Ok so here I'm going to evaluate whether the big acquisition of the three teams has made a contribution worth what they signed him for during the offseason so far, starting with the Cardinals and their signing of shortstop Jhonny Peralta. Alright so some, including myself were a bit confused when the Cardinals signed Jhonny Peralta to a 4 year deal over the offseason, mainly because of all the controversy surrounding him and PED allegations, though I guess the Orioles did the same thing with Nelson Cruz so let's take a look at what he's done so far.
Well the shortstop position has been a bit confusing for the Cardinals this year, first they shell $53 million over 4 years to Peralta, then they sign Aldemys Diaz to a 4 year deal worth $8 million but he's holding up in AAA. Well Peralta is who has the starting job so lets look at his stats. Well as of now he is sitting with a .063 AVG, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 2 H, 3 R, 0 SB and .189 OBP, now those are some very terrible stats. While I understand that it's early in the season he hasn't been facing a lot of elite level pitching the whole time, as well his fielding has been pretty bad as well since he has already made 2 errors, which is 50% of the errors he made last year. This just seems more and more like a case of can't play without the PEDs, which it may very well turn out to be, now there isn't much to focus in on thats positive but I suppose the fact that he hasn't raised his strikeouts a whole lot is a good indication that it's not likely to get any worse as thats usually an indication of lost ability in a hitter (and with Arencibia as the Jays catcher last year I know that all too well). Overall it seems that Peralta is not what the Cardinals were hoping for and he is certainly not pulling his weight on the 4 year deal he signed.
Next up are the Orioles and their big spending addition Ubaldo Jimenez. Now I once said if I were an exec or fantasy owner I wouldn't touch Jimenez with a 10 foot pole, and guess what? That still stands. So when I saw Baltimore sign him to a 4 year $50 million deal I nearly threw up a lung. And as expected through his first 2 starts Jimenez has been awful, sitting with an ERA of 6.75, 10K, 1.97 WHIP, 8BB, 13H and a W-L record of 0-2. Now the issue for him was coming to the AL East, he was coming from the AL Central, the weakest of the AL divisions (and don't give me any crap about the AL West being light, just look at who they have pitching wise and not to mention Beltre, Trout, Pujols, Hamilton, Cano, Hart and even Castro to a lesser extent). So it was expected to be a rough transition, however the 2 games he has pitched have been against division rivals in both the home park and on the road, and he seemed to have the same issues as before, problems commanding his pitches, which lead to the total 8 walks he currently has and the 2 home runs he gave up in the first game. Due to this he has thrown more pitches and worn himself out in these outings (ie. 106 pitches in 4.2 innings in his last outing). Again just like Peralta, Jimenez is sure not pulling along the $50 million the Orioles are paying him.
Now the Toronto Blue Jays only had one real acquisition this offseason and that would be Dioner Navarro, now plenty of people looked at this signing with confusion since Navarro wasn't a starting catcher and his numbers weren't phenomenal if you stretched them to a full season. However Navarro has been earning the 2 year $8 million deal he got, now the first thing Navarro has been doing is taking control of the pitching staff, this is a big deal because a smart catcher can play pitches often better than the pitcher can and it's been showing in the outings the McGowan, Hutchison and Buehrle have put up so far this season. In addition Navarro hasn't driven himself to a huge number of stats (.269 AVG, 4R, 11H, 0HR, 7RBI, 2BB, and 1SB). What Navarro has been able to do is act as a quality bat, which was a problem with the 'strikeout alley' we had in our 6-9 batting order positions, this year even though Navarro doesn't often get the pitch to drive out of the stadium he more often can make quality sacrifice plays that move the runner along, which is part of why the Jays hitting game has been weak for a while. Additionally other members of the team seem to like the chemistry between Navarro and the starting rotation and I'd say thats a good thing if the other players think highly of what he is doing. Unlike the previous signings Navarro was kind of a gamble as he was a part time player and even though his stats were good there was no guarantee he could replicate his part time numbers into a full time catching position. So far however Navarro has been pulling his weight and then some on his contract.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
Bird Watch: The First Week
Ok so heres going to be a little overlook at the 3 team's performance over the first week of the season.
Baltimore Orioles: Not hell of a lot to bitch about or praise here, the Orioles are sitting at a 2-4 record after this week oddly enough their biggest issue of this week is also their biggest strength in a way. That of course is their pitching. I say that because in 2 of the 4 games they lost they got blasted, and it was obviously because they had a far more inferior starting pitcher on the mound for who they were facing. However on all the other games they either won (2 of the remaining 4 games) or barely lost by 1 run meaning that their pithing in those situations was able to keep them in the game, basically they need to get more out of those 2 starters who fucked up this week (Gonzalez and Jimenez). On the offensive side they did what Baltimore usually does, get a fairly high number of hits but still manage to make the game a close one, honestly I'm interested to see what they do offensively when Machado comes back and they have their full offensive core in place.
St. Louis Cardinals: Well it's been interesting for the Cardinals, their even 3-3 after the first week, which may come as a surprise but for the most part the young pitchers they slotted into the rotation, and Wainwright have delivered and even the games they lost were close with the exception of one. Now the one game I speak of was the first against the Pirates and Shelby Miller just didn't have his stuff that day, he left a fair number of pitches over the heart of the plate that game, hence why he allowed 3 home runs. As well I think it's safe to say he had a bit of shaky control during the game as well as he walked 3 and only struck out 2, which is fairly unlike him as his control is fairly pin point and usually allows him to get high strikeouts and low walks. In addition to poor pitching that game was very terrible for the Cardinals on offence as well only scoring 2 runs despite having players in scoring position 8 times during the game, and none of them could be attributed to the 2 runs. Now while I can say this, it's only one game and the offence and pitching of the Cardinals has done well otherwise so theres no reason to distrust Miller quite yet, though a couple more outings like that could change my mine
Toronto Blue Jays: What a roller coaster first week, we start with R.A. Dickey getting pounded, then Drew Hutchison and Mark Buehrle have a flash of brilliance, followed by 2 more stumbles by Brandon Morrow and Dustin McGowan, then to finish the week we get the exact opposite, a magnificent outing from Dickey and a horrible one from Hutchison. Now first off I think McGowan will get better as it came to light that he was tipping his pitches during that outing. Tipping your pitches basically means that your in essence developing a tell that is letting the batter know what kind of pitch your going to throw (ie. letting them accidentally see the grip of the ball before it's thrown) so if he can correct that and get over the nervousness of being back after a little over a year he'll be good to go. On the other hand Morrow looks like he's still completely lost and he seems to need a lot of work since he allowed 4 runs to the Rays and just didn't look like his dominant self we saw a couple years back. Hutchison and Dickey are harder to read strictly because we've seen two completely different outings and theres no real evidence to suggest one outcome is more likely than the other. Buehrle on the other hand is the master of consistency so I expect him to throw well, not like the last game but on average 4 strikeouts 7 hits and a couple runs, which should very well give us a chance to win if the offence can get moving. Speaking of offence we had a similar duality as with the pitching, when the pitching was bad we got a lacklustre number of hits and runs but when the pitching was good we all of a sudden were on fire. Now like I said in the last post there still are a fair number of very big positives to take home in regard to the Jays offence so like Miller of the Cardinals it's time to play the waiting game and see if the Jays can right themselves in the next series.
-Eric
Baltimore Orioles: Not hell of a lot to bitch about or praise here, the Orioles are sitting at a 2-4 record after this week oddly enough their biggest issue of this week is also their biggest strength in a way. That of course is their pitching. I say that because in 2 of the 4 games they lost they got blasted, and it was obviously because they had a far more inferior starting pitcher on the mound for who they were facing. However on all the other games they either won (2 of the remaining 4 games) or barely lost by 1 run meaning that their pithing in those situations was able to keep them in the game, basically they need to get more out of those 2 starters who fucked up this week (Gonzalez and Jimenez). On the offensive side they did what Baltimore usually does, get a fairly high number of hits but still manage to make the game a close one, honestly I'm interested to see what they do offensively when Machado comes back and they have their full offensive core in place.
St. Louis Cardinals: Well it's been interesting for the Cardinals, their even 3-3 after the first week, which may come as a surprise but for the most part the young pitchers they slotted into the rotation, and Wainwright have delivered and even the games they lost were close with the exception of one. Now the one game I speak of was the first against the Pirates and Shelby Miller just didn't have his stuff that day, he left a fair number of pitches over the heart of the plate that game, hence why he allowed 3 home runs. As well I think it's safe to say he had a bit of shaky control during the game as well as he walked 3 and only struck out 2, which is fairly unlike him as his control is fairly pin point and usually allows him to get high strikeouts and low walks. In addition to poor pitching that game was very terrible for the Cardinals on offence as well only scoring 2 runs despite having players in scoring position 8 times during the game, and none of them could be attributed to the 2 runs. Now while I can say this, it's only one game and the offence and pitching of the Cardinals has done well otherwise so theres no reason to distrust Miller quite yet, though a couple more outings like that could change my mine
Toronto Blue Jays: What a roller coaster first week, we start with R.A. Dickey getting pounded, then Drew Hutchison and Mark Buehrle have a flash of brilliance, followed by 2 more stumbles by Brandon Morrow and Dustin McGowan, then to finish the week we get the exact opposite, a magnificent outing from Dickey and a horrible one from Hutchison. Now first off I think McGowan will get better as it came to light that he was tipping his pitches during that outing. Tipping your pitches basically means that your in essence developing a tell that is letting the batter know what kind of pitch your going to throw (ie. letting them accidentally see the grip of the ball before it's thrown) so if he can correct that and get over the nervousness of being back after a little over a year he'll be good to go. On the other hand Morrow looks like he's still completely lost and he seems to need a lot of work since he allowed 4 runs to the Rays and just didn't look like his dominant self we saw a couple years back. Hutchison and Dickey are harder to read strictly because we've seen two completely different outings and theres no real evidence to suggest one outcome is more likely than the other. Buehrle on the other hand is the master of consistency so I expect him to throw well, not like the last game but on average 4 strikeouts 7 hits and a couple runs, which should very well give us a chance to win if the offence can get moving. Speaking of offence we had a similar duality as with the pitching, when the pitching was bad we got a lacklustre number of hits and runs but when the pitching was good we all of a sudden were on fire. Now like I said in the last post there still are a fair number of very big positives to take home in regard to the Jays offence so like Miller of the Cardinals it's time to play the waiting game and see if the Jays can right themselves in the next series.
-Eric
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Bird Watch: Opening Day Performances
Ok so first bird watch of 2014 eh? Anyhow as the title states I'm going to give a quick run down of the opening games for Baltimore, St. Louis and Toronto and give them a letter grade.
Baltimore:
Pitching - Ok so looking at the score initially we can tell this was a prototypical Orioles game as the score was low and the margin they won by was only 1 run (they had the most of those wins last year in I believe the entire MLB). Anyhow you had Chris Tillman taking the hill against Jon Lester and in both cases each pitcher performed very well, Tillman isn't known as a strikeout pitcher so his 4 K's on the game is pretty typical of him and he managed to stay in control of his pitches and only allow 1 run and 1 walk, which is good in my book (especially if you watched the Blue Jays pitching). Additionally surprisingly Tillman only allowed 7 hits, I say that because he pitches to contact so you would expect the potential for more hits but since there isn't that means the Orioles defence was obviously on the ball today. As the Orioles usually do they had Tillman handle the first 5 innings of work then turned their bullpen on the Red Sox and again worked out fantastically, together all 4 pitchers only allowed 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 2 as well. Now Tommy Hunter did get into a bit of bind in the 9th inning when he hit Will Middlebrooks and then one out later allowed Pedroia to single and get 2nd and 1st base full with David Ortiz coming up thankfully he was able to get out of it and get the next 2 outs. Overall the pitching in this game from the Orioles was solid, not perfect but definitely solid, the type of play that would ensure you get into the playoffs if you can repeat it at least every 2nd game.
Hitting - Ok on the hitting side theres not a whole lot to talk about, mainly because the game was so low scoring, however it is telling that about half of the batting order got on base at one time or another, and like I said in the last post about the Jays the Orioles had the hits dispersed throughout their lineup allowing to keep an offensive wave going. On the other hand however the people who didn't get on base did strikeout a fair bit like Chris Davis (and Matt Wieters to a lesser extent), now while Wieters is expected since you don't really associate catchers with high averages Chris Davis, one of the 2 big hitters for the Orioles, is expected to have an AVG in the high .200's so this start is not necessarily good for him. As well their team batting AVG with RISP (runners in scoring position - a runner at 2nd or 3rd base) was 0-1 so that tells me that despite having several hits and getting people on base not many times only once did someone get over the 2nd base. Now a surprise show was the home run from Nelson Cruz in the 7th that ended up being the game winning run. I'll be honest that I've been down on Nelson Cruz and it's mainly because 1.) his skill set is declining and 2.) the timing that showed he could finally stay healthy coincides with when he started taking PEDs leading me to believe health could be a risk for him again. However he surprised me by hitting a home run off of Jon Lester a tough opponent.
Grade: Pitching - A-, Hitting - B-, Overall - B+
An overall quality job pitching and about average performance from the offence, though I' m skewing this grade a bit considering that the Orioles have been geared for these types of games for the last couple seasons.
St. Louis:
Pitching - Ok so this was a pitchers duel if I've ever seen one, both guys went 7 innings and allowed only 3 hits a piece, unfortunately for Cueto one of those 3 hits was a home run that cost them the game. On the other side Wainwright issued 4 walks throughout the game, now I guess I could call that 3 since he intentionally walked Brayan Pena, however 2 of these walks were almost right next to each other in the 6th inning and could have cost him. To make up for it Wainwright was dominant the rest of the time striking out 9 over the 7 innings he did pitch, now I think that I can't really fault him that much for the walks when he puts up stats that basically show he more than doubled his walks in strikeouts, allowed less hits than walks and didn't allow a run. After the 7th they threw in the bullpen and just like in the Baltimore game the St. Louis bullpen cleaned shop with Trevor Rosenthal ending it with 2/3 strikeouts in the final inning, Pat Neshek did allow 1 walk in the 8th, however thanks to the Cardinals having a very smart manager they continued with their patented match ups on pitching and continued to dominate on pitching.
Hitting - The Cardinals had the same problem on offence that the Orioles had only to a bit more of an extreme, their team RISP was 0-4 again showing us that they managed to get guys on base but just couldn't get them home, and because of that they were lucky to get the home run from Yadier Molina or it would have just been a war of attrition. As well if you were to look at the box score of the game those times when players got on base it was narrowed down to just 3 players (Kolten Wong, Yadier Molina and Matt Adams) now thats not good, yes it's a positive that the guys in the lower to middle area of the batting order got hits because thats usually where the offence weakens in a typical batting order, however in this case the guys in 3 and 4 positions who are supposed to be the power hitters who drive base runners in didn't get a single hit, and even worse their lead off man, Matt Carpenter, was only able to get on base once. Now just as a side note I'll include defensive flops in here because the Orioles had 3 errors on the game by Boujos, Wong and Adams another unsightly issue during the game and again something they were lucky didn't cost them the game.
Grade: Pitching - A, Hitting - C+, Overall - B+
Now the Cardinals had a DOMINANT game on the mound however the offence was not what we expect from them on a regular basis and the defensive errors they made were pretty bad and they got lucky it didn't cost them a run or just like the Orioles game it could have moved into extra innings and given that the Cardinals had used double the relievers that the Reds used could have made it difficult.
Toronto:
Pitching - I'll be honest I was excited to see/listen to this game because despite the lack of movement from AA in the offseason Dickey had a decent spring and said in his last outing he was working on other pitches to throw into games to throw hitters off balance and McGowan and Hutchison looked great in spring training as well, there still was hope. Or so I thought, this game pretty much embodied everything that was bad about last season. Now the pitching, if you can call it that. Was just like what happened early last year, Dickey's pitching was wild as hell he allowed 5 hits, but topped that off with a 666 line, 6 runs, 6 earned runs and 6 walks, with only 4 strikeouts to write home about. Now the issue here is that this is EXACTLY what Dickey was like last year, I think most attributed his bad start to him rushing through spring training to open for the World Baseball Classic and the back injury he played through the first half of the season. However if this is whats going to be coming out every time he takes the mound I'm really worried. Now things smoothed out when Esmil Rogers got the ball as he cleared through the following 2 innings with a couple of hits, a walk and a pair of strikeouts fairly typical performance by him but then things were handed to Jeffress in the 8th (who honestly I don't think should be in the bullpen) and he proceeded to allow another 3 runs on 1 inning. Oh man that pitching was BAAAAD today.
Hitting - Ok so unfortunately just like how Dickey's pitching today was pretty reminiscent of his pitching last season the offence had the same problems as last year as well, first off we lost Reyes to injury in the first inning (god damn it, was after the first 10 games not soon enough?!?!?!!?), then the same usual hitting happened, the front of the batting order got on base but as soon as we moved down the order everyone ceased to be able to hit leaving the team with a RISP of 0-5, which again is pretty atrocious. Now I did see some glimmers of hope in this game, Izturis managed to get on base even against David Price, Navarro got on base as well (which was a nice surprise to see our crap acquisition from last year and this years acquisition were productive against a heavy handed pitcher). As well Rasmus and Lawrie were both MUCH more patient at the plate, hell I saw Lawrie take balls and force Price to throw 10 additional pitches to get him out, and like I've said even if you can't get on base the next best thing to do is tire the pitcher out by forcing him to throw as many pitches as possible, so good on Brett for making such progress from being a bit of a strikeout machine last year. Now while those were great Lawrie did strike out 2 of the 4 times at bat and because of that in conduction with Thole and Goins we had a section that acted again as the 'strikeout alley', where offensive rallies go to die. Basically the inability of Goins and Thole to actually make an offensive impact often ended up ending innings where we had multiple men on base, which is why we should have been looking for a 2nd base option during the offseason, I'm not knocking Goins' defensive prowess but he needs more time in the minors to develop his offence before he'll be an impact player. On the other side Thole came as expected, we notched him as Dickey's personal catcher and he came to us as an offensive mess so can't expect much but you would think that Kratz might get a little more of a nod since he's much better with the bat (hell he was responsible for 2 of their 3 runs). Now my argument when they sent him down was because his ability to catch Dickey wasn't as good as Thole, but on the other hand if we stretch out their spring training both to 51 innings Kratz would have allowed less stolen bases and caught more players stealing, in addition his range is better than Thole. It seems to me after that display today Kratz should get a shot over Thole.
Grade: Pitching - D, Hitting - C, Overall - D+
Like I said that pitching was some of the ugliest I've seen in recent memory (though it looked like the Rangers v. Phillies game was worse) the reason the pitching didn't get an F was because there was some good pitching by Esmil Rogers who held the Rays to their current score for 2 innings and struck out a pair on the way. Hitting wise I'm sure some would think that it should be lower but again people got on base, some strikeout heavy players last year had better use of their eyes in this game and overall it showed the team has at least progressed a bit and it's hard to doc their score that much do to the shitty performance of 2 players.
-Eric
Baltimore:
Pitching - Ok so looking at the score initially we can tell this was a prototypical Orioles game as the score was low and the margin they won by was only 1 run (they had the most of those wins last year in I believe the entire MLB). Anyhow you had Chris Tillman taking the hill against Jon Lester and in both cases each pitcher performed very well, Tillman isn't known as a strikeout pitcher so his 4 K's on the game is pretty typical of him and he managed to stay in control of his pitches and only allow 1 run and 1 walk, which is good in my book (especially if you watched the Blue Jays pitching). Additionally surprisingly Tillman only allowed 7 hits, I say that because he pitches to contact so you would expect the potential for more hits but since there isn't that means the Orioles defence was obviously on the ball today. As the Orioles usually do they had Tillman handle the first 5 innings of work then turned their bullpen on the Red Sox and again worked out fantastically, together all 4 pitchers only allowed 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 2 as well. Now Tommy Hunter did get into a bit of bind in the 9th inning when he hit Will Middlebrooks and then one out later allowed Pedroia to single and get 2nd and 1st base full with David Ortiz coming up thankfully he was able to get out of it and get the next 2 outs. Overall the pitching in this game from the Orioles was solid, not perfect but definitely solid, the type of play that would ensure you get into the playoffs if you can repeat it at least every 2nd game.
Hitting - Ok on the hitting side theres not a whole lot to talk about, mainly because the game was so low scoring, however it is telling that about half of the batting order got on base at one time or another, and like I said in the last post about the Jays the Orioles had the hits dispersed throughout their lineup allowing to keep an offensive wave going. On the other hand however the people who didn't get on base did strikeout a fair bit like Chris Davis (and Matt Wieters to a lesser extent), now while Wieters is expected since you don't really associate catchers with high averages Chris Davis, one of the 2 big hitters for the Orioles, is expected to have an AVG in the high .200's so this start is not necessarily good for him. As well their team batting AVG with RISP (runners in scoring position - a runner at 2nd or 3rd base) was 0-1 so that tells me that despite having several hits and getting people on base not many times only once did someone get over the 2nd base. Now a surprise show was the home run from Nelson Cruz in the 7th that ended up being the game winning run. I'll be honest that I've been down on Nelson Cruz and it's mainly because 1.) his skill set is declining and 2.) the timing that showed he could finally stay healthy coincides with when he started taking PEDs leading me to believe health could be a risk for him again. However he surprised me by hitting a home run off of Jon Lester a tough opponent.
Grade: Pitching - A-, Hitting - B-, Overall - B+
An overall quality job pitching and about average performance from the offence, though I' m skewing this grade a bit considering that the Orioles have been geared for these types of games for the last couple seasons.
St. Louis:
Pitching - Ok so this was a pitchers duel if I've ever seen one, both guys went 7 innings and allowed only 3 hits a piece, unfortunately for Cueto one of those 3 hits was a home run that cost them the game. On the other side Wainwright issued 4 walks throughout the game, now I guess I could call that 3 since he intentionally walked Brayan Pena, however 2 of these walks were almost right next to each other in the 6th inning and could have cost him. To make up for it Wainwright was dominant the rest of the time striking out 9 over the 7 innings he did pitch, now I think that I can't really fault him that much for the walks when he puts up stats that basically show he more than doubled his walks in strikeouts, allowed less hits than walks and didn't allow a run. After the 7th they threw in the bullpen and just like in the Baltimore game the St. Louis bullpen cleaned shop with Trevor Rosenthal ending it with 2/3 strikeouts in the final inning, Pat Neshek did allow 1 walk in the 8th, however thanks to the Cardinals having a very smart manager they continued with their patented match ups on pitching and continued to dominate on pitching.
Hitting - The Cardinals had the same problem on offence that the Orioles had only to a bit more of an extreme, their team RISP was 0-4 again showing us that they managed to get guys on base but just couldn't get them home, and because of that they were lucky to get the home run from Yadier Molina or it would have just been a war of attrition. As well if you were to look at the box score of the game those times when players got on base it was narrowed down to just 3 players (Kolten Wong, Yadier Molina and Matt Adams) now thats not good, yes it's a positive that the guys in the lower to middle area of the batting order got hits because thats usually where the offence weakens in a typical batting order, however in this case the guys in 3 and 4 positions who are supposed to be the power hitters who drive base runners in didn't get a single hit, and even worse their lead off man, Matt Carpenter, was only able to get on base once. Now just as a side note I'll include defensive flops in here because the Orioles had 3 errors on the game by Boujos, Wong and Adams another unsightly issue during the game and again something they were lucky didn't cost them the game.
Grade: Pitching - A, Hitting - C+, Overall - B+
Now the Cardinals had a DOMINANT game on the mound however the offence was not what we expect from them on a regular basis and the defensive errors they made were pretty bad and they got lucky it didn't cost them a run or just like the Orioles game it could have moved into extra innings and given that the Cardinals had used double the relievers that the Reds used could have made it difficult.
Toronto:
Pitching - I'll be honest I was excited to see/listen to this game because despite the lack of movement from AA in the offseason Dickey had a decent spring and said in his last outing he was working on other pitches to throw into games to throw hitters off balance and McGowan and Hutchison looked great in spring training as well, there still was hope. Or so I thought, this game pretty much embodied everything that was bad about last season. Now the pitching, if you can call it that. Was just like what happened early last year, Dickey's pitching was wild as hell he allowed 5 hits, but topped that off with a 666 line, 6 runs, 6 earned runs and 6 walks, with only 4 strikeouts to write home about. Now the issue here is that this is EXACTLY what Dickey was like last year, I think most attributed his bad start to him rushing through spring training to open for the World Baseball Classic and the back injury he played through the first half of the season. However if this is whats going to be coming out every time he takes the mound I'm really worried. Now things smoothed out when Esmil Rogers got the ball as he cleared through the following 2 innings with a couple of hits, a walk and a pair of strikeouts fairly typical performance by him but then things were handed to Jeffress in the 8th (who honestly I don't think should be in the bullpen) and he proceeded to allow another 3 runs on 1 inning. Oh man that pitching was BAAAAD today.
Hitting - Ok so unfortunately just like how Dickey's pitching today was pretty reminiscent of his pitching last season the offence had the same problems as last year as well, first off we lost Reyes to injury in the first inning (god damn it, was after the first 10 games not soon enough?!?!?!!?), then the same usual hitting happened, the front of the batting order got on base but as soon as we moved down the order everyone ceased to be able to hit leaving the team with a RISP of 0-5, which again is pretty atrocious. Now I did see some glimmers of hope in this game, Izturis managed to get on base even against David Price, Navarro got on base as well (which was a nice surprise to see our crap acquisition from last year and this years acquisition were productive against a heavy handed pitcher). As well Rasmus and Lawrie were both MUCH more patient at the plate, hell I saw Lawrie take balls and force Price to throw 10 additional pitches to get him out, and like I've said even if you can't get on base the next best thing to do is tire the pitcher out by forcing him to throw as many pitches as possible, so good on Brett for making such progress from being a bit of a strikeout machine last year. Now while those were great Lawrie did strike out 2 of the 4 times at bat and because of that in conduction with Thole and Goins we had a section that acted again as the 'strikeout alley', where offensive rallies go to die. Basically the inability of Goins and Thole to actually make an offensive impact often ended up ending innings where we had multiple men on base, which is why we should have been looking for a 2nd base option during the offseason, I'm not knocking Goins' defensive prowess but he needs more time in the minors to develop his offence before he'll be an impact player. On the other side Thole came as expected, we notched him as Dickey's personal catcher and he came to us as an offensive mess so can't expect much but you would think that Kratz might get a little more of a nod since he's much better with the bat (hell he was responsible for 2 of their 3 runs). Now my argument when they sent him down was because his ability to catch Dickey wasn't as good as Thole, but on the other hand if we stretch out their spring training both to 51 innings Kratz would have allowed less stolen bases and caught more players stealing, in addition his range is better than Thole. It seems to me after that display today Kratz should get a shot over Thole.
Grade: Pitching - D, Hitting - C, Overall - D+
Like I said that pitching was some of the ugliest I've seen in recent memory (though it looked like the Rangers v. Phillies game was worse) the reason the pitching didn't get an F was because there was some good pitching by Esmil Rogers who held the Rays to their current score for 2 innings and struck out a pair on the way. Hitting wise I'm sure some would think that it should be lower but again people got on base, some strikeout heavy players last year had better use of their eyes in this game and overall it showed the team has at least progressed a bit and it's hard to doc their score that much do to the shitty performance of 2 players.
-Eric
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)