In 2011, Strasburg threw first-pitch strikes 71.6 percent of the time, the highest in baseball. He carried over his “challenge” mentality from college and put fear of shame into hitters. Last year, he threw 62.3 percent, 34th among starters. Wednesday, he was down to 56.2 for the season, an awful 84th among 107 starters.
...
Until he gets his 0-0 phobia fixed, until he reverses the balance of terror between him and hitters, getting back to the level of confidence he showed when he arrived ...
I haven’t seen a Victor mail it in this bad since Victor Mature in “Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood”.
With two outs in the bottom of the third in Detroit, Tigers infielder Jhonny Peralta sent a line drive single to right field, scoring Prince Fielder from third. Victor Martinez—who had previously doubled—attempted to score from second on the play.
The problem here was three-fold:
1. Martinez was already slow.
2. He’s a season removed from having his ACL (knee) repaired.
3. Royals ...
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the United States Mint announced today the names of the judges who will help choose the image for the obverse (heads side) of the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin. The judges are all Hall of Famers and represent more than half of the nine positions on the diamond: Joe Morgan (second baseman, elected 1990); Brooks Robinson (third baseman, elected 1983); Ozzie Smith (shortstop, elected 2002); Don ...
The 2011 Oakland A’s offense was, in a word, inept. As a team, the Athletics hit .244/.311/.369. They finished 20th in runs scored and 24th in home runs. Just one player on the entire roster hit higher than .265 that season: Jemile Weeks, the team’s primary second baseman, who managed just two homers all year. On the final day of the 2011 season, with the A’s out of contention, the Mariners let Oakland hitters stand on the outfield grass for all their at-bats; not a single player reached the ...
Carl Crawford admits he began to have doubts – about ever hitting .300 again, ever smiling again, maybe even playing baseball much longer.
“I don’t think I smiled in two years,” the Dodgers outfielder tells USA TODAY Sports of his time on a troubled team in Boston.
“I was just frowning, I started growing grey hairs on my face from the stress and everything for two years straight,” he says, stroking the stubble on his chin and grinning—as much about how ...
New York Mets Third Baseman David Wright has been selected as Major League Baseball’s official spokesperson for T-Mobile® All-Star FanFest, the world’s largest interactive baseball fan event, to be held at the Jacob K. Javits Center from Friday, July 12 through Tuesday, July 16. Wright joins a distinguished list of MLB stars who have served in this role including Torii Hunter, Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and Justin Upton. In addition, Mets ...
Maybe Frenchy can hook up Burnett with some Delta miles.
Go back to last October and the number reaches 20, making general manager Alex Anthopoulos the undisputed heavyweight champion of the baseball world in bottom-feeding.
“Alex claims everybody,” Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette said with a hearty laugh…..
While clever from a management perspective, it can be trying for players caught in the cycle, like right-hander Alex Burnett.
I, too, am pulled in by black-and-white sports applications of deep-dive analytics. What’s not to like about the idea that any small-market business could have as much insight and reach as the massive enterprise competition? (Although, truthfully, as a fan of the lowly Buffalo Bills, another recent analytic convert, I’d consider a pact with the netherworld at this point to get my team into a meaningful late-season game.)
Quick: name the shortstop who led the major leagues in home runs last year. I’ll give you a hint: he also led in OPS+, posted an above-average defensive season per Ultimate Zone Rating, and held down the position for the team with the National League’s best record. And he’s only 27, suggesting his best days are just ahead of him.
Hopefully, you know I’m referring to Ian Desmond, shortstop for the Washington Nationals. But while serious baseball fans have heard of ...
Manager McGraw Thursday claimed a world’s record for Christy Mathewson. Big Six pitched but 67 balls in beating Philadelphia Wednesday.
...
Using but 67 pitched balls, Mathewson threw an average of a fraction over two balls to each man.
That’s nothing. Rick Porcello had a 47-pitch start this past Saturday.
I didn’t mention Rod Allen’s recent riff of “you don’t need range to have a good defense.”...because my Glasgow Coma Scale numbers hadn’t come in yet.
The Tigers’ few overall weaknesses — an unimpressive bench, shaky infield defense on the right side — shouldn’t be fatal over the course of a long season. But in the first month of this season, the bullpen has been a shambles. And that is a major dilemma.
I’ll pass over the glaring lack of infield range (particularly the ...
Plus…Boof Bonser is third on his Similarity Score. (Posting Rule #1: Never pass on a Boof Bonser mention)
Some people may have forgotten, but Arrieta’s baptism in baseball was one by fire. He has pitched the O’s home opener three years in a row—not so much because he deserved it, but because he was the best option. Before making his big league debut in 2010, he pitched 336.2 innings in the minor leagues, which was enough to get his feet wet, but hardly enough to master his craft.
After tonight’s 2-0 loss to the Cardinals, the Nats have now lost eight of their last 11 games, and Johnson is starting to get fed up with what he’s seeing.
“I’m usually pretty patient, but I’m getting to my rope’s end,” Johnson said. “The effort’s there, but we’re just not getting it done. We’ve got the players who can get it done, we’re just not getting it done. It’s time to get a little mad.
Mr. Choo? Did I stumble onto Spankwire.com by mistake or something?
DUSTY BAKER WAS the president of the Shin-Soo Choo Admiration Soceity even before the Korean-born outfielder put on a Cincinnati Reds uniform.
And now that he wears a Reds uniform Baker has added to that admiration. He calls him Mr. Choo.
“I knew Mr. Choo could play,” said Baker. “I coveted Mr. Choo when he played for Cleveland and he was killing us. He is a ballplayer and the environment here is conducive to most ...
Six months after the Tigers bid farewell to Jose Valverde, they welcomed him back Tuesday, signing him to a one-year Major League contract. If they take a lead into the ninth inning Wednesday night, he’ll try to close out a win.
It’s a scenario that seemed impossible entering Spring Training, and seemed improbable even after the Tigers signed Valverde to a minor-league contract on April 4. After Valverde pitched three times for Class A Lakeland the past four days, however, the Tigers were ...
Two games start at 12:35 today! Strasburg pitches today for the first time since his showdown with Harvey! Harvey pitches today for the first time since his showdown with Strasburg! Darvish and Lester are pitching today too! Oh, and… uh… it’ll probably rain or snow somewhere… since that happens sometimes.
And remember Rule #1 of Omnichatter: Nobody cares about your fantasy team.
Not bad for a 40 year old to hit .322/.365/.525, and that he’s crushing attendance records harder than those balls is even more amazing, the league is well on pace to shatter just about every single attendance record in the leagues’ history, most of it set in the leagues’ formulative years.
So yeah, all hail Manny, going to see him this Saturday.
Jayson Werth of the Washington Nationals swings at a 3-and-0 pitch and when he grounds into a double play he invites howls of scorn about how could he have done such a dumb thing. Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds is hailed as an on-base machine because he takes more walks than anybody, though he has yet to get an extra-base hit with a runner on base and he lets more strikes go by with each passing year.
Welcome to the state of the art in hitting these ...
There is no scientific way to pick an all-underrated team. Well, I suppose there is some formula we could come up, but that would be about as much fun as watching Brendan Ryan take batting practice.
RF—Norichika Aoki, Brewers
He came over from Japan last year and quietly hit .288/.355/433, lashed out 51 extra-base his, stole 30 bases and played a very good right field. He also made appearances as Bernie Brewer and at least four times raced as ...
Characterizing organized baseball as “the most audacious and autocratic trust in the country,” Representative Gallagher of Illinois today introduced a resolution for an exhaustive inquiry into the operations of the National Commission…and [which] would also direct the attorney general to investigate the baseball contract system with a view to instituting prosecutions for violation of the Sherman anti-trust law.
Colby Rasmus is amazing. Still just 26, and an elite-level talent, Rasmus is presently slugging .536. He’s a center fielder who clubs like a DH, and his slugging percentage is beating those of Albert Pujols and Anthony Rizzo. Rasmus owns a 135 wRC+, which was Joe Morgan‘s career wRC+. It’s a better wRC+ than those being posted by Carlos Beltran, Andrew McCutchen, and Michael Morse. Rasmus is finally coming into his own, and he’s looking like the superstar the ...
BABIP. There I said it. Plus some Dylan, Pete Palmer freak show biz…
with BABIP steadily declining, is this years .259, a drop off of 20+, points just random or do you expect it to climb back up into the .270-.280 range?
1) The use of the term “BABIP” is lazy and annoying to the readers, and I would prefer that you not use it.
2) I wasn’t aware that Batting Averages on Balls in Play HAD dropped. Have they dropped over a period of years, or just down this year?
Rangers fans still stung by Josh Hamilton’s off-season jab at Dallas-Fort Worth not being a “baseball town” might have been tickled to see a sparse crowd on hand at the start of the Rangers-Angels game in Anaheim on Monday.
SportsDay’s Evan Grant posted a Vine from the press box showing a sparsely populated Angels Stadium as the home team took the field. The lower bowl seemed about half full, while the upper deck was mostly empty.
Official attendance for the game was announced at 36,192.
Which probably explains the vermiformy looking .121/.261/.259.
Braves right fielder Jason Heyward underwent an appendectomy Monday night at a Denver hospital, the team announced just before 1 a.m. Eastern time.
Recovery for appendix surgery is typically 2-3 weeks for baseball players, although Matt Halladay of the Cardinals and Adam Dunn of the White Sox returned from laparascopic emergency appendectomies in about one week in 2011. Neither went on the 15-day disabled list, but it’s more ...
As an autism awareness advocate and parent of a child on the spectrum, Garfinkel’s comments struck a nerve. Being a caregiver to one with autism is hard enough. Having an exec make the comment, and having the season-ticket holders laugh was rubbing salt in the wound. “Rain Man,” of course, was an autistic savant. April is International Autism Awareness month. And the day before the brawl was Autism Awareness day at PETCO Park. It added up, and the seething turned into a ...
The OMNICHATTER, in ALL CAPS.
Anyway, today is filled with questions, but the biggest one is: Will either the Twins or Rockies actually be able to play for a change?
At the heart of the Washington Nationals’ 2-0 loss to the New York Mets on Sunday was one at-bat that left Jayson Werth sitting in front of his locker staring into the abyss.
With runners on first and second and no outs, and left-hander Scott Rice having thrown six straight balls—and seven balls in his last eight pitches—Werth swung at a 3-0 pitch and ground into a double play. It squashed the Nationals’ best scoring chance, though hardly their only one, and left him dejected. [...]
Major League Baseball is investigating whether a spokeswoman for Robinson Cano’s charitable foundation fostered a relationship between the New York Yankees second baseman and a South Florida clinic that allegedly distributed performance-enhancing drugs to baseball players, ESPN reported.
Sonia Cruz, who works for Cano’s RC24 foundation, is listed on documents from the Biogenesis clinic obtained by ESPN. She denied being a client of the clinic, but documents list her as owing money - $300 in ...
