Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Game 100: Nothing To Lose

The Terrible Twenty in April and the first ten games of the Dirty Dozen have exposed the young, improving Jays as a team that isn't ready -- yet -- to defeat the Beasts of the East. There are no more illusions of contending this year, which may be a good thing. The pressure's off; the Jays can stop trying too hard and just play ball.

Tonight, a pitcher I like a lot (Mark Hendrickson) faces one I loathe (Jeff Weaver, Chronic Underachiever). I was surprised and disappointed eight days ago, when Weaver pitched his best game in a long, long time to handcuff the Jays at the Dome. Tonight, it's possible he'll let the home crowd get into his head -- Lord knows, there's not much else in there -- or maybe, the more relaxed Toronto hitters will have a better approach. Lurch has to accept that he's not going to pitch a perfect game. Six innings of minimizing the damage would be a successful outing against an awesome lineup that's in a very good groove.

Carlos Tosca doesn't want Bobby Kielty to get too comfortable. The newest Jay is at first base tonight, with Delgado the DH. I really like the switch-hitter in the 5-hole betwen Carlos and Eric Hinske; it means Kielty might get to tee off again on a lefty reliever (see Fossum, Casey). Interesting that Tom Wilson is the catcher; with a lefty going tomorrow, I was sure it would be Myers again tonight. Crash was 2-for-4 yesterday, but he may be hurting.

Posted by Coach on Monday, July 21 2003 @ 06:59 AM EDT.

Game 100: Nothing To Lose | 46 comments | Create New Account

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_Lurch - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 07:10 PM EDT (#96868) #

The Terrible Twenty in April and the first ten games of the Dirty Dozen have exposed the young, improving Jays as a team that isn't ready -- yet -- to defeat the Beasts of the East.

Kind of ironic I guess...the problem wasn't the young and improving - it was the older and unimpressive.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 07:30 PM EDT (#96869) #

Apparently Delgado's been favouring one knee for a while, and the "good" one is now acting up. Jerry Howarth says he will DH again tomorrow.

Reed Johnson, ball magnet. The HBP (that's 10) is as much a part of his game as the push bunt and the turf chop. What a throwback. A determined AB by Cat resulted in a single up the middle, but Wells grounded into a fielder's choice, then Delgado (homerless in 14 games) hit into a double play.

Good play by Kielty to save a Hinske error on the low throw. Jeter singled and stole second, then Giambi walked, but Hendrickson popped up Williams and Matsui to get out of trouble.

_Spicol - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 07:49 PM EDT (#96870) #

That wasn't that great a bunt that Reed just beat out for a hit...Weaver was just in la-la land.

_Lurch - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 07:54 PM EDT (#96871) #

What's that thing Delgado does with his hand after every ball?

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:11 PM EDT (#96872) #

All right! Kielty leads off the fourth with a double, Hinske doubles him home. 1-0, good guys.

_Chuck Van Den C - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:13 PM EDT (#96873) #

Meanwhile, over in Beantown, the Red Sox are mashing the Tigers. Jeremy Giambi did something for only the 11th time all season. He hit a single.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:20 PM EDT (#96874) #

Woodward delivered a 2-out RBI single to cash Hinske and it's 2-0, Jays. So far, so good.

_Shrike - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:29 PM EDT (#96875) #

Hinske's power isn't really all back yet. I would have expected that hanging breaking ball to be deposited in the bleachers.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:33 PM EDT (#96876) #

Boom! Vernon Wells got all of that one. 3-zip, and the Bronx boo-birds are getting on poor Jeffrey.

_Chuck Van Den C - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:35 PM EDT (#96877) #

I like Kielty batting 5th against LHP and RHP.

Against LHP, bat Wilson 6th. Then, if you have to flip Wilson (Geraldine Jones, Suckah), you've got Kielty between Delgado and Myers.

Against RHP, Kielty nicely separates Delgado and Myers. When the inevitable LOOGY comes in to face Delgado, he'd likely stick around to ultimately get to Myers, but at least he'd have to face a RHB in between. Of course, Myers-Hinske back-to-back becomes a problem, but at least if Wilson PH's for Myers, the LOOGY's been flipped out and won't face Hinske.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:40 PM EDT (#96878) #

Music to my ears...

The crowd is all over Weaver now, after Hinske rips one up the middle to drive in the fourth run. Wilson just made it five straight hits, it's 5-0, and that's all for Weaver.

_Elijah - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:55 PM EDT (#96879) #

I'm watching the YES broadcast and Michael Kay has gone off for the umpteenth time on how the A's/Blue Jays/Red Sox offensive philosophy does not work unless you have the pitching (like the triumvirate of Zito, Mulder, Hudson). According to Kay, the reason the Yankees have won is because they've always had the pitching. And he added that the Jays have realized that not any reliever can finish a game with a three-run lead but you need a guy with a mental edge, like a Mariano Rivera.

Somebody shoot me. Doesn't Kay realize that the Blue Jays are trying to improve their pitching while maximizing their offensive efficiency? They are not losing because of their offensive philosophy. They're losing because their pitching is not good enough. And this is why, according to Kay, the Red Sox haven't won a World Series since 1918. He never fails to mention this during any A's or Jays game I watch him broadcast.

_Brent - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:58 PM EDT (#96880) #

Did you hear the noise of the crowd when they took out Weaver? That must be the worst feeling in the world: getting booed by 40000 people...and in Yankee stadium. If I was pitching badly, I'd probably crawl up into a little ball on the first baseline and start crying. Then again, there are many other reasons why I'm not pitching at Yankee stadium.

_Spicol - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 08:59 PM EDT (#96881) #

Mr. Cerutti, what's a pitcher's pitch?

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:02 PM EDT (#96882) #

Cerutti, whose mouth babbles away with intermittent input from his brain, actually said, "last inning was very important for Mark Hendrickson, with just a two run lead, but this inning is even more important."

Of course it is. Being up by five is a much tougher spot.

With two runners in scoring position, Lurch froze Jeter for strike three, except he didn't get the call. No problem; he got him to chase strike four. Five shutout innings in Yankee Stadium. Not bad.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:15 PM EDT (#96883) #

Speaking of five shutout innings, nice debut so far for Rich Harden, who clings to a 1-0 lead in K.C. -- 3 hits, a walk and 4 K after a very tidy 68 pitches.

Dave Till - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:20 PM EDT (#96884) #

I just got here. Imagine my surprise to discover that the Jays are up 6-0, and that Lurch is throwing a shutout. Yay, Lurch - I take back many of the nasty things I've said about you. :-)

Nice play by Kielty - that deal is looking better and better every day.

Gitz - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:24 PM EDT (#96885) #

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:26 PM EDT (#96886) #

You gotta like Bobby Kielty. What a fine play to retire Matsui; good hustle by Hendrickson to get to the bag in time.

Earlier, I said "Six innings of minimizing the damage would be a successful outing," and the big fella has done a lot more than that. He'll be on a very short leash now, as he's thrown 86 pitches and they consider him a 6-inning guy, but when you're tossing a 4-hit shutout, you get to stay out there.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:34 PM EDT (#96887) #

Another gem from Cerutti: "If the Jays win tonight, they're going to be thinking about a sweep tomorrow." How much do they pay him to come up with these insights?

Woodward singles in the seventh run. Every Jay has at least one hit.

_Mark - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:37 PM EDT (#96888) #

I was fascinated with the announcer's (forget if it was Faulds or Cerruti) comment earlier about how Hendrickson was "just hoping to get a decision". Now, I hesitate to compare myself to pro athletes, but I feel fairly confident I could get a major league decision if put on the mound. Might be a loss and I'd probably have an ERA of infinity but hey, getting the decision is the important thing.

I'd like to see Kielty bat third. They would alternate lefty/righty at the top: Johnson (R), Cat (L), Kielty (S), Delgado (L), Wells (R), then Frankencatcher, Hinske (L), Hudson (S), Woodward (R). Plus Kielty should get on base a bit more in front of Delgado, and Wells has more power than Kielty making him more suited to driving in runs. Not that lineup order matters all that much but you want your high OBP guys higher in the order. I'm so impresssed by Kielty after only five games. His first out tonight was hit pretty hard and he has great strike zone awareness.

Craig B - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:42 PM EDT (#96889) #

Sheer idiocy from the A's/Royals game. Runners on first and second, nobody out, bottom of the sixth, and Tony Pena has CARLOS BELTRAN bunting. Beltran fouls off not one but TWO bunt attempts before grounding out to second.

Tony Pena is one of my favorite people in baseball, but this is indefensible.

By the way, great throw from Reed Johnson to nail Posada at second base.

Dave Till - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:42 PM EDT (#96890) #

Posada was dumber than a sack of hammers on that play.

_Andrew Edwards - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:42 PM EDT (#96891) #

Good idea Mark, except I wouldn't want to mess with Vernon's head by "demoting" him.

Put Keilty second and "demote" Cat, with his relatively low OBP.

Craig B - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:44 PM EDT (#96892) #

Dave, I don't think Posada ever considered that he might be thrown out; that was a 180-foot bullet. Still, he was out by four strides.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:46 PM EDT (#96893) #

Posada was dumber than a sack of hammers on that play.

Nothing like giving away an out for a meaningless base when you're down by seven. He'd be benched on my high school team.

Coach - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:50 PM EDT (#96894) #

Boom! Vernon Wells got all of that one.

Deja vu all over again. 8-zip.

_Mark - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:51 PM EDT (#96895) #

True, there's always politics involved. Just looked up Cat's numbers and his slugging average is actually higher than Kielty's right now (.463 - .443, but Kielty's obp is higher, .382 - .334). So yeah, good call!

And another Wells HR. 8-0. Nice!

_Andrew Edwards - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:51 PM EDT (#96896) #

Miceli's a Yankee? when did that happen?

_Elijah - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:53 PM EDT (#96897) #

Heh, if the game doesn't resume, Lurch will get credit for a shutout!

_Lurch - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:54 PM EDT (#96898) #

Vernon hit that last ball so hard it broke the sky open.

_Andrew Edwards - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 09:56 PM EDT (#96899) #

While there's a delay, go read this article and associated Primer thread. It's friggin awesome.

Dave Till - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 10:14 PM EDT (#96900) #

Vernon hit that last ball so hard it broke the sky open.

Or perhaps the gods are Yankee fans, and they're now crying.

_Donkit R.K. - Monday, July 21 2003 @ 10:42 PM EDT (#96901) #

Cerutti reminds me of video game announcers who often say things way out of line. In MVP Baseball 2003, the announcing is above average for a game but there's still some dumb mistakes. I've had them say after a home run "That's what they call back to back jacks" when, of course, it was the first HR of the inning, or game, or whatever. But my favorite was the remark about by DH, Josh Phelps after a weak grounder made him 0 for 3. Remember, he's my DH... "Well Kuipe, that guy certainly isn't in the lineup because of his bat" which I've also heard about guys such as Rey Ordonez and Carl Crawford(I've used T-Bay quite a bit). If only he could be booed out of his perch, not unlike Jeff Weaver tonight...

Craig B - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 12:21 AM EDT (#96902) #

Andrew, thanks for your contributions to that Primer thread. I'm done with it, now that I've said my piece; DIPS is a matter of religious devotion to too many people, both pro- and (especially) anti-. Give the anti-DIPS folks a study that confirms the research that has been done right down to the very last detail, and the cry comes out that "this completely disproves everything that has ever been said on the topic".

Sigh.

_Shrike - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 02:26 AM EDT (#96903) #

Heya Craig. I'm not up to speed on DIPS yet. Could you briefly summarize this controversy?

Thanks!

--Sean

_Andrew Edwards - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 08:05 AM EDT (#96904) #

Craig: Boy, that was fun, eh?

Shrike:

BABIP (or $H) = the proportion of non-homerun balls that are hit fair and land for base hits.

Basically, there is very little, if any, predictive value in a pitcher's BABIP. Some very good pitchers have above-average BABIP, some poor pitchers have decent BABIP, and a pitcher who does quite well on it one year could do quite poorly on it the next year.

Pretty much everyone agree that this means that ERA, which includes hits against, is a less useful predictor of future pitcher performance than DIPS ERA, which is built on only K, BB, and HR.

Pretty much everyone agrees that knuckleballers do better on BABIP than other pitchers. Pretty much everyone agrees that flyball pitchers do better on BABIP than non-flyballers, but that this benefit is cancelled out by the higher SLG allowed by flyballers.

There is still a great deal of controversy as to whether this reveals that there is little or no skill involved in preventing hits on balls in play. In a manner of speaking that is to ask whether, aside from predictive value, a pitcher can be judged 'responsible' for his hits allowed.

_Andrew Edwards - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 08:07 AM EDT (#96905) #

Re-reading, I described BABIP in a confusing way.

It is basically (ignoring HBP, etc.): (hits allowed) divided by (batters faced, minus walks, strikeouts, and homeruns).

robertdudek - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 09:01 AM EDT (#96906) #

It is: (hits-homeruns)/(AB-homeruns-strikeouts)

_Lurch - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 09:03 AM EDT (#96907) #

Why would homeruns be seperate?

Craig B - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 09:14 AM EDT (#96908) #

Home runs are separate for two reasons:

(1) The defense has nothing to do, except in the most extreme cases, with preventing home runs. It's all batter vs. pitcher.

(2) Pitchers have a significant amount of control over their home runs allowed.

as to whether this reveals that there is little or no skill involved in preventing hits on balls in play

That's not quite right, at least I think. No one seriously believes that there is no *skill* involved, I think. But what is asserted is that MLB pitchers (and as Tippett points out, there are a couple of exceptions) don't differ substantially in that skill.

And then there's the argument going on right now... a big fight that appears to be over whether three or four non-homer hits per season is "significant" or not.

_Mick - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 11:42 AM EDT (#96909) #

Heh, if the game doesn't resume, Lurch will get credit for a shutout!

Actually, no, he won't. For the same reason that former Expo David Palmer's 15-men-up, 15-men-down, rain-shortened "perfect game" is not in the record books as a no-hitter.

A game shortened by rain, even when "completed" does not give credit to the pitcher for even a "complete game" much less a shutout. Unless that rule has changed?

_Spicol - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 11:52 AM EDT (#96910) #

It doesn't mean they are right but both ESPN and Yahoo have given him credit for a CG and Shutout. I don't know what the rule is myself.

Craig B - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 01:39 PM EDT (#96911) #

Rule 10.19(f) says you don't give a shutout "unless he pitches the complete game, or unless he enters the game with none out before the opposing team has scored in the first inning, puts out the side without a run scoring and pitches all the rest of the game."

Problem is, the Official Rules don't define "complete game" but it is customarily taken to mean all of the game as played. But yes, Hendrickson will get a CG and a SHO.

Actually, no, he won't. For the same reason that former Expo David Palmer's 15-men-up, 15-men-down, rain-shortened "perfect game" is not in the record books as a no-hitter.

MLB has specific rules for no-hitters, which explains the discrepancy. They specify that the game must not be artificially shortened. No such rule applies to shutouts or complete games.

If you look at Palmer's 1984 Retrosheet log, you'll see that he is credited with a CG and a shutout for the 5-inning perfecto on April 21.

Craig B - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 01:40 PM EDT (#96912) #

There, that should get my VORN back above Moffatt's for now.

Mike D - Tuesday, July 22 2003 @ 02:42 PM EDT (#96913) #

I was at last night's game, and Vernon's first homer was on the hangingest of hanging curves I think I've ever seen live. Good stuff, Weaver!

Question for those who watch the Yankees with more regularity than I do: I know Jeter's power is to right-centre. But is that also where his tendencies are for groundballs and line drives?

On Jeter's first at-bat, the Jays shifted their infield and outfield *way* over to the opposite field. Jeter singled through the hole in left on the first pitch.

Next at-bat, Gibbons got up on the dugout's top step and shifted the outfield way over to right again, but played the infield straight away. Flyout to left-centre. On the third at-bat, the Jays played him the same way, but he chased the high cheese (which Lurch really had working last night).

Were the Jays trying to take away his doubles power into the right-centre gap, or was Jeter uncharacteristically pulling the ball yesterday?

By the way, Woody had some outstanding at-bats last night.

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