8-10
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 26, 2009 3:23 PM CDT
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PrintThat was a really irritating game.
Ian Kinsler's leadoff homer gets called foul.
Bases loaded situation, up 4, with an opportunity to put the game away, and the Rangers can't put Baltimore away.
Brandon McCarthy is getting squeezed, and then doesn't make pitches he needs to make, can't get more than 5, and lets the lead dwindle.
Jason Jennings serves up a gopher ball.
Just a frustrating game. This feels like it should have been a 7-3 or 7-4 win, instead of an 8-5 loss.
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haha
you two play nice
"...like some Russian priest fresh off a bottle of potato vodka and a box of cigars." -t ball
by rangerdanger on Apr 26, 2009 3:36 PM CDT up reply actions
nope
this blame lands solely on RW’s shoulders.
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 3:29 PM CDT up reply actions
what did washington do today?
get the ump mad at him? tell cruz to airmail it?
the preceding post was a great success.
I really hope my sarcasm meter is broken and this is a joke
Otherwise you are an idiot
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
joke
He seems to be the whipping boy of choice on this board
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 3:35 PM CDT up reply actions
I thought CJ had taken that spot over of late
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
CJ deserves it
Our closer last year cant have a 1-2-3 7th or 8th? Eddie deserves it too. The bullpen has been nothing short of awful
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 3:42 PM CDT up reply actions
Again
Aside from his Detroit outting hes been pretty good
And when hes been bad he hasn’t exactly gotten great defense behind him and hes been the victim of some shitty luck (bloop hits on good pitches for example)
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
you and I have
different definitions of pretty good. I don’t like the continuation of CJ’s habit of needing baserunners to get outs that he carried over from last season. We need more 1-2-3 innings from him before I consider saying he’s contributing to our bullpen success.
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 4:02 PM CDT up reply actions
In his first 7 appearances taking out the Detroit game he had a WHIP under 1.00
Would I like for him to be more MAriano Rivera-esque…..sure we all would love a bullpen full of shutdown guys. But since those are very rare I will take a guy who gets outs and holds the other team scoreless regardless of how pretty it looks.
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
Yeah
I love to see opponent’s top/middle of the order get more late inning at-bats because our guys can’t get the 7-8-9 hitters out in the 6th and 7th. Eventually get burned, regardless what WHIP is.
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 4:20 PM CDT up reply actions
And the 6th and 7th innings are CJ's fault?
These umps are a bunch of bow-legged uncle fuckers.-D.A.Tron
http://tinyurl.com/ranger-rage
Yeah I fail to see the correlation here
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
CJ just started
getting the ball in the 8th again and yes he is part of the bullpen.
Also a 1-2-3 inning ain’t that rare fellas.
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 4:30 PM CDT up reply actions
Hes been the 8th inning guy pretty much all year
Only twice has he pitched in the 7th inning
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
read between the lines/box score
I agree CJ started the season as the 8th inning guy and is it again. But do you think he pitched those middle innings out of necessity or out of need to prove he deserved it?
If its because necessity, I see your point. I don’t think it was.
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 4:43 PM CDT up reply actions
Prove he deserved it?
He was the closer last year and, when healthy, pretty damn good at it. We just found someone better in Frankie. He was the most logical choice for late game setup man.
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
He was the closer last year and, when healthy, pretty damn good at it.
No he wasn’t
by oc on Apr 26, 2009 7:44 PM CDT up reply actions
Seriously.
At what point was Wilson pretty damn good at closing?
Escaping with the save (lol) with the bases loaded when you came in with a three run lead isn’t good. It’s really bad, your team is just thankful they scored enough to still win.
To expand on that
In his 50 appearances last season, Wilson allowed at least one hitter to reach (via BB or H) 35 times.
In his 10 games this season, it’s happened 8 times.
For a guy who prides himself on being a late-inning shut-down artist, this is not working.
by oc on Apr 26, 2009 8:02 PM CDT up reply actions
C.J. Wilson has about 2 months of being a really good setup man in his career
The rest has been pretty meh.
McCarthy
did not look bad, but he really needs to get the ball DOWN. So many high, higher, highest fast-balls.
On the bright side, Murphy looked very good today.
He's going to throw high fastballs
That’s what he does. He throws a four-seamer.
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 26, 2009 3:29 PM CDT up reply actions
4 seam fastball
Using 4 seams makes the ball move less, but why is it necessarily a high zone pitch exclusively?
Link me up, show me the way, I’m trying to understand McCarthy’s approach. All I see are the occasional mistakes that look like B-P pitches. His fastball seems to move less than Rick Helling’s.
I see it the same way
AJM always takes issue with anyone pointing out that McCarthy just doesn’t have much to work with as far as stuff. On the bright side, his FB is better than the last couple years.
If you take the worst pitching staff in baseball, then add Kris Benson and Jason Jennings, what do you have???
surprise!!! You have the worst pitching staff in baseball, that's what.
I wasn't defending him
I was saying that expecting him to throw down in the zone more would be like expecting Matt Harrison to throw more high fastballs. It just isn’t something that is part of his repertoire and that he’s going to have success doing, I don’t think.
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 26, 2009 3:58 PM CDT up reply actions
Maybe I should rephrase
He’s going to work up in the zone. I think expecting him to start working lower in the zone is going to result in him throwing a lot more pitches, because he’s going to miss more often throwing low, and have more walks.
I think the Helling comparison is apt. He’s going to throw high fastballs, because that’s the way he works and has to do to throw strikes. If he’s throwing all three pitches for strikes, he can throw more high fastballs because he’s keeping hitters off balance. But he’s going to end up giving up homers, much like Helling, as well.
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 26, 2009 3:58 PM CDT up reply actions
Not totally disagreeing
But Gameday Tracker showed that alot of his low pitches should have been called for strikes today. Ed Rapuano and Joe West are just Douchebags
Helling
Your argument makes sense.
Just for grins, I looked up Helling’s career HR’s to Innings Pitched and calculated 247/1,526 = 16%.
So far, McCarthy’s career is almost identical. 48/297 = 16%
Like Lewin said today
At least when McCarthy gives up the long ball its a solo blast. To me it says that McCarthy is more able to keep the ball down out of the stretch and it gets up more out of the windup. Im sure there has to be a study on it but thats just my guess
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
reply
I hope it stays that way. I noticed that he pitched 506 innings in the minors and gave up 46 HR’s. (In the MLB, he’s 48/297).
And this was encouraging, when he pitched 102 innings in 2007, he only gave up 9 HR’s. So, maybe he can find the groove. But, in two BPIA outings this year, he’s given up 4 HR’s.
his 2007 hr rate was fluky
Most sabr types will tell you that number of hr allowed is a function of the number of fly balls allowed. Over time the pct of fly balls that are hr usually regresses to about 10-11%. In 2007 McCarthy’s hr/fb was only 5.6%.
I believe that the only way McCarthy is going to give up less hr is for him to get more groundouts and/or strikeouts.
If you take the worst pitching staff in baseball, then add Kris Benson and Jason Jennings, what do you have???
surprise!!! You have the worst pitching staff in baseball, that's what.
2007
Which probably won’t happen.
So, relatively, is 16% high? Very high? How would you characterize that?
If you need to point me to a link, that would be fine too.
McCarthy is a flyball pitcher
He’s going to give up home runs.
To be successful, he’s going to have to walk fewer batters than he has this season, or strike out more. Or, preferably, both.
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 26, 2009 4:58 PM CDT up reply actions
16% is very high, that will come down
I’ll look for a link on the hr/fb correlation.
If you take the worst pitching staff in baseball, then add Kris Benson and Jason Jennings, what do you have???
surprise!!! You have the worst pitching staff in baseball, that's what.
A HR/FB rate of 16% is pretty outrageously high.
FanGraphs has this stuff. Among pitchers with 150 innings pitched, only Brandon Backe had at least 16% of his fly balls evacuate the park.
In 2005 and 2006, the Rangers, both years, allowed 10.6% of their fly balls to leave the park. Last year it was 11.8%, so unless there’s a return to the outrageousness of the early decade, something around 11% is about what we should expect our pitchers to regress towards.
Also, according to baseball reference, HR/FB league average has been 8.1% over McCarthy’s career.
Yep
Where McCarthy ran into trouble was none of his breaking stuff was being called strikes (even though some of it was) which made it impossible for the Os hitters to not sit on fastballs. Watching him have to go full count on so many guys because the ump doesn’t know what the strike zone is was the most annoying thing
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
Most people probably won't agree, but...
I would love to see balls and strikes called with technology. I hate that umpires can influence games by creating their own strike zone or giving certain pitches to veteran pitchers or squeezing a player they don’t like or just plain sucking.
You're right,
I don’t agree.
"...like some Russian priest fresh off a bottle of potato vodka and a box of cigars." -t ball
by rangerdanger on Apr 26, 2009 3:43 PM CDT up reply actions
I like the fact that umpires are judged against technology
but I’d keep them.
That's why they call them business sox
this is wnhat i think too
Scout: He was a first-round pick right? Got a huge bonus?
KG: Oh yeah.
Scout: Well, he spent a lot of it on milkshakes.
by knockoutking on Apr 26, 2009 4:06 PM CDT up reply actions
I want to see that Japanese girl robot
made into an umpire.
G G G E-flat_______ F F F D__________....
fuck my life
I’m looking back at Gameday to see the walks McCarthy had. If I ever see this umpire in person, he’s getting kicked in the nuts.
By 2028, Mark Teixeira will be in the HOF.
-The Outlaw
if i see any of these umpires in person
especially Joe West, I will take a machete and chope them into bits…. Its sick how many missed calls there have been
Chris (NJ): I am personally offended at how you ranked a prospect from my favorite team, even though I do not know said prospect, nor have I ever seen him play. In my opinion you only have your job because, like your employers, you have an unholy bias towards my favorite team’s rival. Also, you’re short.
Keith Law: You’re right. I am short.
umpires in this series
shitty….that’s all i can say
to OC on bullpen from last string:
Its sad that front office makes the Holland move 6 days ago and another move is needed again
RISP
The Rangers leave a bunch of them each game….seems like the team is competition against each other who can hit the most home runs.
we should have
put it away in the 5th
Chris (NJ): I am personally offended at how you ranked a prospect from my favorite team, even though I do not know said prospect, nor have I ever seen him play. In my opinion you only have your job because, like your employers, you have an unholy bias towards my favorite team’s rival. Also, you’re short.
Keith Law: You’re right. I am short.
Dump List
Eddie Guardado for Beau Vaughn or Thomas Diamond or even N. Feliz
Just tired of seeing Eddie go out in pressure lefty-lefty situations and blows it….
Let some of the youngsters up and learn on the job…the learning curve will be high but will pay off later this summer and next year!!!!!!
Well...
I was with him through Dump List Eddie Guardado.
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."-Socrates
FWIW, since I am bitter right now
B-Mac did a great job of pitching low and hitting the corners.
By 2028, Mark Teixeira will be in the HOF.
-The Outlaw
I was listening to the radio
cause TW and FSN suck but thats pretty damning
by corbsclinton on Apr 26, 2009 3:44 PM CDT up reply actions
Damn.
¡Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!
by inactive lsb user on Apr 26, 2009 3:46 PM CDT up reply actions
That middle screenshot in particular...
…is disgusting. You could argue that three of those four balls should be strikes.
I understand that umpiring is hard work and that these guys have to make snap judgments on an imaginary area of the plate, but I’m really starting to fall into the “let’s get rid of umpires calling balls/strikes altogether” camp.
That's bullshit.
Rapuano was on the take…he had money on the game. That’s the only logical explanation for his pathetic “umpiring” display today.
Sigh, I really hate bitching about the umps, and those who do it. But today’s game put me over the top.
"Back on the scene, with a gangsta lean" RW
"you gonna lose your horse. seriously." FX2
Yes we can! November 04, 2008
That's the problem. I don't think I'd do any better a job than umps.
It’s that I don’t care if they do as well as they can, that’s not good enough. Baseball should be trying to make balls and strikes as consistent as possible, and if humans can’t do that alone. . .
hr/fb pct
could you help me out and provide a link that discusses hr/fb percentages for the discussion between 3bagger and myself. I read a lot of stuff about that quite a while back – mostly from Ron Shandler, but I don’t frequent the sabr sites and I’m not sure where to find those type articles.
If you take the worst pitching staff in baseball, then add Kris Benson and Jason Jennings, what do you have???
surprise!!! You have the worst pitching staff in baseball, that's what.
Yeah, that's what I meant.
If MLB umpires are the best people in the world at calling balls and strikes, then we’ve reached a point where video cameras and computers need to handle this.
It seems like every single day
.500 is right there for the taking. 1 game, 2 games away. But we can never just get there. It’s like a mirage in the sweltering summer heat of a forsaken desert.
She say she are the manager.
We just will do it like last year
No super long winning streaks but win 2 out of 3 every series and after a month or so we will look back and be a few games over .500
Bryan Smith (12:17:17 PM PT): Justin Smoak and Josh Hamilton. The AL West might just have found their Bash Brothers, v. 2.0.
what gopher pitch did Jennings give up
the only one I can remember would have been the pitch that Roberts hit out, and at that point we were up 5-2? If I remember right the pitch Pac-Man hit out was a pretty good pitch
JJ
was actually all right, the orioles just managed to get to him. Of course Cruz’s f up didnt help
Chris (NJ): I am personally offended at how you ranked a prospect from my favorite team, even though I do not know said prospect, nor have I ever seen him play. In my opinion you only have your job because, like your employers, you have an unholy bias towards my favorite team’s rival. Also, you’re short.
Keith Law: You’re right. I am short.
So bottom line
I should be glad I missed this game, huh.
I must get out of the plane, go to a nearby farmhouse - have a Dr Pepper - and call the police.
Only because
the frustration of watching it live is worse than the frustration of knowing the results after the fact.
I keep feeling that B-Mac
is going to have one of those starts soon where he commands his pitches, throws most of them in the right places, gets good strike calls and doesn’t go too deep into the count. In other words, a very good start. So far most of the stuff he’s produced has been a mixed bag.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
1st comment of the game recap on DMN blog...
Can we PLEASE get rid of Jennings??!?!?
I know he’s been OK this year, but it sickens me that we let Galarraga go in order to keep Jennings who is nothing more than a re-tread journeyman.
He’s just not worth all the trouble.
What can you say
to someone who would write something like this.
By 2028, Mark Teixeira will be in the HOF.
-The Outlaw
You tell him
to eat a cock.
"Hustle doesn't cost a dime and it looks good." - Pete Rose as Channeled by Marcus Lemon
And in related news,
The Astros are thinking about dumping Oswalt because that Santana guy has been pretty good.
"I saw your act, just didn't make it for me. Just a lot of fluff."
Smoak for Oswalt?
These umps are a bunch of bow-legged uncle fuckers.-D.A.Tron
http://tinyurl.com/ranger-rage
33 years old scares me.
29, 30?- In a heartbeat.
Although, I’m not familiar w/ his contract situation, which scares me regarding Hicks for other needs.
"I saw your act, just didn't make it for me. Just a lot of fluff."
I was pointing out...
…that the Astros have no use for Smoak.
And they aren’t trading Oswalt to the Rangers anyway, which makes it moot, but if they were, they wouldn’t be targeting Smoak.
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 26, 2009 11:10 PM CDT up reply actions
Ahhh. Got ya.
I feel the breeze going over my head. I guess the thought of Berkman instead of Blalock in the 4 hole piqued my interest in another direction.
"I saw your act, just didn't make it for me. Just a lot of fluff."
About Kinsler's alleged HR
I was on the road yesterday and didn’t hear or see the game. Was Kinsler’s leadoff HR legit or did the umps just blow it?
II Cor. 4:17-18
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