ghost of miles Posted June 29, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2019 Anybody else following the Yankees-Red Sox game in London?! It's ridiculous! Yankees scored 6 in the top of the 1st and knocked out Porcello, then Boston answered with 6 runs of their own in the bottom of the 1st and knocked Tanaka out of the game. Yankees just scored six in the top of the 4th to make it 14-6. So far this London stadium is making Coors Field seem like a pitcher's dream. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulpope Posted June 29, 2019 Report Share Posted June 29, 2019 1 minute ago, ghost of miles said: Anybody else following the Yankees-Red Sox game in London?! It's ridiculous! Yankees scored 6 in the top of the 1st and knocked out Porcello, then Boston answered with 6 runs of their own in the bottom of the 1st and knocked Tanaka out of the game. Yankees just scored six in the top of the 4th to make it 14-6. So far this London stadium is making Coors Field seem like a pitcher's dream. Is this the way to promote MLB in Europe .... seems questionable though .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost of miles Posted June 29, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2019 MLB hasn't seen a first inning like this in 30 years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulpope Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 10 hours ago, ghost of miles said: MLB hasn't seen a first inning like this in 30 years How to top this in game 2 .... coach pitching .... ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 10 hours ago, soulpope said: How to top this in game 2 .... coach pitching .... ? I actually think it was the Jets beating the Patriots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulpope Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 10 minutes ago, Brad said: I actually think it was the Jets beating the Patriots. .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 Too bad the Jays and Orioles are so bad this POS franchise won't finish where they belong: the cellar, a la 2012, 2014, 2015. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazztrain Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 Wow. Shortcomings of the Red Sox bullpen starkly exposed this weekend. Yankees put up a 9 run inning to turn game 2 around. This is ugly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 (edited) 5 minutes ago, jazztrain said: Wow. Shortcomings of the Red Sox bullpen starkly exposed this weekend. Yankees put up a 9 run inning to turn game 2 around. This is ugly. Bullpens are a problem everywhere. The Mets would be having a half decent season but for their pen. In their recent road trip, they blew five straight leads. Edited June 30, 2019 by Brad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost of miles Posted June 30, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 55 minutes ago, Brad said: Bullpens are a problem everywhere. The Mets would be having a half decent season but for their pen. In their recent road trip, they blew five straight leads. Saw a stat today that the Mets lead MLB in blown saves with 21, followed by the Red Sox (counting today's game) with 17. Surely Dombrowski will be shopping for bullpen help at the trading deadline? My next-door neighbor Sam (Jazz Loft Project author) is a Mets fan, so I've been feeling his pain; that Diaz meltdown the other day was particularly bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulpope Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 56 minutes ago, jazztrain said: Wow. Shortcomings of the Red Sox bullpen starkly exposed this weekend. Yankees put up a 9 run inning to turn game 2 around. This is ugly. Still see this mainly as MLB marketing action .... so the results are probably not that important ( though they are counting) .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjazzg Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 Just back from the game. Well that was an entertaining and at times bewildering experience. As a big cricket fan I couldn't help making comparisons and as cricket is often derided for its lack of action I was struck by how few times the batters actually hit the ball! 5 innings I think with no score...I guess there was plenty of nuance for experienced watchers to enjoy in that time. Also struck by quite how much time is taken when the ball isn't in play. It was really a much more static a spectacle than I had thought it would be, with just occasional bursts of action. Please forgive a neophyte a stupid and possibly insulting question. My friend and I were debating how much control batters have over placement of their hits. I though I detected a tactical choice to go for ground shots after about inning 6. My mate reckons that it's so hard to just make contact as a batter that placement (very important in cricket) is more luck than judgement. Enlightenment gratefully received... Great atmosphere but what's with the community sing song of "Sweet Caroline"? "Take me to the ballpark"I took to be traditional but Neil Diamond??? 😀 (unless it's a pun on his family name...) They're back here next great and we both said we would be too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 (edited) 26 minutes ago, mjazzg said: Please forgive a neophyte a stupid and possibly insulting question. My friend and I were debating how much control batters have over placement of their hits. I though I detected a tactical choice to go for ground shots after about inning 6. My mate reckons that it's so hard to just make contact as a batter that placement (very important in cricket) is more luck than judgement. Enlightenment gratefully received... Great atmosphere but what's with the community sing song of "Sweet Caroline"? "Take me to the ballpark"I took to be traditional but Neil Diamond??? 😀 (unless it's a pun on his family name...) They're back here next great and we both said we would be too Yes batters who aren't swinging from the heels (trying to hit home runs all the time) do try to place the ball in a particular area or to elevate the ball and get it to the outfield. For example, a runner at third base with fewer than 2 outs can "tag up" (keep his foot on the base until the ball hits the outfielder's glove) and score from third even though it wasn't a "hit". Or, and this is not very common nowadays, but with a runner at 1B, the manager may put on the "hit and run" in which the runner takes off on the pitch, seemingly to "steal" second base, and the batter tries to hit the ball thru the spot vacated by the defender who went to cover second base. Or good hitters recognize a pitch away and "go with the pitch" to hit it to the opposite area of the outfield. "Bat control" is a huge part of baseball. Basically what a famous ballplayer said generations ago always applies: Hit 'em where they ain't - Wee Willie Keeler. (Otherwise though good hitters are trying to hit the ball hard, and on a line.) Regarding Sweet Caroline it has been a Red Sox staple for I don't know, a decade or more? No reason whatsoever though I think Neil Diamond has connections to Boston or New England. Did they play it in the "7th inning stretch" or in between top and bottom of the 8th? If they played it when they should be playing Take Me Out to The Ballgame, then that's just blasphemy. (and reminds me of when the Busch family owned the St Louis Cardinals - they'd actually play the Budweiser Song ("Here comes the King") during the seventh inning stretch, and then to make sure you realized their offensiveness, they'd play Take Me Out to the Ballgame in the middle of the 8th inning.) Glad you enjoyed it and would come back, I've never watched Cricket for more than a few minutes so can't compare for action. There is relatively little "action" but the beauty of the sport is in the athleticism (try hitting a round object with a round bat that's being thrown at 100 mph), the teamwork on the field (I'm sure you saw a double play or two - think of how perfect 90 feet between bases is when a groundball goes from one player to another to a third, and catches that runner just barely. Any different length between bases and double plays would always happen, or never happen.) And, of course, the lack of a clock. I think that's something shared with Cricket. Edited June 30, 2019 by Dan Gould Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 21 minutes ago, mjazzg said: Please forgive a neophyte a stupid and possibly insulting question. My friend and I were debating how much control batters have over placement of their hits. I though I detected a tactical choice to go for ground shots after about inning 6. My mate reckons that it's so hard to just make contact as a batter that placement (very important in cricket) is more luck than judgement. Enlightenment gratefully received... A keen observation and resultant question, and the answer is that you're both right. Pitchers will try to get batters to hit grounders, or, if their defense is good enough, to "pitch to contact", which just means let the batter make contact, just not GOOD contact, and let the defense take care of it. If a 30% rate of success for a batter is outstanding, then you can do the math. The maxim is that good pitching beats good hitting, and the maxim is true far more often than it's not. However...a good hitter with goo plate discipline and good bat control can, if not totally beaten by the pitcher, can, if not exactly "aim" where they hit the ball, control the direction of where they hit it, and that's a very useful skill set to have, not jsut in getting on base, but in terms of moving a runner over to the next base (or two) or even getting him in to score. It's also a skill set that is in diminishing supply these days. Perhaps it's a reaction to all the defensive shifts (which is counter-intuitive, imo), or just the stats have gotten so developed that it's been shown that an all-or-nothing approach pays off over the long haul, or maybe it's jsut a symptom of the world as a whole gone over to the dark side of BIGGNESS. No matter, that is what it is. Those of us of a certain age can remember teams that either won it all or else came pretty damn close with puny but efficient-enough offenses and pitching and defense that made that work for them. Them was fun teams to watch too, because for people like me, a 1-0 or 2-0 game is literally in the balance with damn near every at bat for all nine innings. Mathematically, so is a 6-5 or a 7-5 game, but if it's a game that at one point was 5-0, then, hey, do the math. As far as the lack of action, well...yes. Except when you get to the level of engagement where you're watching every pitch location and how it sets up the next pitch, and who should have the advantage on this pitch, yeah (and that's a hardcore hardcore fan of the game itself that lets themselves get that into it...they should be getting paid, the suckers ), but somebody once said something along the lines of "baseball is the most boring game in the world until it's not. And when it's not, it's the most exciting game in the world." Something like that. I concur 100% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjazzg Posted June 30, 2019 Report Share Posted June 30, 2019 Thank you both for such in depth and informative answers that I'm going to reread in the morning. @Dan Gould - no blasphemy that I observed. Singing was in the order you suggest. We did see double plays and spent some time admiring the throwing speed against running speed. Something is very similar in cricket which I know has learnt a lot from baseball in that area over the last 20 years. And yes, hitting the ball propelled at such speed with a round bat seems based more on hope than anything else. At least cricket batsmen have a flat bat and get to see the ball bounce 😀 @JSngry - I could get very interested in the entire pitcher/batter dynamic. In cricket we spend hours discussing how the bowler is using the ball, the atmospherics and the pitch to outplay the batsmen. The "boring game"quote almost sums up my reaction to today's game although it never really bored just had a steady rhythm that was ocasionally interrupted by an explosion of action. That contrast was in itself important and key I felt. Hey, a cricket international Test Match can last 5 days and still be exciting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost of miles Posted July 2, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2019 (edited) The Martian has landed! Yankees sign top international prospect Jasson Dominguez Only 16 (as was Gary Sanchez when NY signed him), but boy, if he lives up to even half of the hype surrounding him, wouldn't be surprised to see him breaking camp with the big-league team three-four years from now. On another note, is there a more competitive division in baseball right now than the NL Central? Even the cellar squad (Reds) is only 6.5 games back at the season's midpoint. MLB standings Edited July 2, 2019 by ghost of miles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 5 hours ago, ghost of miles said: The Martian has landed! Yankees sign top international prospect Jasson Dominguez Only 16 (as was Gary Sanchez when NY signed him), but boy, if he lives up to even half of the hype surrounding him, wouldn't be surprised to see him breaking camp with the big-league team three-four years from now. On another note, is there a more competitive division in baseball right now than the NL Central? Even the cellar squad (Reds) is only 6.5 games back at the season's midpoint. MLB standings It's unreal that Baltimore is already 31 games out. There's always been terrible teams, but it seems to be so much worse the past ten years, some really, totally, amazingly bad teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 At their current pace, the Os would only win 45 games, one of the worst marks in history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulpope Posted July 3, 2019 Report Share Posted July 3, 2019 7 hours ago, ghost of miles said: The Martian has landed! Yankees sign top international prospect Jasson Dominguez Only 16 (as was Gary Sanchez when NY signed him), but boy, if he lives up to even half of the hype surrounding him, wouldn't be surprised to see him breaking camp with the big-league team three-four years from now. Thnx for sharing .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milestones Posted July 4, 2019 Report Share Posted July 4, 2019 (edited) Who is looking forward to the All-Star Game? I am for sure, but it's a case of bias since I have always lived in the Cleveland area. We have one starter (Santana) and two others in the game, plus Santana is in the Home Run Derby. And what is up with that, anyway? I think 6 of the 8 players are from the NL, and I believe it was something like that last year. Isn't there supposed to be an even balance between the leagues? Well, clearly not anymore. Edited July 4, 2019 by Milestones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Posted July 7, 2019 Report Share Posted July 7, 2019 Been a tough season for the Cleveland rotation (Kluber, Clevinger), and now Cookie Carrasco has been diagnosed w leukemia. Bauer has been a workhorse but I wouldn't be surprised if the innings catch up to him a bit. Seems a lone bright spot has been the continued development of Shane "Not Justin" Bieber. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted July 9, 2019 Report Share Posted July 9, 2019 Why No one Watches Baseball Anymore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted July 9, 2019 Report Share Posted July 9, 2019 No one loves baseball like ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian. He says, after a half-century love affair with the sport, that he has never found the game to be more of a chore to consume. This, right here, is the quote for me. I could give a lot of reasons, why for me, baseball has become a chore to watch. No action, an endless parade of pitchers, three-and-a-half hour games, with only three of four plays meaning anything, hyper-sensitive players that take offense at the least thing. But the reason I keep coming back to is that most of the players don't seem to be that good. It's flat-out boring to watch a game now, in my experience. It's just my opinion, but for the first time ever since I first started watching baseball fifty-four years ago, I don't care, baseball has become boring, I have yet to watch a whole game this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost of miles Posted July 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2019 Very classy move on Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s part at the All Star game, sending CC out to the mound before the final out in Cleveland: Memorable night for CC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted July 11, 2019 Report Share Posted July 11, 2019 I’m not sure he’s a Hall of Famer but he’s had a long and distinguished career. I’m sure it would help his candidacy if he went out with a championship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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