Happy about the Giants sweeping the Dodgers last week. Was at two of the games; what nail biters. The second one was won in the bottom of the ninth, and the third was won in the bottom of the tenth. Now if only they can keep it up. It'd be horribly ironic if the Giants kept beating the Dodgers, but they retained their spots as top and bottom of the NL West.
Lincecum got roughed up last night. Hopefully the Giants can bounce back with Bumgarner on the mound tonight. The Giants may have an issue with outfielders when Hunter Pence comes back. All three of the guys who are out there now are playing well.
I think we're considered a medium market, but the fans have been consistently intensely supporting the team, with attendance near or above 3 million since 1998 and team shirts etc. worn everywhere you go, regardless of whether the season is going on. Add a broad radio network, and the St. Louis metro population is a bit misleading as far as determining the money to be drawn from the market. Beyond raw money, the organization during that span has had non-players who have kept finding ways to get into the postseason and then win there. Tony La Russa of course, but also Dave Duncan rejuvenating veteran pitchers and Walt Jocketty making impact trades. All three are gone now, but without them there wouldn't be success to build upon. What the size of the market will do, certainly, is to make it harder to continue the success than if we had Yankees money.
Tough week for the Orioles. Two postponements, tomorrow they play before an empty stadium, and then they'll lose three home games this weekend with a venue shift. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/1...-series-finale-played-wednesday-closed-public Not to make light of the riots in Baltimore, but this is certainly another example of how bad the situation is there at the moment. For your reading pleasure, two wiki entries about riots that took place inside the actual ball parks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night Gotta hand it to the marketing geniuses who came up with the ten cent beer promotion. There was just no way to know that the fans would be drunk off their asses and rowdy before the game ended. Both of these resulted in forfeits by the home team.
I remember going to Phoenix Giants games with a couple of buddies and our fathers back in the seventies. Suspiciously, most of those games were on 50 cent beer nights.
MAN the Reds lose 3 of 4 to the Giants (Who Kicked Their ASS). Same old story with them, NO clutch hits, pitching is just AWFUL!
The Giants' offense has started to click and the starting pitchers have (mostly) done well lately. We'll see how good the offense is when they play the hated Dodgers this week. It would be nice for the Giants to put some daylight between themselves and the other three teams in the NL West.
Reds ace (Cueto) loses to Royals as Reds go down 3 to 0... Jay Bruce batting .192... making 10 mil a year..
Batting averages are way down all over the place. There are a lot of guys being paid real well to not hit.
I think he said something to the umpire about the strike zone. He's an idiot. BTW they are losing AGAIN today, they'll get swept by the Indians. http://m.reds.mlb.com/news/article/126174040/reds-bryan-price-ejected-before-game-starts-on-satuday
So a broken bat flew into the stands at Fenway tonight, seriously injuring a fan, delaying the game. During the delay, the television announcers are talking. At some point you can start to hear the woman screaming in pain over the broadcast. It's definitely disturbing. What's also disturbing is the spin one of the announcers puts on her screaming: as she's coming through, loud and clear, the announcer says "we can tell you, she is conscious, which is good news."
My guess is that the commentator was not aware that the audio feed included her screaming. The shattered bat issue is a big problem, and is very much connected to the wood that is used. I may have this backward, but I believe that maple bats tend not to shatter, whereas ash does. But the players prefer ash for density/weight reasons. Such bats should be illegal. I hope it doesn't take a fan or player death for that to happen. Ump deaths are okay. Well, not really.
On a happier note from last night's Oakland/Boston game, Pat Venditte, switch-pitcher, made his major league debut (video at link), throwing two shutout innings, even facing a switch-hitter along the way. He's the first full-time switch-pitcher in the modern era of MLB.
Moving on to youth baseball, my son was involved in a 3-2 double play today. He fielded a ball hit to first, ran across the base, then threw home, where the catcher tagged out the runner from third. I didn't think I had ever seen that before, so I consulted google, and couldn't find a single reference to that play. Now I realize it can't be very common, because typically the runner on third isn't going to try for home on a hit like that, but still, so rare that google doesn't know about it?
NOPE you got it Backwards, MAPLE is more dangerous, ASH is a much better and harder wood (No Laughing). Here is the proof... http://m.mlb.com/news/article/36046676/ Consultants also try and educate players to stay away from low-density bats that have bigger barrels, big weight drops and no hallowed-up cup at the end, making them softer and weaker. Many of those traits are seen in maple bats and can lead to potentially dangerous situations.
Yeah, knew I might have the woods flipped. So we need to get rid of maple, then. Thinking some more about the 3-2. It was a mistake to send the runner from third, but I can see why they might have done it. The grounder was hard hit, and there was a good chance my boy might not have got to it. Still, they should have waited to be sure. If it had gone through, the runner on third could have then bolted for home and would have made it before the right fielder's throw. IMO! Anyway, it was an exciting play from a dad's perspective, especially since he had never played first before. Overall, he was on top of the position throughout the game. He has a great head for baseball, and loves playing, which is very satisfying for me to watch.
I heard an old 70's-80's pitcher on the radio (I think it was Steve Carlton but not sure) talk about MLB's new term "Quality Start" for pitchers. Apparently a quality start is any starting pitcher who goes at least 6 innings and gives up 3 runs (or less). He seemed to be upset about this, saying in my day if you didn't go at least 7 innings you'd be ashamed, and if I gave up 3 runs I'd get benched. But are players today BETTER than they were back then? Or are they the same?
The term "quality start" has been around for a while. It covers a whole lot of ground, from great starts down to a start that gives your team roughly a 50/50 chance of winning with normal offense and without requiring any long relief.
I just heard about it this year, Tom Seaver was in an interesting interview I read about this kinda thing. But are today's hitters BETTER than they were in say 20 to 35 years ago?(Just your opinion, no right or wrong answers, but as a fan what do you think)? Here is the interview (article) http://bleacherreport.com/articles/144276-why-cant-pitchers-throw-as-many-innings-as-they-used-to
Offensive output is actually way down in the last few years compared to any time in the last 20 years. I'm not sure about 20-35 years ago, but I know that the late 60s, when Steve Carlton broke into the game, was the time in the live-ball era when pitching was most dominant over hitting. More generally, I'd say that today's athletes are better than those of the past. Steroids aside, nutrition, training, and player valuation are much more advanced than they use to be. It's not so long ago that baseball players thought that weight training was detrimental to their skills and that taking a walk was frowned upon. Right now the balance is tilting in favor of pitching in baseball, but that's just ebb-and-flow between pitching and offense. Today's hitters are better than those that came before. Mike Trout would have a .600 OBP and slug 1.000 against the pitchers of Steve Carlton's era, pitching as they did, under current rules.
Pretty much what Liet said. Training and skills assessment are far more scientific now compared to then. While a modern hitter might not show any better on offensive stats, he is facing better pitching. Carleton, much as I like him, would probably be a bumber 2 or even 3 man in the rotation today (assuming all things being equal), whereas he was the pre-eminent ace in his day. He might have every bit the talent of a Kershaw, but lacks the physical development and tracking tools, etc. available to today's players.
Lefty was ahead of his time with the exercises and routines he did. He'd probably be ahead of his time today as well. Some of the other HOFers from that era probably wouldn't fare as well (Sutton, Niekro). But I think the very top guys (Seaver, Palmer, Carlton, Gibson, Koufax, Marichal) could pitch in any era.
