Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Genius Maker #53

I called my brother after the 1st inning as I was really impressed with Masterson. He had great movement and velocity throwing a 94-96 MPH fastball along with a 92/93 sinker and he also ran his fastball at 93-94. Great movement. His breaking ball is not very good, but those are some very good fastballs. As it turned out he stymied us and got some terrific defense by Asdrubal Cabrera at SS that ended our threat in the later part of the game. He made 2 very good plays and if he missed both, we probably would have won the game. He made both and they even got ARod out on a grounder up the middle that happened because of good positioning (playing him up the middle).

The real important part of this game was Hughes and how he looked. My opinion is that he was VERY fortunate he didn’t get knocked out before the 5th ended. He started throwing about 93 with his cutter at 91, but by the 5th inning he had nothing and we were lucky he left the bases loaded and only allowed 2 runs in 5 innings. He was throwing 91 with an 88-89 MPH cutter and didn’t have anything at that point. In 5 innings he allowed 6 hits, 2 walks and 2 HBP’s. he did work in a change which I thought was good and his curve was thrown a little harder than in the past at about 75 instead of low 70’s. He used to be able to throw fastballs and get them by guys, now they are teeing off on his fastball; he had ZERO swing and misses on his fastball and I believe only 2 all game on everything (my unofficial tally); that is not good. He will need to be a crafty righty. It is his first game back and he does have enough of a repertoire to be effective, but I was not encouraged. He really seems like a guy who needs to be able to reach 94 consistently to set everything else up better. I will chalk up the reduced velocity in the 5th as only a stamina item that will be corrected.

One other item on Hughes; he seemed much more upright to me rather than driving and reaching toward home like he used to. That may or may not be good, but I noticed a change in his delivery

Other comments:

Mitre let the game get out of hand with a terrible performance allowing 2 runs in one inning; they ended up being the game losing runs. Ayala allowed 2 hits in 2/3 of an inning, but they were very cheap grounders that found the hole each time. Logan did a good job, but then allowed a solo HR in his 2nd inning or work (he only record 3 outs).

Cano had one of those AB’s where you just want to grab him and shake him and say, get your head out of your … and see the ball and hit it! He took a strike and then after a very bad pitch that he couldn’t swing at, he swung at 4 straight pitches where the first was close, the 2nd was a clear ball he swung at as was the 3rd and then he swung at the last pitch that was not even close. He is frustrating because of his elite talent.

Michael Kay had a terrible day of announcing; he constantly had no ability to judge a ball off the bat. While he usually says a ball is driven or hit deep when it is nothing of the sort, when a ball was driven deep by Swisher, he didn’t say anything as he thought it was just a routine fly and it ended up being caught at the wall. He also made a few other comments that I just shook my head about. The only comment he made that was appropriate (well I am sure there were more) was when he said that the ump shouldn’t have given Hafner his base when Logan hit him as he didn’t move at all until after contact and it went off his elbow pad. I am of the belief that if you are going to wear body armor then you must make a legit effort to get out of the way, otherwise you could where a Kevlar arm pad and lean over the plate…just silly they allow that.

BTW, Am I the only one who has ever seen that called by the ump where they did not award a base on a HBP because the batter didn’t get out of the way?

1 comment:

  1. I recall a dramatic case from around 1967. Don Drysdale was pitching for the Dodgers against the Giants. IIRC the Dodgers were leading 1 to 0 in the 8th inning. Drysdale hadn't given up a hit, but he walked the bases full and then hit a batter with a fast ball. That should have tied up the game, but the ump ruled that the batter hadn't tried to get out of the way. The Giants' radio announcer thought that was a poor call, because Drysdale's fast ball doesn't give the batter much time to get out of the way,.

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