Wednesday, May 18, 2005
WOW
Thrilling 2-1 win over Cleveland today ... I was basically raging about our Lads from the bottom of the first yesterday until the top of the ninth today, but they pulled it out, thanks to Adam Kennedy, Legs Figgins, and Darin Erstad (who I will not make fun of for one week) getting all clutch on us. Bengie made the right kind of out, and we get the win.
Adam Kennedy has one of the weirdest lines you'll see for awhile (this is coming into today's game):
Okay,JohanErvin Santana:
Good things: His fastball is fast. He seemed to have reasonable control of his slider. He was getting hitters out with his pitches, hitting corners with his fastball and slider. He's not afraid to come inside, and he jammed a few guys into popups and weak grounders.
Bad things: Falling behind in the count, followed by a fastball down the middle. He needed to establish the slider earlier, probably. He basically only has those two pitchers; Rex identified one of his pitches as a change, but it was the same speed as his nominal slider and moved the same way, so take that for what it's worth. Also, he likes to go high in the strike zone, and seemingly went intentionally high and in with the slider to jam a guy or two. When it works, perfect, when it doesn't: bam!
I think the kid needs to develop a third pitch before he can stick in a major league rotation. And he definitely needs to have better alternatives on 2-0 than fastballs down the pipe. Of course, even terrific major league starters have bad starts and miss their spots; but even so I think it's obvious that the kid has a lot of honing to do. He's young; he has time. I'm not worried.
Thrilling 2-1 win over Cleveland today ... I was basically raging about our Lads from the bottom of the first yesterday until the top of the ninth today, but they pulled it out, thanks to Adam Kennedy, Legs Figgins, and Darin Erstad (who I will not make fun of for one week) getting all clutch on us. Bengie made the right kind of out, and we get the win.
Career vs LHPWhile we're at it, Bengie is the slowest human alive, and has a 1.11 career groundball-to-flyball ratio; DaVanon's is 1.04. But it worked, so we move on.
Player AB AVG OBP SLG
Molina 600 260 299 430
DaVanon 111 252 352 405
Adam Kennedy has one of the weirdest lines you'll see for awhile (this is coming into today's game):
AB H 2B 3B HR BB HBP P/PAThat last column is pitches per plate appearances ... 4.07 would be Kennedy's highest mark ever in that regard, his current high being 3.96 last year. Despite working counts and seeing pitches, Adam is now up to 46 plate appearances without a walk. Or, for that matter, an extra-base hit. In his career, he averages about 20 plate appearances per non-intentional walk and about 14 plate appearances per extra-base hit. So that's just an odd quirk of small samples.
42 10 0 0 0 0 1 4.07
Okay,
Good things: His fastball is fast. He seemed to have reasonable control of his slider. He was getting hitters out with his pitches, hitting corners with his fastball and slider. He's not afraid to come inside, and he jammed a few guys into popups and weak grounders.
Bad things: Falling behind in the count, followed by a fastball down the middle. He needed to establish the slider earlier, probably. He basically only has those two pitchers; Rex identified one of his pitches as a change, but it was the same speed as his nominal slider and moved the same way, so take that for what it's worth. Also, he likes to go high in the strike zone, and seemingly went intentionally high and in with the slider to jam a guy or two. When it works, perfect, when it doesn't: bam!
I think the kid needs to develop a third pitch before he can stick in a major league rotation. And he definitely needs to have better alternatives on 2-0 than fastballs down the pipe. Of course, even terrific major league starters have bad starts and miss their spots; but even so I think it's obvious that the kid has a lot of honing to do. He's young; he has time. I'm not worried.
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