Really? No Baseball Thread?

[the delgados]

Yeah, I was surprised there's no baseball thread. So here we go.
I've been a Red Sox fan since '86 and I'm still fairly pessimistic despite the decent start. However, as a Canadian, I do follow and care about the Jays and I'll tell ya the people who say it's still early, too early to worry are ignoring the numbers.

I'm pretty sure most experts are predicting a 93-94 win season to get a wild card. That is about where I put this team in the pre-season. I didn't agree with the hype about them being world series favorites, I thought they'd be a solid playoff contender and once you're in anything can happen. So let's say they immediately turn things around and play at that 93-94 game clip. That doesn't do it though, does it? They would be short the losses from April. Now I'm not saying they can't catch up but it does mean two things.
One, they've put themselves in a position where they will, at some point in the season, have to go on a bit of a run for a couple weeks. Or they pick up those extra wins here and there through the length of the season. That doesn't sound like a big deal but believe me, when you're already playing at the level you should be, finding even a few extra wins is very tough.
Two, they absolutely cannot afford a prolonged losing skid later in the season.

Finally, it's the pitching so far that I don't get. Near team-wide hitting slumps happen, I get that. But I just don't understand how four solid, proven pitchers can be so bad all at the same time.

I stopped reading when I read the word "Canadian" and "Red Sox fan" in the same paragraph.
This is an outrage.
Mods? You there? You guys need to ban this "Marinoni" person immediately.
Marinoni even took the name of a Canadian bicycle manufacturer when stating s/he is a Red Sox fan.
This is unacceptable and clearly contravenes forum rules. Under no circumstances can a Canadian claim allegiance to the Massholes.
I think a one week ban would suffice.

Reach into your pocket. Find the ship. Look at the map.

Don't let the tower over SkyDome cloud your shyte, brutha. :lol:

Good to get outa The Big Smoke, sometime.

I have taken your words under consideration and I agree that my homerism (is that a word?) is a little excessive.
You have taught me to learn that someone from Canada can affiliate with a baseball team other than the Toronto Blue Jays.
But just one.

All ribbing aside ... followed from 6th inning on (from other side of the world) Sanchez' flirt with the NoNo. (My son had e-mailed me to let me know what was up). Too bad ... but not too dusty to still get the W. Thanks Osuna. Granderson's a sweetheart. He's perfect for just those moments. And he can wear those socks all the way up to his thighs if he wants to ... long as he ain't in pinstripes, baby!

You are my new favourite forum contributor.
I saw extended highlights of the game in which Sanchez took a no hitter into the 8th inning. Outfielders deserve a ton of credit for making the no-no last as long as it did. More than one diving catch was made.
Too bad the boss Donaldson ruined everything by letting a routine ground ball go between his legs. I wonder why the hit wasn't scored an error.

 

[the delgados]

Re:

On a different note: Please recommend some great baseball books except moneyball/eight men out. Thanks

Two words:
Dirk Hayhurst.
Dirk is a former big league pitcher who just happens to be a fantastic writer.
He has published a few books about his experiences. "The Bullpen Gospels" is the first one that comes to mind.
It's a fantastic read.
p.s. I happened to be at the game in Toronto when Hayhurst made his first appearance as a reliever for the Blue Jays. I had already read Bullpen Gospels and almost jumped out of my seat when Hayhurst made his first appearance as a big league baseball player. I remember looking around the stands trying to make eye contact with someone was excited as I was. No luck there.

 

[Alpe73]

I stopped reading when I read the word "Canadian" and "Red Sox fan" in the same paragraph.
This is an outrage.
Mods? You there? You guys need to ban this "Marinoni" person immediately.
Marinoni even took the name of a Canadian bicycle manufacturer when stating s/he is a Red Sox fan.
This is unacceptable and clearly contravenes forum rules. Under no circumstances can a Canadian claim allegiance to the Massholes.
I think a one week ban would suffice.

Reach into your pocket. Find the ship. Look at the map.

Don't let the tower over SkyDome cloud your shyte, brutha. :lol:

Good to get outa The Big Smoke, sometime.

I have taken your words under consideration and I agree that my homerism (is that a word?) is a little excessive.
You have taught me to learn that someone from Canada can affiliate with a baseball team other than the Toronto Blue Jays.
But just one.

All ribbing aside ... followed from 6th inning on (from other side of the world) Sanchez' flirt with the NoNo. (My son had e-mailed me to let me know what was up). Too bad ... but not too dusty to still get the W. Thanks Osuna. Granderson's a sweetheart. He's perfect for just those moments. And he can wear those socks all the way up to his thighs if he wants to ... long as he ain't in pinstripes, baby!

You are my new favourite forum contributor.
I saw extended highlights of the game in which Sanchez took a no hitter into the 8th inning. Outfielders deserve a ton of credit for making the no-no last as long as it did. More than one diving catch was made.
Too bad the boss Donaldson ruined everything by letting a routine ground ball go between his legs. I wonder why the hit wasn't scored an error.

Yeah ... only re-play that caught my attention. Would love to see the Scorer's notes. Methinks ... even Donaldson was milithinking ... "they'll call it an error." Maybe without the no no going ... it would have been. Scorer probably thinking ... "if you can't snag that one, Josh, we can't justify keeping the no no intact. Who knows.

As Ron Washington would say ..."That's the way baseball 'go.'"

 

[Alpe73]

Re:

Pirates fan here. Yeah, I know, they aren't going to be very good this year. However, I am enjoying the unexpected good start to the season.

Good enough reason to be a fan. A win for any of the teams I support, even every now and then, is good enough for me these days. My team loses .... turns a real nifty double play ... totally good enough for me.

 

[jmdirt]

Some good fights so far this week!

I know "beaning" the batter is as old as the game, but its over used now. There is always the discussion of the difference between throwing at a batter vs. actually hitting them.

 

[movingtarget]

Only 974 spectators at the White Sox/Rays game............

 

[the delgados]

Re:

Only 974 spectators at the White Sox/Rays game............

Say what?
That's cray cray.
Time to revive the Montreal Expos.
More than 100 thousand dedicated fans in Montreal have shown up to watch Grapefruit league games over the past few years.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Re:

Only 974 spectators at the White Sox/Rays game............

Say what?
That's cray cray.
Time to revive the Montreal Expos.
More than 100 thousand dedicated fans in Montreal have shown up to watch Grapefruit league games over the past few years.

The sun was shining but it seems that 10,000 tickets were sold but only 974 showed up !

 

[Alpe73]

Bartolo Colon. Love the guy. So what was the old guy thinkin before he took the field in the 8th last night ... flirting with a Perfect game? .....

"Man, I'd love a Corona and an empanada right now."

And postgame thoughts? ....

"Man, I'd love a Corona and an empanada right now."

Beautiful!

That's the way baseball go.

 

[the delgados]

Re:

Bartolo Colon. Love the guy. So what was the old guy thinkin before he took the field in the 8th last night ... flirting with a Perfect game? .....

"Man, I'd love a Corona and an empanada right now."

And postgame thoughts? ....

"Man, I'd love a Corona and an empanada right now."

Beautiful!

That's the way baseball go.

Big Sexy must weigh close to 300 lbs at the age of 117.
Yet the guy flirts with a no hitter.
Amazing.
You are indeed correct. That's the way baseball go.

 

[Merckx index]

Woman Phillies fan (encountering John Kruk, smoking, in a restaurant): You shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes! You’re an athlete!

Kruk: I’m not an athlete, ma’am. I’m a ball player.

 

[Alpe73]

Woman Phillies fan (encountering John Kruk, smoking, in a restaurant): You shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes! You’re an athlete!

Kruk: I’m not an athlete, ma’am. I’m a ball player.

One of my favorite John Kruk moments was when he faced Randy Johnson during the All Star game. After Randy's first scorching pitch, Kruk was 'hanging ten' with his toes on the extreme outside of the batter's box ... scared shitless. Beautiful moment.

 

[Alpe73]

First No-No of the season ... against the hottest team in baseball!

http://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=380421111

 

[jmdirt]

There was an MLB thread already. I asked Irondan to combine them. The search feature isn't the best, but Baseball is in the "Thread of Threads" directory.

 

[jmdirt]

MLB thread here:

 

[Irondan]

MLB threads are now merged...

Enjoy!

 

[Koronin]

Pirates are in 1st place in the NL Central. I'm going with if not the biggest surprise of the season one of the biggest surprised of the season. As a Pirate fan I'm just going to enjoy the ride as I did not expect them to be this good to start the season.

 

[Unchained]

If you love or don't know anything about baseball..the solution for that spectrum of fan and non-fan was the Little League World Series game between Australia vs Mexico...couldn't see a better game..couldn't see better sportsmanship..
This is really baseball and what all good sport is about..Australia keeps getting better and better and better..

 

[jsem94]

Mookie Betts is a joy to watch. Just putting that out there. Best player in the game RIGHT NOW.

 

[jmdirt]

I'll start with the disclaimer that even though I was once a loyal baseball fan, I only watch games in October now. 18 innings of last night excepted, games are too slow. If you scroll though this thread I've probably already typed this, but after each pitch the batter has to tighten their gloves, adjust their cup, helmet, elbow guard, shin guard, clean their cleats, look at the coach... MLB wants to keep 9 inning games under three hours (maybe 2:55) when they should really be looking to get closer to 2:30 (like in the '70s and '80s). A pitch clock has been tossed around for a while and tried in the minors, but even though some relievers are painfully slow, there needs to be tighter batter timing too. There is a rule already in the books giving the pitcher 12 seconds once the batter is in the box, but if the batter already took 30 seconds, that's 42 seconds, best case, between pitches (most trickle out to 60 ish).

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Excellent post JM. I watched last night's game for a while, which was a great game I thought. When it got into the 10th, I set my DVR to extend for a full hour (beyond the 30 minutes or so left), and went to bed, figuring at most the game would last 30 or so to get through a couple innings until someone scored. Nope. I said this was a great game, and it probably was, but it ended at 3:30am east coast time. I can only wonder how many people actually stayed up to watch it? If that game were in Boston, it would have been 34 degrees (and breezy) when it ended, which is more like football weather.

You probably heard some stats, that this game lasted longer than the entire world series back in something like 1920. This game, which likely few people saw, lasted over double the length of today's really long games. It will make a good stat in a stat based game, and great lore when talked about decades from now, but to stay up and watch it?

Recall a few years ago how MLB said that pitchers would be warned if taking too long, intentional walks were granted, and they reduced the amount of trips, and time players and managers can take to the mound? This was after Tony Larussa made several in that Cardinal World Series win over the Rangers. Well, that somehow increased the length of the game by four minutes. Every pitcher just threw a tad slower, everything, everyone moved a little slower, more deliberate.

Rob Manfred said MLB could institute a 20 second pitch clock in 2019 if games don't average under 3 hours. Well, with them getting longer, will this happen? I don't know how much it will matter, and how easy it will be to enforce, meaning you need a batter clock too. There's another problem, by the numbers pitch counts are longer, and at bats longer. And there's more relievers used than ever before, and that takes time.

https://slate.com/culture/2018/05/major-league-baseball-games-are-too-long-heres-how-to-make-them-longer.html

Josh Peter wrote a good article in USA Today, saying it's time for MLB to Wake Up. Here's a quote

Even if all of America had been awake (to watch it), there would’ve been a serious problem for baseball.

As attention spans have shortened, the average duration of Major League Baseball game has lengthened — from 2 hours 27 minutes in 1972 to 3 hours 4 minutes in 2018. The marathon between the Dodgers and Red Sox only reinforced Major League Baseball’s albatross — long games, long season, long-overdue solutions unenacted.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/josh-peter/2018/10/27/world-series-late-night-thriller-game-3-not-all-good-mlb/1787841002/

Another link, with some reasonable ones (limit throws to 1st base, in extra innings start with a runner on 2nd), and a few wacky ones too.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2718632-baseball-rule-changes-2017-future

 

[jmdirt]

I'm placing a lot of the blame on the batter so image if a team decided to push a hurry up offense (batter never steps out of the box) to force the pitchers to throw quicker. I can only assume that this would speed things up, and lead to more hits (and more hits will likely lead to more runs). Of course the catcher would do his best to drag some time too, but I would love to see a skipper try it.

Kimbrel couldn't do his karate kid pose because he would get balls called before he even stood up. I won't get started on all of the player gimmicks in MLB now.

 

[jsem94]

Those rules to speed up the play are already in place. It's about enforcing those rules. The umpires are not doing it.

Might add that it was nice seeing Machado strike out to lose the series. Boston deserved to win.

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Those rules to speed up the play are already in place. It's about enforcing those rules. The umpires are not doing it.

Might add that it was nice seeing Machado strike out to lose the series. Boston deserved to win.

How long does the batter have after each pitch to get everything adjusted and get back in he box?

I'll save you the Google:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2007/06_the_batter.pdf

 

[jsem94]

I'll refer to this:

https://youtu.be/fMmt3YXjC34