Game Three Thoughts
Posted by Sean Forman on October 30, 2010
I had no thoughts for game two because, well. I didn't watch it.
Bottom Second, Cruz went back to third on a ball hit to third with the infield back, a poor baserunning play. I always wonder how much practicing of that sort of stuff the teams do. I assume it gets covered in spring training, but probably never again.
Another question, do the managers ever time their batters and pitchers to first base or first to third to see who would be the best pinch runners.
McCarver noted that Moreland attended the same school as "Giant great Will Clark." He did play a bit for the Rangers as well.
"His FATHER'S THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!!", "It's a trap!", "Kid chewed a heckuva chalupa today."
Glad to see Ken Rosenthal is sporting the bowtie again. I think he should stick with that. George Will turned a bowtie into a pretty lucrative career.
Great jump there by Hamilton on Freddy Sanchez's fly ball. If the outfielder isn't moving by the time the camera is on them, they got a bad jump.
Regarding Hamilton hitting well in Rangers' wins. Check out the splits of any better and they hit and pitch better in team wins. I need to get a split finder done so we can quickly tell who plays better in losses than in wins.
Aubrey Huff's grandma would have left grandpa for Jeff Huson. I was more of a Jeff Frye man during my time in Texas. Frye could draw a few more walks.
45,000 beers and just 2,688 sodas (and why is that the only one not rounded to hundreds?). That just can't be credible can it? They must not have draft beer and are not counting fountain sodas.
I spent a couple of summers in in Dallas and went to about 30 games at the Ballpark back in 1994 and 1995. It's a pretty nice ballpark. I liked it a lot.
At the O'Reilly Makers Faire in Queens I bought a very good brownie from the woman in the Treats Truck who appears in the blackberry torch commercial. I did not use twitter to locate the truck. My son enjoyed his sugar cookie with yellow sprinkles as well.
Ron Washington thinks Andrus will be a Ryne Sandberg like hitter. Sandberg hit for a good deal more power at the same age, albeit in AA and AAA. A SS who could hit like Sandberg would be a pretty good player, wouldn't he?
What's with the rubber gloves on the hats in the stands?
The double play in the bottom of the fifth is about as good of an illustration about why strikeouts aren't that bad in the major leagues. If they can turn a double play on that, you really shouldn't put it into play unless you hammer it. And hammering it requires swinging really hard. No DP by Young also means a two-run homer by Hamilton.
I love Vlad Guerrero, but he is terrible at the little things. Bad at baserunning, bad at hitting cutoff men. Last four years, he is 13 of 25 stealing bases and made 40 outs on the bases or ten a year. Average team makes 55 or so a year.
If ESPN showed the World Series, would we get crowd shots of Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski, and Jon Gruden?
I've never understood why it would matter what where the series stands in deciding to use a pitcher on three days rest or not. The question is what gives you to the opportunity to win four of the next five games? Does that mean Lewis, Hunter, Lee, Wilson and Lewis or Lee, Wilson, Lewis and Lee?
I agree with McCarver that you should use your three best starters exclusively in the postseason, but he stated there haven't been any studies. There have been, J.C. Bradbury linked to one last week.
Do fans really believe that faking a throw to second is a balk? Or is it just a tradition at this point?
Neftali Feliz has thrown more than four outs during the season four times, so I'm not sure if Washington just doesn't remember or if they don't count because they were all extra-inning games.
I was at game one of the NLCS, and about five seconds before Ross hit his first home run, I turned to the guy I was sitting with that I wouldn't be shocked to see Ross hit 30+ homers some year. I just didn't expect it to be in a single postseason.
San Fran gave us Tony Bennett and Fox sticks Texas with Martha Plimpton, whose voice work as best I can tell entails "Martha Plimpton Sings?" a one-woman show from January 2010 and a couple of duets.
Colby Lewis was not the first Colby in the major leagues. Also, five players from Colby College.
Twelfth postseason game with 2 5-4-3 DP's by a single team.
Pat Burrell's golden sombrero was the 13th in World Series History.
October 30th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
"Bottom Second, Cruz went back to third on a ball hit to third with the infield back, a poor baserunning play."
That was actually a great play.
October 30th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
You think Uribe would have thrown him out?
October 30th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
I believe it was HER father who was the district attorney.
October 30th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Jeff Frye went to Carl Albert JC. When my son was trying out for college baseball teams, we talked to the baseball coach there. He said Frye's biggest fielding problem was that he didn't attack the ground-balls head-on, rather he liked to play them to the side.
October 30th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
I didn't know what a Golden Sombrero was until I clicked the link (apparently it is 4 strikeouts in a game, for those of you who don't subscribe to the Play Index). Four of the first 5 who did this (#'s 2-5) were pitchers, as was one more recent one, Mel Stottlemyre.
I missed most of the game, so the District Attorney, guys named Jeff, and "heckuva chalupa" remarks are lost on me.
Ditto for the drink counts.
October 30th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Also, about the Golden Sombrero link, tough break for the Yanks on (10/2/1953). Double Golden Sombrero. And they only lost by a run. Yogi was on base ALL FOUR TIMES for Mantle in that game, and Mantle twice had RISP (once Berra, once Bauer). Collins only had RISP once, but it was on Rizzuto on third with one out. Rough game. While I agree with Sean generally (strikeouts aren't really that bad), when you see a boxscore with 8 Ks from two guys when all they needed was to put the ball in play, well, that's pretty rough as a fan.
By the way, I'm not a Yankees fan, and I got a kind of sick pleasure from "seeing" them lose this game from 57 years ago.
October 31st, 2010 at 12:06 am
Four players had 5 K in a single game in 2010.
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/NWWlC
I refer to that as a Golden Shower.
October 31st, 2010 at 4:36 am
1 and 2.
He wasn't going on contact, which is usually a manager's decision. So when the ball didn't go through, the die was cast.
Uribe was even with bag, actually a little in front, when he fielded he ball, so he only has to throw about 90 feet. Unless the throw is off line or Posey drops it or Cruz knocks it from him in a collision at the plate, Cruz is out, if he went on contact.
October 31st, 2010 at 4:41 am
I thought Young was safe on the double play right before Hamilton's homer.
October 31st, 2010 at 5:34 am
@2
"You think Uribe would have thrown him (Cruz) out (at the plate)?"
By 10 feet. Ball got to Uribe in a hurry.
October 31st, 2010 at 8:09 am
"45,000 beers and just 2,688 sodas (and why is that the only one not rounded to hundreds?). That just can't be credible can it? They must not have draft beer and are not counting fountain sodas."
Actually they had a separate total for fountain sodas, which was ~10000 if I remember correctly
October 31st, 2010 at 9:20 am
Colby College is about an hour from where I live, and yet I didn't know that five of its former students went on to play in the major leagues! That's neat.
October 31st, 2010 at 10:07 am
Cruz did the right thing, and it was a headsup play getting back to third so quickly, McCarver sometimes misinforms people. Cruz would've gone if it had been hit to short or second, but third or pitcher he was holding.
October 31st, 2010 at 10:32 am
The beer/soda numbers make some sense. Most people who drink will have 4 or 5 or more beers. Who drinks that many sodas?
October 31st, 2010 at 10:33 am
To elaborate, the number of people drinking each may have been closer to equal, but the amount they each drank is likely very different.
October 31st, 2010 at 11:55 am
Sean @ #2
Absolutely.
Uribe was alot closer to the bag, when watching the play live I initially thought he would try and tag Cruz going back in.
The ten foot margin Kelly refers to in comment #10 is conservative.
October 31st, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Golden Sombrero 4 K's in 4 AB's:
I had not heard of that term either but after seeing it used on the Blog I thought of Mark Reynolds and his short 4 year career with high strikeout totals.
So decided to check his BB-Ref.com Game Logs from 2007 through 2010.
2007 1 time:
2008 2 times: 2 other games with 4 K's but more than 4 PA's
2009 2 times: 3 other games with 4 K's but more than 4 PA's
2010 3 times: 1 other game with 4 K's but more than 4 PA's
At least he never had a 5 K's game as @ 7 has pointed out.
October 31st, 2010 at 8:56 pm
"wouldn't be shocked to see Ross hit 30+ homers some year"
I like Cody Ross, but even though he's hit as many as 24 HRs in a season, I would be surprised if he ever hit 30 -- unless he were to play in Colorado, or time-travel to a period when there were a lot more LHPs than there are now.
Ross has massive power against lefties -- .595 SLG and an average of 41 HRs per 600 PAs. Against righties, though, he's a popgun -- .413 SLG, 16 HRs per 600 PAs.
Even in his biggest HR seasons (2008-09), Ross averaged less than 19 HRs per 600 AB vs. righty pitchers.
I can't cite evidence of this, but it seems to me that guys who have huge platoon splits for several years in the majors rarely change that pattern.
Combining that with other factors -- Ross turns 30 in December; HR rates are trending downward throughout MLB -- I just have a hard time seeing him as a 30-HR man.
But I still like him.
October 31st, 2010 at 9:08 pm
"Colby Lewis was not the first Colby in the major leagues."
What if this were a bar bet, and I said Colby Ward doesn't count because his full name is Robert Colby Ward? How would we settle it?
Also ... isn't it unusual for a guy with a common first name and an unusual middle name to choose to be known by his middle name? Discuss.
For the record, Colby Lewis's middle name is Preston.
P.S. If Colby Ward hadn't reached the majors, and we had the same bar bet, would you count "Colby Jack" Coombs, who won 59 regular-season games and went 4-0 in the WS for the 1910-11 world champion A's?
October 31st, 2010 at 9:22 pm
"I need to get a split finder done so we can quickly tell who plays better in losses than in wins."
Even though you probably meant that facetiously, finding such a player it would be very interesting. Given 2 players with identical stats, would you rather have one whose stats are better when your team wins, or when it loses? I can't think it out in the abstract.
In any case, I'm looking forward to that split finder!
November 1st, 2010 at 8:11 am
I've never understood why it would matter what where the series stands in deciding to use a pitcher on three days rest or not. The question is what gives you to the opportunity to win four of the next five games? Does that mean Lewis, Hunter, Lee, Wilson and Lewis or Lee, Wilson, Lewis and Lee?
This.
I found the punditry around this maddeningly ridiculous. It's not about whether he starts better for game four than the alternative, it's about which rotation gives you the best chance to win the next *four* games. How much does Lee add over your other options on three days rest *twice* in a row versus on four or five days rest *once*. If you don't think he's going to be good enough to throw both game 4 *and* game 7 on short rest, then using him on three days rest would simply be stupid, because you need to win all four games, not just this next one!
November 1st, 2010 at 8:21 pm
@7 Why am I not surprised to see Ryan Howard's name on this list? To be fair, that was a 16-inning game. Then again, Howard did not play the whole game because he got ejected for slamming something after the 5th one. I believe it was a situation in which the home plate umpire appealed to the 3rd base ump on a checked swing twice in the same at-bat, and both times, it was ruled that he swung. The second of those two times was strike three.