|
|
|
NLDS Game 2: We were there, here are 12 things we saw
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
NLDS Game 2: We were there, here are 12 things we saw
 |
 |
All the way back in October of 2007 the Philadelphia Phillies were a young, up-and-coming team with league-best power and an MVP first basemen. They had an exciting year, won the division from a hated rival, and then marched forward to the playoffs. There they threw two young starters (Cole Hamels and Kyle Kendrick) and a wily vet (Moyer), and were totally outclassed. They made stupid mistakes (caught stealing in every game) were unable to advance the few runners they got on base, and went home licking their wounds three short games later. Then, just one year later, they won one World Series, went to second, and appear well on their way to a third.
All of which is to say, don't fret young Reds. Sure you stunk this year (and don't get it confused, past tense is appropriate, this series is over), but not being ready for prime time happens, quite literally, to the best of us. It also happened to you.
Game Two: We Were There, Here Are 12 Things We Saw
1. Joe Morgan was in the house, either being a huge homer or doing actual homework in preparation for Fox's NLCS coverage. I'd be SHOCKED if it's the latter.
2. Re: all the early game âUtley's back at it againâ quips, I'd check a couple World Series' stat sheets before poo-poo ing Chase's 2009 postseason.
3. Chooch should and does get a ton of credit for calling excellent games, but he deserves to get some heat for last night's. Roy Oswalt's fastball had a ton of movement, and his slider looked bad.
4. I don't know if our pee cycles are perfectly aligned or if he's just got the bladder of a 4-year-old girl, but I could swear that Wheels is in the bathroom every time I go.
5. At this point in his career, Jimmy Rollins is a fine 7-hole hitter.
6. There were some faint âMVPâ chants for Ruiz after he limped to first after his HBP in the 6th. I know it sounds bizarre, but if you're the type of asshole who won't vote a pitcher MVP, they kinda make sense. This was his 22nd straight postseason game in which he reached safely.
7. Two points on Utley's phantom HBP. 1. You don't bail on a 101 MPH fastball up and in? You deserve first. 2. Kudos to Utley. Baserunners matter, and he was the tying run. His gamesmanship helped get in the heads of a team whose heads could obviously be gotten in.
8. One more on Utley: Postgame, Charlie talked about Utley's two errors, after non-answering for a couple minutes and mumbling something about how no one works harder Cholly got to the point, âI'm not benching him,â he said to laughs, then explained his motives, âI'm too old to fight.â
9. Come playoff time, CBP stays packed. After games are over, fans mill around, waiting for Harry to sing and taking in the scene. I don't think anyone expects something to happen, I just think they'd all rather be there.
10. Fun fact about Franciso's beaning (he took one off the dome): It didn't actually hit him, it drilled the brim of his helmet. Still, it was hard enough that his ears were ringing on the basepaths.
11. Dusty Baker on his team: âin my mind we outplayed them.â Dusty Baker's mind (#dustybakersmind) sounds like a hilarious internet meme.
12. J.C. Romero's eyebrows are something serious for the postseason. Dude looks like he went to the eyebrow waxer and told them to make him look like an evil anime character.
Not sure that (3) is fair. Oswalt, ulike most Phils pitchers, was shaking off Chooch's signs a lot. Maybe Oswalt will look at the box score from last night and figure out that he'd be better off just throwing whatever Chooch puts down.
Scooter, The point that Oswalt was shaking off Chooch is well taken, but per both fangraphs (http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=571&position=P#pitchtype) and the eye test his slider has been his worst pitch all year, and he was clearly struggling to locate it. Unless Oswalt literally shook off Ruiz three straight times on several occasions, I have to put some of the blame on the guy dialing it up. For what it's worth, this isn't 20/20 hindsight either, I tweeted about the pitch two innings before the Bruce HR. Look, Chooch has been amazing all year - point #6 recognizes that - but if we're going to put the spotlight on his gamecalling, well, lets put the spotlight on his gamecalling.
The quality of Oswalt's slider this season and the quality of Oswalt's slider during Game 2 are not in dispute, making the Fangraphs point unnecessary. Likewise, your baseball prognostication skills are not in question. Look, I'm a baseball stathead, so making arguments about interpersonal stuff isn't exactly my wheelhouse. Still, it doesn't seem to me like there's much a catcher can do when a pitcher shakes off the first 2-3 signs, especially when that pitcher is as notoriously stubborn as Oswalt. Here's something testable. On any given pitch, the last sign given should correspond to the pitch thrown. If the number of signs was higher on sliders than on other pitches, then that could be considered evidence that Chooch was less enamored with the slider than Oswalt. If the number of signs was lower or the same on sliders compared to other pitches, then that could be considered evidence that Chooch and Oswalt were equally enamored with the slider. Granted, there's a lot of problems with this approach -- small sample size, of course, since the 76 pitchers Owalt threw don't exactly constitute a robust sample size. And if the Phils were worried about the Reds stealing signs, they may have gone with some sort of "Throw whatever the second sign is, no matter how many signs are put down" rule. And, perhaps most importantly, I'm just not going to sit down and track each pitch from this game, noting the number of signs put down and the type of pitch for all 76 pitches Oswalt threw. Still, and as a baseball stathead it pains me to say something like this, it just seems like common sense to assume that when a catcher isn't getting shaken off most of the time, then the catcher is the one selecting most of the pitches, and by the same token, that when a catcher is being shaken off as much as much as Chooch was during Game 2, that the pitcher is the one selecting most of the pitches -- the catcher's selections are being vetoed. And with a guy as stubborn as Oswalt doing the shaking off, I don't think you can blame Chooch for failing to get through to Oswalt or manipulate Oswalt into going along with his game plan. Most pitchers, yes. The legendarily hard-headed Oswalt? No. I guess I could be wrong about how often Oswalt shook Chooch off, too. I certainly got that impression during the game, but I wasn't counting. The shaking off stood out to me, but maybe it shouldn't have, or maybe it was something like Oswalt shook Chooch off 20 times when the normal number of times that a Phils starter shakes off Chooch would have been 10. It might have been twice as frequent as usual, but still leaving a large majority of pitches being determined by the first sign that Chooch put down. I think it's just impossible to evaluate a catcher's game-calling when he gets shaken off frequently, because the game being thrown is different than the game being called. I also don't think one should blame Chooch for being unable to get Oswalt to put his pitch selection in Chooch's hands because of Oswalt's all-star-quality obstinacy. Blanton, sure. Oswalt, no. After the amount of time it took to write this, I probably could have watched every pitch Oswalt threw in Game 2 and tracked all the data points I was looking for. OK, back to work.
- ActiVman
- adventures
- Arts
- Ask A Man-About-Town
- Award Tour
- Awards
- Bad Idea Factory
- Beer
- Below the Curve
- Bikes
- Booze
- Brian Hickey
- BRT
- Budget
- Budget Fuss
- Business
- Casinos
- City Council
- City Hall
- CouncilMANIC
- CP Abroad
- CP in the Community
- Criminal Justice System
- Day Tripper
- Death and Taxes
- Delaware River
- Design
- DROP
- Drugs
- Dubious Distinction
- Elections
- End of Days
- Environment
- Fashion
- Film Fest
- Financial Meltdown
- FrackTrack
- Free Library
- Gambling
- Gay Stuff
- Get Lit
- Greenstorming
- guns
- Hall Monitor
- Health
- Health Care
- Hello, Kitty
- Holidays
- Ice Cubes
- Iggles
- Immigration
- In Memoriam
- Labor
- Lawsuits
- Letters
- LGBTQ
- Maps
- Marcellus Shale
- Media
- MMA
- Mummers
- Music
- MUST READ
- Mysterious Mysteries
- Nation
- News
- Non Sequitur
- Opinion
- PA politics 2010
- Parking Wars
- Parks and Recreation
- People Send Us This Stuff
- Philadelphia Police
- Philadelphia Union
- Philaphemera
- Philly From Scratch
- philly madness
- Photos
- Poverty
- PPA
- President Obama
- Print Edition
- Prisons
- Protest
- Readers Write
- Real Estate
- Rock Bottom
- Schools
- Science
- Screwing Philly
- SEPTA
- snow
- So Lush
- Soccer
- Sporting Life
- Sports Complex
- State Politicians
- State Politics
- Street Art
- Strike
- Stuff We Like
- Taxes
- Taxi Drivers
- Tech Fetish
- television
- The Budget Crisis
- The City Paper
- The CLOG
- The Human Condition
- The Mayor
- The Phightin Phils
- The World
- Things that make you go hm
- Tinfoil Hats Off
- Under the Table
- Under the Tables
- Urban Development
- Urban Planning
- urban wildlife
- Video Poker
- We Call Shenanigans
- Weather
- Web Junk
- Weekend Omnibus
- White House
- What We've Found
- Women's Issues
- Flyered Up!
- How 'Bout That Weather?
- it's always sunny in philadelphia
- Stu!
- Shopping
- get out
- 10-track mind
- ArtsFlash
- Bloggity
- Bruce Being Bruce
- Colleges
- Comedy
- Gigantic Surprises
- Hello Canary
- Hello Puppy
- errata
- get lost
- Inside The Fishbowl
- Library Closings
- Local Support
- Movies
- Murder
- Night Moves
- Recycling
- radio
- Scientology
- Sex
- Sixers
- Skeeze Police
- State Politicians Screwing Philly
- That's a cool stencil!
- Theater
- Things We See
- This Week
- This Week in Oates
- University City
- WIN
- What we don't heart
- trailer!
- what we heart
- Feeling Guilty
- Askadelphia.
- Broke in Philly
- Contest
- Dance
- Dear Paper Doll
- Do A Good Thing
- Education
- Film Fest Schism
- G20-20 Vision
- Goodbye
- Gossip
- Great American Heroes
- PATCO
- Pearl Jam Week
- Puppy
- Stars of the Photostream
- sustainability
- Lower Merion Webcam-Gate
- The Cycle
- Equality Forum
- Bureaucrat of the Week
- Animals
- ElectionEar
- Photostream
