Monday a.m. things
by Adam J. Morris on Sep 8, 2008 9:01 AM CDT
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Print18 games left -- 9 at home, 9 on the road.
Rough outing for Brandon McCarthy, after three pretty good starts. McCarthy wasn't terrible, but he didn't have great command, and the BoSox made him pay. McCarthy says he didn't have a solid day, stuff-wise, and needs to do a better job in those situations.
On the plus side, Josh Hamilton is hitting better, after a rough August.
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18 games left
I have tickets for most of the last home games. I am not looking forward to sitting there and watching this team fold its tent. If Wash is not fired at the end of the season, I am not sure I can support this team any longer.
¡yo soy Horsedooty!
I soloed in the Mile High Club!
buh-bye
"Oh well, McCain is pretty communist anyway,... we can be 70% communist with McCain,"-Sharky
"I just hope enough dumb oversexed over self-esteemed American public educated female liberals (yeah, you know the type) vote for a woman because she has a vagina, to swing some things."- Sharky.
"JD is a great GM if you ignore the giving away pitching and handing out horrible contract stuff."-Tricer
Yep...
If you cheer for a team based off who the manager is perhaps you are already done.
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."-Socrates
yep
I don’t cheer for the team based on who the manager is but I would cheer for a team that is making an effort to put a team on the field that plays at the major league level. 36 or so of the38 years the Texas Rangers have failed to to that. Now Ron Washington is suppose to be a great teacher of defense and yet this team leads the league in errors. What about his first two years in a row where the Texas Rangers are pitiful in the first month of the season. Is that not the responsibility of the manager and his staff to have the players ready to play at a high level on opening day? Then he has constantly misused the bull pen and it has been documented here on LSB almost nightly. Weren’t we told that this year would be the re-building year and we would contend in ‘09? Now they have pushed the contending year to ’10. I think they are bullshitting us again. I thought they were bull shitting us when they announced Washington had been selected by “the boy wonder” and that Hicks had hired him. I will say that the team has made some progress with the call up of Chris Davis and Boggs and Murphy. The starting pitchers have been abysmal and when you have as many on the DL as the Rangers, you do have to call up someone to run out there if your SP is not up to it and cannot stay healthy. Washington is the operations manager and he is responsible for the things that happen on the field. I don’t see him doing much to keep us in the game. He seems tone deaf to the pitching and seems to go to the bull pen one or two batters to late. I don’t know how many games he has cost us but his use of Jamie Wright and Luis Mendoza certainly doesn inspire confidence in any one I know. He has had his chance and now he needs to go back to New Orleans and stay there.
¡yo soy Horsedooty!
I soloed in the Mile High Club!
What did you expect this year?
The team is a few games under .500 and it’s easy to see that they have improved from last year. You can’t expect a team to go from last to first in one year.
Depending on how JD does this winter with moving some of the extra parts we have at catcher, the OF, and the depth in the minors this team will contend next year. He needs to turn that into some pitching though which is easier said than done.
I’m sure you have been a fan for a long time but that doesn’t have shit to do wit the current management and building of this team. I feel that this team is headed in the right direction and people need to accept the progress that has been made. There is more to be done but you are never going to get there by firing your GM and manager every 3 years. Let this thing run its course and see where it takes us. It can’t be worse than the last 9 years.
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."-Socrates
OT: Trey Hillman
Via BTIA, here’s a link to Joe Posnanski talking about the disappointment Hillman has been.
This is not a well-managed baseball team.
And everyone seems to know it, especially the players. It should be said up front that Major League Baseball players often grumble about their manager. But multiple sources who are around the club every day say that these Royals openly mock him. A new Trey Hillman joke is almost a daily occurrence, and it’s hard for a manager to recover from being a clubhouse punchline.
Others have complained too — about bullpen use, about Hillman’s hands-on approach, about quirky game decisions, about his defensiveness. A couple of weeks ago, Hillman pulled starter Gil Meche, even though he had retired 17 batters in a row and had only thrown 104 pitches. The bullpen blew the game, and the move baffled people in and out of uniform. Hillman, though, refused to even acknowledge that it was a questionable decision.
"I don’t understand why there would be second-guessing," he said after the game. "It’s a no-brainer for me."
players still talk about that day in spring training when, immediately after a game in which the Royals ran the bases sloppily, Hillman called an impromptu team meeting at home plate and undressed the players in public while fans filed out. Royals general manager Dayton Moore loved the teaching moment, and so did many fans — send those spoiled players a message! — but several Royals thought it was a Mickey Mouse move, pointlessly disrespectful, and the same meeting would have carried a stronger message behind closed doors, without the public embarrassment.
Doesn’t make me glad they hired Wash instead, but I guess it could be worse.
http://www.kansascity.com/180/story/785522.html
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Wow, quotes 1 and 3 are startling
I will say, the whole pitch count thing can’t work both ways, either Dusty is right to throw his guys 130 pitches every time or Hillman is right to protect his guy. You can’t have it both ways. But the other two, wow.
Offense doesn't doubt me, but my first and primemost thing is defense and punt return and kickoff return
by Brett Perryman on Sep 8, 2008 11:46 AM CDT up reply actions
quote 2 context
Posnanski was also talking in general about Hillman’s defensiveness and lack of communication. There’s another quote about Gobble struggling and Hillman leaving him in, contrasting with taking Meche out when he was throwing well, and about not communicating with Meche about having Greinke starting the first game after the ASB.
Very odd, all taken together. Perhaps his style just works better with the Japanese culture, where players don’t expect to have everything explained to them.
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Hillman
He’s the guy I really wanted them to hire originally. I do think the Rangers made the right decision to hire Wash. Even though it’s an unpopular opinion on here, I would like him to start next season and given more than a month to succeed. A constant change in managers, pitching coaches, and philosophies is not a good thing for the success of any team.
McCarthy
has looked progressively worse in each of his starts. I certainly don’t feel comfortable thinking that he will be a contributing member of the rotation next year.
"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve
Don't you
Think you’re starting off with a rather negative bias, though?
I think he’s been better than he was yesterday, but I haven’t seen him look progressively “worse”.
by brettgardner on Sep 8, 2008 11:24 AM CDT up reply actions
no inherent bias
His first start was his best. The start before this one was McCarthy’s poorest to date. Last night was worse than that one. That is progressively worse, by definition. Both his mechanics, and the statistical results appear to be worse each time he has taken the ball.
"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve
If you watched that game
they were hitting ropes all over the OF, just happened to be right at the fielders. AJM even mentioned as much in his write up.
"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve
Guess
It depends on what you mean by “best”.
by brettgardner on Sep 8, 2008 11:31 AM CDT up reply actions
I don't remember as many ropes
hit against him in the first two starts, and I remember his delivery being more aggressive, with a longer stride the first couple games back. Right now, his delivery looks just like it did last year – out of whack. The way he strides looks like he just raises his leg and lands on his tippy-toes like he is trying to walk on ice or something, with his follow through resembling more of a twisting, convoluted fall down the mound rather than an athletic follow thru.
I don’t fancy myself a pitching mechanics expert, but at the same time, I’m surprised anyone that follows the team regularly doesn’t notice how his delivery has morphed back into the same one he used last year.
"So he tore it up in AA. Yippee. ...Max Ramirez be damned." - bigsteve
it's only natural
for him to revert back to what he had been doing under the stress of a game. making a significant change requires a lot of bullpen work, video taping, etc. one side session with nolan isn’t gonna cure him of anything.
Considering he hasn't pitched
most of the year. I think he’s been fine. Not dominant, but he’s gotten through 5-6 innings for the most part and kept us in the game most of the time. I think he still needs to build up arm strength and would like to see what he’s got with a full spring training under his belt.
Nippert=Cy Young
From what I saw....
…his third start looked the best to me, in terms of his command and pitches.
by Adam J. Morris on Sep 8, 2008 12:00 PM CDT up reply actions
Not progressively worse
I don’t think any of his starts have been impressive. Encouraging, but not impressive. I think looking for any kind of trend at this early point is pretty useless. And making a change in delivery is going to take time — even if successful, which is not a guarantee, of course. At the time of the infamous bullpen session I predicted he’d have these ups and downs and fans would ride the roller coaster with him. So far, though, I haven’t seen a real up or down in his pitching. I don’t think he was that different yesterday.
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Stride...
looked very short yesterday. Just not sure what to make of him yet. His velocity is still in the high 80’s most of the time as well. I do like what I have seen from his offspeed stuff so far though.
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."-Socrates
McCarthy
lost to a very good hitting team yesterday, a team with smart, patient, and dangerous hitters all the way through the lineup, and a team that has terrorized the Rangers all year. Feldman has many fans around here, but remember how he faired against this same Boston team (10 runs in the first inning).
I have been very encouraged by the progress both McCarthy and Harrison have made, and their starts against Boston were no different. If Mendoza doesn’t come in and allow the two inherited runners to score, it looks much better in the box score. I would love to see McCarthy regain some velocity over the offseason to offset that dirty changeup and decent curve (when he can spot it), but even if he doesn’t, I think he can deliver a sub-4.50 ERA over the course of a full season.
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