to waste a strong start by Zack Wheeler and fall to 26-30 in the season.

To wit:

Hoskins might have been able to make third base on his ninth-inning double off the right-field wall had he run harder for the first 90 feet.

And the defense might have prevented the first run of the game in the top of the fourth if third baseman Alec Bohm had gotten to a ball quicker and been able to cut the lead runner at second. Instead, Bohm had to throw across the diamond for an out and Trea Turner, who had gotten to second on the fielder’s choice, was able to score from second on a bloop double to left by Josh Bell.  

Bell’s double fell in front of a diving Andrew McCutchen, who seemed to hesitate while closing on the ball. 

Wheeler is often the victim of poor run support and he was again in this one. He entered the game receiving an average of just 3.48 runs per game, 56th out of 66 qualifying big-league starters. 

When you put just one run on the scoreboard, you better play crisp ball in every other phase of the game.

These Phillies often do not.

“When you don’t score a lot of runs, every little thing shows up in the box score,” Girardi said. “Every little mistake you make is going to show up.”

The Phillies hadn’t played in two days because of a rainout Wednesday and a scheduled off day Thursday night. They put 17 runs on the board in  Cincinnati on Tuesday night, but cooled off in a big way Friday night.

Washington starter Max Scherzer had a lot to do with that. He held the Phillies to five hits and a run over 7 2/3 innings. He walked one and struck out nine.

The three-time Cy Young winner is 6-1 in nine starts at Citizens Bank Park and 12-4 in 22 career starts against the Phillies overall. 

Wheeler pitched very well for the Phillies. The right-hander allowed just two runs over 7 1/3 innings. He scattered five hits, one of which was a homer. 

The loss was Wheeler’s first as a Phillie in 14 starts at Citizens Bank Park. He entered the game 7-0 with a 2.14 ERA in 13 starts as a Phillie at home.

Wheeler has a 2.51 ERA in 12 starts this season, but his record is just 4-3. He’s been hurt by lack of run support and poor defense.

“I don't think about that when I'm out there,” he said of the poor run support. “Honestly. I mean, I hear it from you guys. I hear it from other people. But it's not in my mind at all out there. My goal is to go out there and put up zeroes. No matter if we score 20 or 0. I think that's the best way to go out there and deal with that."

After the Nationals took a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth, the Phillies tied the game in the bottom of the inning on a single by Jean Segura, a stolen base and a hit by J.T. Realmuto. Washington took the lead for good on a two-out homer by Soto in the sixth. 

Soto hit a 1-0 fastball – “Right down the middle,” Wheeler said -- into the left-field seats and appeared to stare down Wheeler as he began and ended his home run trot.

“I didn't notice it,” Wheeler said unconvincingly. “I couldn't care less.” 

In the bottom of the inning, Scherzer, a pitcher with impeccable control, hit Realmuto with a pitch up high on the left arm.

Saturday afternoon’s game could be interesting. Spencer Howard opposes Nationals’ right-hander Joe Ross.

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‘Loki’ Review: A Good Start To A Possibly Great MCU Series

Owen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston and Wunmi Mosaku in 'Loki'

by Chuck Zlotnick, courtesy of Marvel and Disney

The first two episodes blend time-travel hijinks and lively existentialism for a very promising start to this latest Disney+ MCU series.

Premiering tomorrow (or tonight at midnight) on Disney+, creator/head writer Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron’s Loki is off to an exciting start. The third of this year's Disney+ MCU shows again centers on a character who was supposed to have died in the “Infinity Saga.” That Loki still exists despite getting his neck snapped by Thanos in the prologue of Avengers: Infinity War is a core narrative conflict. WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier partially acted as season-long funerals for their dearly-departed heroes (Paul Bettany's Vision and Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, respectively). I am curious about whether Hiddleston's return as at least one "variant" of Loki will remain permanent by the end of episode six.

We start with a quick "for those who came in late" replay of the time-traveling events of Avengers: Endgame. 2012 Loki (having just been bested by the Avengers in the "Battle of New York") stole the Tesseract and vanished into the ether. Marvel's favorite genocidal anti-hero quickly gets caught by the Time Variance Authority. This bureaucratic organization (shades of Brazil and Jupiter Ascending) monitors the timeline. Still, Loki is spared from erasure by Special Agent Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), who wants Loki's help in catching an especially dangerous time criminal. This is all set up in an exposition and dialogue-heavy first episode. In contrast, the second episode is more "adventure of the week," even if it ends with a potential (slight) alternation in the status quo.

Which episode you prefer will vary in taste. Wilson turns out to be an inspired casting choice, acting not as a befuddled and easily impressed witness to Loki's shenanigans but as a seen-it-all, dispassionate (but still invested) foil who (like everyone else in the TVA) looks at the world-altering events of the MCU as "Tuesday." He's precisely compassionate enough to want to metaphorically save Loki's soul (at least to the extent that it furthers his objectives) but not remotely impressed by Loki's not-so-mischievous attempts at world domination. The result is a genuine acknowledgment that the genocidal Loki seen in The Avengers doesn’t quite jibe with the violent prankster of the Thor movies. It's also yet another attempt to make The Dark World an essential chapter of the MCU.

WandaVision was a parable for the danger of nostalgic comfort food entertainment as a way of putting off post-traumatic healing. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tried to deal with a Marvel/DC-obsessed pop culture amid continued institutional racism and a renewed embrace of strongman authoritarianism (both in and outside law enforcement). I am curious whether pop culture's varying ideas about Loki as a character and how the fandom changed his MCU fate (he was supposed to stay dead in The Dark World) will be a meta-commentary running through the show. Moreover, I am equally curious if it'll maintain true to whatever more profound contextual thesis it attempts to argue or whether (like its MCU television predecessors) it fumbles the ball near the end zone for the sake of comforting status quo.

Deeper ambitions aside, the show works as polished entertainment. Hiddleston can play this character in his sleep, and to his credit that he doesn't. He relishes the new sandbox as Loki is brought low, rendered powerless and surrounded by superior beings who neither fear nor respect him. The way they set up what I assume will be multiverse-creating hijinks, using a cartoon on par with Jurassic Park's Mr. DNA, is as inspired as it is meme-friendly. Even with all the sci-fi nonsense and time-travel adventure, the most compelling moments in both episodes are when Hiddleston and Wilson sit at a table and chat about life, the universe and everything. There is arguably no effect more special than good actors delivering good conversational dialogue about interesting subjects.

I don’t know where Loki is going in terms of plot or character. Yes, this is an attempt to monetize further a fan-favorite character who should have bled out in the dark world eight years ago. However, the highest compliment I can offer is that Waldron and Herron seemingly viewed the notion of a Loki television series as a “How do we justify this?” challenge rather than a “We know you’ll watch it anyway” crutch. Whether it lives up to the promise of its first act, I am invested in the interactions between its two lead actors and the promise of crime caper hijinks mixed with Legends of Tomorrow­-style adventure. Let’s hope that Loki is more willing than its MCU televised predecessors to commit to the bit.

Microinvesting Is A Good Start, But Is It Enough For Your Long-term Financial Goals?

This article is reprinted by permission from NerdWallet. This article provides information and education for investors. NerdWallet does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks or securities.

It’s easy to think of microinvesting — the act of investing tiny amounts at a time, equivalent to putting spare change in the stock market — as a universally good thing. But is it enough for long-term financial goals?

Platforms that feature microinvesting have been praised for allowing people to safely and responsibly start investing, no matter how little they know about the stock market. Microinvesting is also a good strategy for people who don’t have much money to invest, and it can help them learn more about savings, compounding growth and long-term returns, Jody D’Agostini, a certified financial planner with Equitable Advisors, said in an email interview.

“These small amounts accumulated over time can make a difference,” said D’Agostini, who’s based in Morristown, New Jersey.

This is because of compounding interest, in which you earn a return on your initial investment, but also on the growth.

Through compound returns, the longer you’re invested, the more time your money has to compound. And, D’Agostini said, starting that compounding effect before you have much income can be an incentive to continue investing as your income starts to grow.

While microinvesting platforms may be best for investors who don’t have much money to put into a 401(k) or individual retirement account, anyone could benefit from using them, says Brian Walsh, a CFP with Walsh & Nicholson Financial Group in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea. It’s really creative and a good way to get investors dipping their toes into the world of investing,” Walsh says. “Instead of throwing that spare change into an ashtray, you’re throwing it into an investment account where it can actually grow and work for you, whereas in an ashtray, it’s never going to do any of those things.”

But while microinvesting has a lot going for it, it alone may not be enough.

Wait, how exactly does microinvesting work?

The idea is to round up purchases, often to the nearest dollar, and use that spare change to slowly build up savings in a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds. Investment apps Acorns and Stash have made this incredibly easy, offering a debit card that does the roundup investing for you and offering investment guidance along the way. This is a departure from traditional brokerage accounts, which let you invest in the stock market, but don’t typically have such a roundup feature.

Watch: How the pandemic changed investing habits for different generations

This is a widely recommended strategy; making regular investment contributions over time (known as dollar-cost averaging) can help investors stick to their investment plan and avoid trying to time the market. And any app that encourages healthy saving and investment habits should be celebrated.

The problem is, investing 45 cents here and 27 cents there may not be enough. Let’s say 25-year-old Sarah uses roundups that average out to $1.50 a day. Sarah will hardly miss the dimes and quarters leaving her bank account and going into her investment account, yet that will result in a monthly contribution of about $45. After 20 years at a return of 7%, that savings could potentially grow to about $23,500 by the time she’s 45. Not bad for just collecting coins in a virtual piggy bank.

But how much should you save for retirement?

According to a 2020 study from Vanguard, the average 401(k) balance for investors aged 35 to 44 years old was $72,578.

See: Here are the average retirement savings by age: Is it enough?

Unfortunately, Sarah’s microinvesting strategy leaves her savings about 68% below this average.

And there are other issues with microinvesting to consider, too. At this point, Sarah’s retirement savings is based on spending, not saving. How much would Sarah have at 45 had she invested some of that spending, instead? What’s more, if Sarah is only using a taxable brokerage account, she’s missing out on some major tax benefits of a retirement account, such as an IRA or a 401(k).

What can I use in addition to roundups to stay on track?

Let’s imagine Sarah wasn’t using a microinvesting platform, and instead committed to contributing $100 a month to a tax-advantaged IRA. After 20 years at 7% growth, that would lead to savings of about $52,000. This is quite a bit more than the microinvesting strategy, but still falls short of Vanguard’s average.

But what if these two strategies were executed in tandem? If Sarah was able to put that $100 in her IRA each month while investing $45 in leftover change, she’d theoretically have about $75,000 after 20 years — slightly above the average for her age group.

This is just an example demonstrating the ways innovative new investing strategies can merge with longstanding, proven approaches.

What’s important to understand is that as innovative and creative as roundup investing is, it alone won’t get you to retirement, Walsh says. Rather, microinvesting is just one aspect of a comprehensive retirement plan.

“When you look at the whole pie of what financial success looks like, it’s a piece of that pie, but it’s absolutely not something that’s going to get you to retirement,” Walsh says.

So what are the other pieces of the pie?

“These apps are good for the novice investor to establish consistent savings patterns and create a habit around investing,” D’Agostini said of microinvesting apps.

But once you have more income or savings capacity, she said, “you might want to move to a more robust investment platform that can provide more education, guidance and financial planning.”

Read: Inherited $500K? Or $1 million? Here’s how to make that money act like a monthly pension

As a next step beyond microinvesting apps, D’Agostini and Walsh both recommended contributing to your employer’s 401(k), if it offers one. And if your employer offers a match, it’s wise to contribute at least enough to earn that match if you can afford to.

Also see: How to know whether the stock market is in a bubble

If your company doesn’t have a 401(k), the next step to consider would be opening an IRA. Either of these accounts is a great place to start saving more for retirement alongside a microinvesting app, Walsh says.

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