The Rangers are dead last in percentage of pitches taken for strikes, at 24%.

Is there something negative about swinging at strikes? Is the implication that if you take borderline strikes, that you get better strikes later in the at bat? Maybe I’m missing something, and watching the games sure makes it seem like we should be more patient, but I’m having a hard time understanding how it would be better to take more pitches that are strikes – that puts the batter in pitchers counts and would seem to be a detriment.

So yeah, when you hear all the talk about the team wanting to be patient and work the counts and all that, understand, so far, it has all been b.s.

I have heard Michael say, paraphrasing, that patience isn’t the issue, and the team just needs more energy. He pretty much scoffed at the notion of patience at the plate and waiting for your pitch.

There is your team leader and Face of the Franchise.

It’d be nice if the team had a strong, leader like person who actually saw the value in working the count.

What are the Rangers’ slash stats when swinging at the first pitch? I’ve found it by player on a couple sites, but I haven’t seen it for the entire team.

Needs to be printed out and tacked up on the team bulletin board – and in the restroom – and in the shower – and in each players’ mailbox. Maybe include a headline note that reads “it isn’t everybody else, it’s everybody in here”.

This doesn’t describe a slump. A slump is when you do worse than usual, or expected, because of consecutive poor matchups or situational breaks of the game. This describes a general failure to compete at an acceptable level. That’s a hellova lot more mindset than just getting bad results from good effort.

Marlon Byrd

Every player goes up to the plate with a plan. “It’s a simple one, too,” Byrd said. “You get your pitch, you hit it. What we’re not doing is executing that. It’s not just about seeing pitches and staying patient. It’s about execution. If we hit our pitch, we’ll be successful. We’re not doing that.”

Indirect quote for Ian Kinsler

That isn’t likely to change any time soon. Kinsler stresses that patient at-bats don’t necessarily mean good at-bats,

Face of the Franchise

“We have a young lineup and guys are learning how to make adjustments,” Young said. “We play offense as a team, so we have to help each other get though this. As a team, we’re not going to panic.”

Young said it’s easy to say the team has to be more patient. He thinks that’s overanalyzing things.

“You want to be patient, but at the same time you don’t want to go up there with the bat on your shoulder and be facing 0 and 2 counts,” Young said. “All of this comes with experience. It’s just a matter of time.”

I think the clubhouse is actively stressing that their motto is see the ball, hit the ball, and that patience has nothing to do with the Rangers approach.

I don’t know how painful it is to watch, but it sure is painful to listen to.

All signs to me point to a team trying too hard, pressing.

Remember when Teixeira blew off a take sign from Wash? He is RW’s comments about that incident…

A lot of times we make three outs on four or five pitches… I just can’t see that late in the game when you’re four or five runs down. You’re at the point where the starter is out of the game, you’re in the middle (of the bullpen), these are the guys you want to get to. I’ve never asked him (Teixeira) to do it when the closer is in the game. But the middle guys, you want to make ‘em throw… He feels like he’s going to only get one pitch in that type of situation to do something with. He wants to take advantage of it. I’ve got no problem with that. But can you guarantee with that one pitch that you’re going to do something with it? I don’t think any ballplayer on earth can guarantee that. You might pop it up, miss it, roll over it, jam yourself. Then you make one out on one pitch. I want to see him get a pitchers’ strike right there.

I can’t find the link, but earlier this year I read Teixeira’s comments about the incident. He basically said he was taught to be aggressive and taking pitches like Washington suggested is not the way he was taught.

This is not Ron Washington’s offense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Washington

Ugh. Nice analysis though.

I’m sure this is on BR somewhere…

What % of his K’s are swinging vs looking.

Last game MY popped out on a 3-0 pitch way above the strike zone with Andrus on first when we were behind in the late innings. What is the plan there? Where is the ‘adjustment’ there? It was just lousy baseball.

1st once, 3rd twice, 4th 3 times and 5th once. Consistent swing and miss team-last year something was different-what was it? Milton all by his little lonesome could not have had that kind of effect.

if you replaced Davis’ numbers with the league average #’s for 1B.

the teams offensive struggles this season i think are a conflist between their two divergent offensive theories. [paraphrasing] rudy wants to be aggresive and hit the first pitch you like, warsh wants to actively work to a hittable count… if it comes down to it, who are we getting rid of? rudy or warsh?

Milton Bradley

Byrd is batting cleanup

Now I’m going to have nightmares.

KEWL!