The Genius Maker #45

The offense did a poor job again…getting to be a broken record as guys just simply are not performing the way they should. We had some very tough ump calls, specifically Nick Swisher who had 3 very bad pitches called strikes on him, one to put him into a 2 strike hole, one where he struck out on a high changeup and one where the pitch actually barely touched the (inside part) of the opposite batters box. Yes, it was on the “left” side, on the over head angle, of the batters box line for a righty. If it touches the line it is clearly a ball but it crossed over and barely touched the other side. It would have been nice if Burnett got the benefit of a few calls or even calling some pitches that looked good.

In a 4-2 loss every play is important and the Yanks made too many mistakes.

AJ and martin did a very poor job early on throwing way too many fastballs. It was so obvious they should have been using the change and curve more. Almost all the damage was done on fastballs. Later in the game, the Yanks made the adjustment but the 4 runs were in already. Burnett struck out 3 guys in the 6th, but one of them got past Martin as he needed to block and smother the swinging strike. Burnett came back and struck out the next batter (breaking ball) to tie a major league record with 4 strikeouts in one inning.

BTW, I have an NCAA Division I record that is similar to that…meaning it is one that is shared by many. I went an entire year without committing an error. The only difference is that mine could never be broken and someone could strike out 5 batters. I would bet mine has a lot more people in the not so exclusive club though.

Cano, had an awful approach at the plate. It would be really nice if he could actually get to the plate and recognize a pitch as a ball and not swing rather than going up to the plate saying I will not swing at this pitch no matter what. Key spot early on, he swung at a first pitch change out of the strike zone…of course he did hit a line drive that doubled ARod off, but still we had the pitcher with a high pitch count and he was throwing balls…take a pitch or only swing at a pitch you want. Later he did the same thing swinging at a first pitch change out of the zone. Very frustrating.

Tex just didn’t see the ball well as he swung at about 6 changes and curves out of the strike zone.

The team missed some hittable pitches and simply didn’t get the job done…with some help from the umps. We also got a bad call at second base on throw out by Martin. Nunez scooped the ball but in doing so took his mitt up and then had to bring it back down to tag the runner. He did tag him in time and should have been called out as the throw beat him (which usually gives you the benefit of the doubt) and he did tag him before the runner touched the base (which usually means he should be called out). Very frustrating…

I was mentioning how poor I think Cervelli is and I decided to back my comment up with some stats. Defense – He receives the ball well and blocks balls well, but he is erratic with his throws. He has only thrown out 2 guys out of 21 (worst in baseball for any catcher that has thrown out anyone this year) and he has the 2nd lowest fielding % of catchers in baseball with 5 errors (3rd most) in limited play. The guy with lowest fielding % has thrown out 40% of SB attempts though. His .501 OPS is 69th for catchers…yeah, that is pretty horrible... For comparison, Jose Molina who left us because his offense was so bad, has a career OPS of .627. Martin has thrown out 30% of the runners as a comp with the same pitchers.

Back on the horse today with CC going!