Friday, June 6, 2014
Maybe Fans Shouldn't
I decided to write to post when, several times, during the games I've been watching today fans booed it when the pitcher threw to first second or third base to pick off a runner. Now I understand why fans do it because it puts a damper on the action of the game and makes the pitcher seem I guess cowardly as if their running away from the current batter, and the thought I guess is that the booing will stop the pitcher from keeping up the pickoff attempts. However ts is actually a good thing for our team, why you ask? Well that's because this part of the game is a major part of the mental game in baseball and yea yea I understand that doesn't equal on field excitement, but the result of it often does. You see a pitcher is throwing a ball at speeds between 75-95+ mph over a distance of 60 feet, 6 inches and that requires a LOT of concentration. When the pitcher throws a pick off attempt it divides the pitchers attention, all of a sudden their trying to concentrate on pitching to the current batter as well as keeping an eye on the runner to ensure they know if he's going for a steal. As a result pitchers often end up giving up hits or having lacklustre control during these times because of this divide of attention, hell there are even times where this can lead to throwing errors due to bad pick off throws. In summary don't boo pick off attempts by opposing pitchers, it means that the runner on base is getting to the pitcher and he is likely to faulter fairly soon.
Bird Watch: Aw What The.........
So here I was sitting and watching the first inning of the Jays game on my computer when suddenly I get an alert on Bo my iPad and iPhone. I of course take a quick glimpse and see some very unfortunate news, good ol' injury risk Johan Santana, who I might add was pretty much thought to be coming up to help the Orioles rotation due to their series of injuries, has gone down when he tore his Achilles during extended spring training. Now this is just straight up terrible luck for he Orioles because they've lost a couple of their pitchers to either major or minor injuries over the last few weeks and I'm sure a lot of Oriioles fans had hoped that the gamble on Santana would turn out for the better and maybe they would have him back in ear his Cy Young calibre pitching. Unfortunately it was not to be, now I'm not going to say that the Orioles were stupid for trying to sign him, I thought at the time it may be a smart move, mainly because they have a lot of high end young prospects but the brunt of them still have a way to go until their major league ready so getting a guy like Santana who could act as cheap pitching depth until these guys were ready would have been great for the Orioles.
So the obvious next question, what do the Orioles do now? We'll they have to hope the hit that Bud. Norris took to the hand isn't that serious and they've already called up Kevin Gausman, though they may need to look at their other star pitching prospect Dylan Bundy as we but the choice to leave him down isn't a terrible one either since they still aren't nearly out of the running in the AL East as they only trail the Jays by 5.5 games.
All in all it's really crappy news for the Orioles but given that their farm system is in good shape they have the pitching depth to carry on even if it means that they have to bring up some guys a little earlier than they were expected to come up.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Bird Watch: Make Or Break Time
So the Blue Jays have been on a bit of a tear recently, now one thing that I have had to keep reminding myself about this is that for the most part they have been facing teams that are either bad or are struggling bit time. So basically taking a look at their schedule it seems that the results of their next few series will likely tell us if the way they are currently playing is really because they've turned over a new leaf so to speak or if its just a function of the bad teams they've been beating up on, so lets take a look at whats in store.
Current Series: @ Detroit. Now this one is obviously already underway and the results have been rather surprising so far as the Jays have managed to take the first 2 games of the series with a pretty commanding lead though in both instances their starting pitcher was almost too much of a challenge to get a leg up on. The fact that Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello combined for only 1 earned run over their time pitching in these 2 games tells us that there may still be a bit of work to be done since these two guys aren't even the cream of the crop pitching in the MLB. Now our pitching in these games is like Jekyll and Hyde as Hutchison went pitch for pitch against Sanchez and even got more strikeouts, however Dickey, despite only allowing 2 runs, had little control of the knuckleball and it seemingly got worse as the game went on, he allowed one hit in the first inning, 2 in the second, 3 in the third and then it pattered out a bit but ended in a bases loaded situation. Overall if you look at these outings together out pitching would be rather average, basically we're still in need of another solid contributor to our rotation since Dickey has been so inconsistent and we can't really count on stellar outings from Happ and Stroman on a regular basis as Happ is just not that kind of pitcher and Stroman lacks the experience to be able to do that (unless he's secretly Matt Harvey or something). As well we could very well complete this as a sweep since Happ's last couple starts have been quality and Verlander has been kind of shaky (at least for what he normally is).
On the other hand our offence was stellar, and I say that even despite the lack of offensive production against the starters because we took advantage of the Tigers weak point, their bullpen, and just drilled them into the group with 7 runs in the last 4 innings of the second game and 5 runs in the last inning of the first game. Overall this is a good start and the fact that most of these guys are much better with their approach at the plate makes things all the better, thank you Kevin Seitzer!
Next Series: Home against the Cardinals: Now when I heard the Cardinals were coming over I expected this to be the tipping point however, the Cardinals are on a really lacklustre streak with their offence and the starting pitchers we are set to face (Garcia, Miller and Lynn) are unfortunately the worst of the batch. Still despite the bad offence the Cardinals are still formidable defensively and given that they have probably the best catcher for throwing out runners in Yadier Molina speed may be eliminated from the Jays usual game. This however is still a turning point in my eyes since we know how strong the Cardinals can be when their on and even a slight tweak of their rotation could very well have us facing Wacha or Wainwright to VERY deadly pitchers.
Now the next set of series have us up against the Twins, Orioles, Yankees, Reds, Yankees and White Sox until the end of June, which gives us a up and down ride as the Yankees have been pretty crap over this year but the Twins have been having some pitching success and the Orioles players seem to be putting things together and lets not forget that the Reds have Johnny Cueto and could have Mat Lator back by then as well. The 2 weeks following that are the next surge of 'prove yourself' games as we go into series against the Milkwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics and L.A Angels, all of which are on a tear both offensively and in pitching. Meaning that the true strength of the 2014 Blue Jays will be decided between now and the start of the All Star game, if we're in the same position we are in now or at least within a few games of it then the Jays are legitimate World Series contenders.
Current Series: @ Detroit. Now this one is obviously already underway and the results have been rather surprising so far as the Jays have managed to take the first 2 games of the series with a pretty commanding lead though in both instances their starting pitcher was almost too much of a challenge to get a leg up on. The fact that Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello combined for only 1 earned run over their time pitching in these 2 games tells us that there may still be a bit of work to be done since these two guys aren't even the cream of the crop pitching in the MLB. Now our pitching in these games is like Jekyll and Hyde as Hutchison went pitch for pitch against Sanchez and even got more strikeouts, however Dickey, despite only allowing 2 runs, had little control of the knuckleball and it seemingly got worse as the game went on, he allowed one hit in the first inning, 2 in the second, 3 in the third and then it pattered out a bit but ended in a bases loaded situation. Overall if you look at these outings together out pitching would be rather average, basically we're still in need of another solid contributor to our rotation since Dickey has been so inconsistent and we can't really count on stellar outings from Happ and Stroman on a regular basis as Happ is just not that kind of pitcher and Stroman lacks the experience to be able to do that (unless he's secretly Matt Harvey or something). As well we could very well complete this as a sweep since Happ's last couple starts have been quality and Verlander has been kind of shaky (at least for what he normally is).
On the other hand our offence was stellar, and I say that even despite the lack of offensive production against the starters because we took advantage of the Tigers weak point, their bullpen, and just drilled them into the group with 7 runs in the last 4 innings of the second game and 5 runs in the last inning of the first game. Overall this is a good start and the fact that most of these guys are much better with their approach at the plate makes things all the better, thank you Kevin Seitzer!
Next Series: Home against the Cardinals: Now when I heard the Cardinals were coming over I expected this to be the tipping point however, the Cardinals are on a really lacklustre streak with their offence and the starting pitchers we are set to face (Garcia, Miller and Lynn) are unfortunately the worst of the batch. Still despite the bad offence the Cardinals are still formidable defensively and given that they have probably the best catcher for throwing out runners in Yadier Molina speed may be eliminated from the Jays usual game. This however is still a turning point in my eyes since we know how strong the Cardinals can be when their on and even a slight tweak of their rotation could very well have us facing Wacha or Wainwright to VERY deadly pitchers.
Now the next set of series have us up against the Twins, Orioles, Yankees, Reds, Yankees and White Sox until the end of June, which gives us a up and down ride as the Yankees have been pretty crap over this year but the Twins have been having some pitching success and the Orioles players seem to be putting things together and lets not forget that the Reds have Johnny Cueto and could have Mat Lator back by then as well. The 2 weeks following that are the next surge of 'prove yourself' games as we go into series against the Milkwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics and L.A Angels, all of which are on a tear both offensively and in pitching. Meaning that the true strength of the 2014 Blue Jays will be decided between now and the start of the All Star game, if we're in the same position we are in now or at least within a few games of it then the Jays are legitimate World Series contenders.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Bird Watch: Update and 1/3 Mark
So writing here has been a bit difficult to keep up with as of late however going to be committing to write more on here. Anyhow, onward! As the title suggests I'm just going to be looking at the teams performance over the first 1/3 of the season this year.
Baltimore Orioles:
So the AL East has been really weird these days huh, we've got all the teams who are only treading water above the .500 mark, which is pretty ridiculous when you consider where everyone finished the year at and how many major signings the Orioles and the Yankees have made that haven't seemingly made major differences yet (besides Masahiro Tanaka). Now the Orioles have been doing well in holding things together, now the current position is in part because of a slow start by some of their major offensive players (ie. Chris Davis and J.J Hardy) and a lacklustre performance by some of their starting pitchers (ie. Ubaldo Jimenez, Wei Yin Chen and Bud Norris) as well as some major players out of the lineup for a good amount of the first section of the season (Machado).
Now while these major negatives have kept the Orioles out of first and second place of the AL East or from really running away with the division while everyone else is down, many of their acquisitions have been very positive contributors. Going into the new season I thought a number of the signings that the Orioles made were a BIG mistake, Ubaldo Jimenez had really only had a small period of consistent success outside of his Cy Young season and had been pretty bad when it came to holding down the long ball. As well Nelson Cruz had come off of his PED suspension and I shared a view with other major analysts that his PED use may have been keeping him healthy, as before suspicion of PED use came about he was in and out of the DL almost every season. Now I'll be honest I was only 50% right there, Ubaldo so far has been a big disappointment for what he was expected to be, HOWEVER I was completely wrong about Cruz, he has been holding the offensive end of the Orioles lineup since the start of the season and in some of the early games I watched he surprised the hell out of me.
Now while, like other AL East teams, the Orioles have started slow some things are looking up, Chris Davis is heating up big time (he had a 3 home run game not long ago), Chris Tillman is working himself back into a groove, despite their closer Tommy Hunter getting injured Zach Britton has been able to hold his own very well. Now one of the odd things this season is that the Orioles have a winning record against the AL East, West and National League, however they are 7-13 against the AL Central and that comes off as odd because for one the Central has a more pitcher friendly set of parks, which should make it easier on their pitchers who aren't necessarily star calibre players and their hitters are weaker than the East or most teams in the West. In addition to Hunter running onto the DL, the Orioles have also lost Wieters for the foreseeable future making them a little weaker at the catcher position as well.
All in all it seems like, given where all of the other AL East teams are at, the Orioles are on pace to still keep in good competition in the AL East, as well they have a fairly easy/balanced next couple of months on their schedule leading up to the All Star Game. So if they can pick themselves up from the DL woes they've had and improve a bit on their offence, which seems to be happening, and get their 3 mediocre starters to take it up a notch they could easily see themselves in first or second in the AL East.
St. Louis Cardinals:
Oddly enough the situation the Cardinals have found themselves in over the first 1/3 of the season has been kinda similar to that of the Orioles as they are much lower in the standings than I'm sure people were expecting them to be. Also like the Orioles some of their major offensive producers from last year have been rather quiet, though some are heating up, those being Matt Adams, Matt Carpenter and Allen Craig. Now do I expect these 3 to continue being lacklustre? Not a chance! But this slow start is a big reason for them being where they are right now.
When the Cardinals hit the offseason there wasn't a lot of areas they needed to sign anyone significant to fill a spot in the roster, with exception to shortstop because of the injury issues to Rafael Furcal the years before and the fact that he was pushing 39. So they went out and signed Jhonny Peralta, again much like Cruz I thought this was going to be a bust because of his unusual spike in power last year and then being followed by his PED suspension. However shows me what the hell I know because he's been more than an above average offensive producer on the Cardinals batting order, and has kept about the same level of defence that he did when he was with the Tigers. Additionally they had some rotation and bullpen spots to fill so they slotted in a lot of their newbie pitchers (Wacha, Rosenthal, Martinez, Mille, etc) and there has been about a 50-50 turn out of these guys so far. Wacha has been fairly dominant in the bulk of his starts, which is great considering he didn't even play a full season at the major league level last year, on the other hand Miller has been a bit wobbly as he turns in some stellar outings and then others when he gets away with ALOT of bad pitching, though he has been turning it around as of late. Finally the Rosenthal and Martinez in the bullpen have also been showing the same sort of duality, Rosenthal has been, similar to Miller, struggling with command and because of that has blown a fair number of saves in addition to have some outings that could have been disastrous but thankfully were't due to things like he big time heater. Martinez on the other hand has been all smooth sailing since they put him in the set up role, which was a bit disappointing as most people, including myself, thought he's get the last rotation spot over Joe Kelly because well his stuff is just a lot better and he has the better prospect pedigree.
Overall the Cardinals have done a good job despite their struggling core of their offence and some shakiness to their pitchers however you have to keep things in context because despite Miller and Rosenthal having bad outings now and then, their not blow outs and when you consider they have Wainwright who is definitely a top 5 pitcher this year to back them up they have the potential to hold out and improve. Rosenthal though does have something to worry about since Motte has just recently come off the DL from his Tommy John rehab and if things keep going sour for Rosenthal we could see him losing the closer job, though that would make you wonder what they do with him or Martinez (ie. push them back to 7th/8th inning, send one down to AAA or move one to the rotation?). Either way as they always do the Cardinals have more than enough potential to make a run at the NL Central and the NL as a whole.
Toronto Blue Jays:
Many people will look back on my posts during the offseason about railing Alex Anthopolous because he did nothing for the team, I mean I applauded his signing of Navarro because I thought he'd be a good fit for the rotation since, from his stats, he seemed to be a catcher who enhanced a pitchers abilities when they followed the pitches he called. However that was pretty much all he did and it drove me insane (not going to go into the Masahiro Tanka rant again). The main issue I thought that was going to bite them to begin with was their starting rotation because they hadn't made any significant changes to it, now yes they did add Hutchison and McGowan from the DL however what we've seen from history is typically it takes about a year for a starting pitcher to get completely back into form after returning from tommy john surgery, which both of them were. That alone made me very wary about trusting this rotation, that added with Brandon Morrow lacking any sense of consistency as usual. All in all this is pretty much exactly how the first month of the season played out, Hutchison pitched above average, Dickey did slightly better than what he did the year before, Morrow collapsed and got injured, McGowan was terrible, and then Mark Buerhle……had an ERA under 2?
Now oddly enough this year so far and most years previous the Jays have seldom had problems with offence, they have led the league or been in the top 5 of home runs hit in several seasons past, so their prime problem has been keeping good healthy starters on the mound for a full season. The Buerhle stuff so far this year really caught me off guard but like I said about Navarro enhancing a pitchers ability by being good at calling pitches I think may have worked BIG TIME for Buerhle since he doesn't shake off any pitch calls by the catcher and due to his diminished velocity has had to develop pinpoint accuracy. Don't get me wrong though I don't expect him to keep this ERA and everything up but I wouldn't be surprised if his ERA at the end of the year was somewhere around 3.00-3.10, where he usually ends up at 3.40-3.50 or higher and with maybe 15-18 wins, as he usually gets somewhere between 13-15 on the past few seasons.
Currently the lights seem to be all coming on for the Jays, nearly all of their offensive pieces are pushing forward at full force, Dickey has seemingly got past his 7th inning woes (the being that he had consistently collapsed in the 7th inning in several games), Reyes, Gose and Pillar have turned on the speed on the base paths, and our bullpen has stabilized a great deal with the return of Casey Janssen and our starters being more consistent. They have already swept both the A's and the Red Sox before that, which bodes well as a sweep of the Red Sox in their current condition doesn't mean much, but being able to beat out the best team in the AL right now is definitely something big and their match against the Rays today showed that the offence isn't slowing down.
Going into this season not much was expected out of the Jays, now that isn't necessarily because they were thought to be a bad team, just that all of the teams around them in the AL East had either made big signings to improve their club or were keeping a solid group of players together with major success last year, however with that backfiring on most of the other AL East teams if Toronto can keep up this offensive surge, keep up with quality pitching and maybe add another front of the rotation starter by the trade deadline then they could very well be a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs this year.
-Eric
Baltimore Orioles:
So the AL East has been really weird these days huh, we've got all the teams who are only treading water above the .500 mark, which is pretty ridiculous when you consider where everyone finished the year at and how many major signings the Orioles and the Yankees have made that haven't seemingly made major differences yet (besides Masahiro Tanaka). Now the Orioles have been doing well in holding things together, now the current position is in part because of a slow start by some of their major offensive players (ie. Chris Davis and J.J Hardy) and a lacklustre performance by some of their starting pitchers (ie. Ubaldo Jimenez, Wei Yin Chen and Bud Norris) as well as some major players out of the lineup for a good amount of the first section of the season (Machado).
Now while these major negatives have kept the Orioles out of first and second place of the AL East or from really running away with the division while everyone else is down, many of their acquisitions have been very positive contributors. Going into the new season I thought a number of the signings that the Orioles made were a BIG mistake, Ubaldo Jimenez had really only had a small period of consistent success outside of his Cy Young season and had been pretty bad when it came to holding down the long ball. As well Nelson Cruz had come off of his PED suspension and I shared a view with other major analysts that his PED use may have been keeping him healthy, as before suspicion of PED use came about he was in and out of the DL almost every season. Now I'll be honest I was only 50% right there, Ubaldo so far has been a big disappointment for what he was expected to be, HOWEVER I was completely wrong about Cruz, he has been holding the offensive end of the Orioles lineup since the start of the season and in some of the early games I watched he surprised the hell out of me.
Now while, like other AL East teams, the Orioles have started slow some things are looking up, Chris Davis is heating up big time (he had a 3 home run game not long ago), Chris Tillman is working himself back into a groove, despite their closer Tommy Hunter getting injured Zach Britton has been able to hold his own very well. Now one of the odd things this season is that the Orioles have a winning record against the AL East, West and National League, however they are 7-13 against the AL Central and that comes off as odd because for one the Central has a more pitcher friendly set of parks, which should make it easier on their pitchers who aren't necessarily star calibre players and their hitters are weaker than the East or most teams in the West. In addition to Hunter running onto the DL, the Orioles have also lost Wieters for the foreseeable future making them a little weaker at the catcher position as well.
All in all it seems like, given where all of the other AL East teams are at, the Orioles are on pace to still keep in good competition in the AL East, as well they have a fairly easy/balanced next couple of months on their schedule leading up to the All Star Game. So if they can pick themselves up from the DL woes they've had and improve a bit on their offence, which seems to be happening, and get their 3 mediocre starters to take it up a notch they could easily see themselves in first or second in the AL East.
St. Louis Cardinals:
Oddly enough the situation the Cardinals have found themselves in over the first 1/3 of the season has been kinda similar to that of the Orioles as they are much lower in the standings than I'm sure people were expecting them to be. Also like the Orioles some of their major offensive producers from last year have been rather quiet, though some are heating up, those being Matt Adams, Matt Carpenter and Allen Craig. Now do I expect these 3 to continue being lacklustre? Not a chance! But this slow start is a big reason for them being where they are right now.
When the Cardinals hit the offseason there wasn't a lot of areas they needed to sign anyone significant to fill a spot in the roster, with exception to shortstop because of the injury issues to Rafael Furcal the years before and the fact that he was pushing 39. So they went out and signed Jhonny Peralta, again much like Cruz I thought this was going to be a bust because of his unusual spike in power last year and then being followed by his PED suspension. However shows me what the hell I know because he's been more than an above average offensive producer on the Cardinals batting order, and has kept about the same level of defence that he did when he was with the Tigers. Additionally they had some rotation and bullpen spots to fill so they slotted in a lot of their newbie pitchers (Wacha, Rosenthal, Martinez, Mille, etc) and there has been about a 50-50 turn out of these guys so far. Wacha has been fairly dominant in the bulk of his starts, which is great considering he didn't even play a full season at the major league level last year, on the other hand Miller has been a bit wobbly as he turns in some stellar outings and then others when he gets away with ALOT of bad pitching, though he has been turning it around as of late. Finally the Rosenthal and Martinez in the bullpen have also been showing the same sort of duality, Rosenthal has been, similar to Miller, struggling with command and because of that has blown a fair number of saves in addition to have some outings that could have been disastrous but thankfully were't due to things like he big time heater. Martinez on the other hand has been all smooth sailing since they put him in the set up role, which was a bit disappointing as most people, including myself, thought he's get the last rotation spot over Joe Kelly because well his stuff is just a lot better and he has the better prospect pedigree.
Overall the Cardinals have done a good job despite their struggling core of their offence and some shakiness to their pitchers however you have to keep things in context because despite Miller and Rosenthal having bad outings now and then, their not blow outs and when you consider they have Wainwright who is definitely a top 5 pitcher this year to back them up they have the potential to hold out and improve. Rosenthal though does have something to worry about since Motte has just recently come off the DL from his Tommy John rehab and if things keep going sour for Rosenthal we could see him losing the closer job, though that would make you wonder what they do with him or Martinez (ie. push them back to 7th/8th inning, send one down to AAA or move one to the rotation?). Either way as they always do the Cardinals have more than enough potential to make a run at the NL Central and the NL as a whole.
Toronto Blue Jays:
Many people will look back on my posts during the offseason about railing Alex Anthopolous because he did nothing for the team, I mean I applauded his signing of Navarro because I thought he'd be a good fit for the rotation since, from his stats, he seemed to be a catcher who enhanced a pitchers abilities when they followed the pitches he called. However that was pretty much all he did and it drove me insane (not going to go into the Masahiro Tanka rant again). The main issue I thought that was going to bite them to begin with was their starting rotation because they hadn't made any significant changes to it, now yes they did add Hutchison and McGowan from the DL however what we've seen from history is typically it takes about a year for a starting pitcher to get completely back into form after returning from tommy john surgery, which both of them were. That alone made me very wary about trusting this rotation, that added with Brandon Morrow lacking any sense of consistency as usual. All in all this is pretty much exactly how the first month of the season played out, Hutchison pitched above average, Dickey did slightly better than what he did the year before, Morrow collapsed and got injured, McGowan was terrible, and then Mark Buerhle……had an ERA under 2?
Now oddly enough this year so far and most years previous the Jays have seldom had problems with offence, they have led the league or been in the top 5 of home runs hit in several seasons past, so their prime problem has been keeping good healthy starters on the mound for a full season. The Buerhle stuff so far this year really caught me off guard but like I said about Navarro enhancing a pitchers ability by being good at calling pitches I think may have worked BIG TIME for Buerhle since he doesn't shake off any pitch calls by the catcher and due to his diminished velocity has had to develop pinpoint accuracy. Don't get me wrong though I don't expect him to keep this ERA and everything up but I wouldn't be surprised if his ERA at the end of the year was somewhere around 3.00-3.10, where he usually ends up at 3.40-3.50 or higher and with maybe 15-18 wins, as he usually gets somewhere between 13-15 on the past few seasons.
Currently the lights seem to be all coming on for the Jays, nearly all of their offensive pieces are pushing forward at full force, Dickey has seemingly got past his 7th inning woes (the being that he had consistently collapsed in the 7th inning in several games), Reyes, Gose and Pillar have turned on the speed on the base paths, and our bullpen has stabilized a great deal with the return of Casey Janssen and our starters being more consistent. They have already swept both the A's and the Red Sox before that, which bodes well as a sweep of the Red Sox in their current condition doesn't mean much, but being able to beat out the best team in the AL right now is definitely something big and their match against the Rays today showed that the offence isn't slowing down.
Going into this season not much was expected out of the Jays, now that isn't necessarily because they were thought to be a bad team, just that all of the teams around them in the AL East had either made big signings to improve their club or were keeping a solid group of players together with major success last year, however with that backfiring on most of the other AL East teams if Toronto can keep up this offensive surge, keep up with quality pitching and maybe add another front of the rotation starter by the trade deadline then they could very well be a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs this year.
-Eric
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Bird Watch: Has It Helped?
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.
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.
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
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