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Post by sibbysisti on Apr 11, 2017 21:57:04 GMT -5
He threw five hits for three runs but Drake, the Baltimore reliever, showed me a pitch I hadn't seen in a while. A right hander, he threw a reverse slider to a left handed batter. It broke low and away for a strike. Eck thought it was like the Matsusaka "gyro" ball. He threw it several times for strikes. Weird.
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Post by sibbysisti on Apr 11, 2017 21:57:44 GMT -5
Barnes has been lights out so far in his appearances. Hope he's found his niche.
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Post by sibbysisti on Apr 11, 2017 22:00:08 GMT -5
Pitching staff answering the bell to start the season. Lots of positives so far.
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Apr 11, 2017 22:00:11 GMT -5
A lot of luck, obviously, but man this catching tandem is silly at this point. Considering Swihart, 3 major trade deadline playing cards. . . . Hope Pomeranz arm feels good tomorrow, love his high spin rate fastball. Slow your roll. Catchers take longer to develop and typically have a shorter window to flourish then any other player in the field and with that in mind you should hold onto to every good catcher who can hit and play defense as long as you can. Swihart was one of the most asked for prospects during the off-season the Sox have. That indicates his value yet they were all trying to buy low. You want to get value while you can but the window is wide open and we should wait as long as we can (at least another year) before making decisions that we don't need to. Unless we are overwhelmed between now and then you stand down everytime.
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Post by Don Caballero on Apr 11, 2017 23:21:37 GMT -5
So happy to see my man Drew throwing a good game today. Let it be known that I was always on his bandwagon and there's plenty of space for you unbelievers.
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Post by telson13 on Apr 11, 2017 23:32:08 GMT -5
Barnes has been lights out so far in his appearances. Hope he's found his niche. FG has him throwing his SL and CH a LOT more. If he can command all three pitches, he'll be a tremendous bullpen weapon. A reliever with a plus-plus FB and two average secondaries isn't very common. www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12863&position=P
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Post by telson13 on Apr 11, 2017 23:36:52 GMT -5
A lot of luck, obviously, but man this catching tandem is silly at this point. Considering Swihart, 3 major trade deadline playing cards. . . . Hope Pomeranz arm feels good tomorrow, love his high spin rate fastball. Good Lord, I hope they don't trade Swihart. A lot of catchers don't seem to blossom until their mid-late 20s. Look at Molina, Varitek, Posada...keep the kid. He's got boatloads of talent, started catching late to begin with, and has real offensive upside.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Apr 11, 2017 23:40:06 GMT -5
So happy to see my man Drew throwing a good game today. Let it be known that I was always on his bandwagon and there's plenty of space for you unbelievers. He was killing it with the curve and coming in at 93-95 with the hard stuff. If he can do that consistently, and it is a very long season, he'll earn his keep for sure. When he's on and the pitch mix is right he shines.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Apr 12, 2017 0:37:46 GMT -5
Considering Swihart, 3 major trade deadline playing cards. . . . Hope Pomeranz arm feels good tomorrow, love his high spin rate fastball. Good Lord, I hope they don't trade Swihart. A lot of catchers don't seem to blossom until their mid-late 20s. Look at Molina, Varitek, Posada...keep the kid. He's got boatloads of talent, started catching late to begin with, and has real offensive upside. I know that Arizona was very interested in Vazquez this past off-season and his arm appears to be 100% now. I also know that DD made a few comments about how much Tek likes Swihart. I'm also pretty sure that if Leon keeps hitting anywhere near the level he's been hitting as a major leaguer, he will have significant value as well. Backup catchers always seem to bring a nice return at the trade deadlines, imagine what a young cost-controlled stud catcher would fetch ADD: DD does not strike me as a sell low kind of guy and we're also unlikely to make a trade that would hurt the immediate future. To me, it seems like all 3 catchers would need to be healthy and doing well for this to happen.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Apr 12, 2017 1:55:26 GMT -5
Bad matchup in the first game. Good matchup in the second game. I see a split here, hoping for more of course. I hope you are amenable to eating crow. All the negative Pomz hype-momentum has gotten silly. He is, and has been, a very good pitcher. He pitched hurt in late 2015, but left it all out there to help the cause. Just one game and about 90 pitches, but a very good game after a long layoff. Try supporting him.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Apr 12, 2017 2:26:32 GMT -5
Bad matchup in the first game. Good matchup in the second game. I see a split here, hoping for more of course. I hope you are amenable to eating crow. All the negative Pomz hype-momentum has gotten silly. He is, and has been, a very good pitcher. He pitched hurt in late 2015, but left it all out there to help the cause. Just one game and about 90 pitches, but a very good game after a long layoff. Try supporting him. What in the world? I thought it was a bad matchup because Pomeranz hasn't pitched in what 8-9 days? I wasn't expecting to see this kind of game from him and I don't think anyone could of seen this strong of a start right out of the gate (he was on a pitch count after all at 90-95 pitches). If you did see this coming, then buy me a Powerball ticket please. I'm a big Pomeranz fan, his curveball is a death machine when it is working. I didn't like the matchup because of Bundy, who also threw a quality start, mind you. Bundy if healthy will be a huge reason why Baltimore sees a playoff birth this year (if they do get in). I'm a huge fan of Bundy and had been following him for years now. Edit- A bad matchup sometimes has nothing to do with the hometown team. Sometimes you have a matchup of Kluber (or pick your Ace in baseball) versus your number 4 starter. I wasn't knocking anyone in my post. Bundy is Baltimore's best pitcher for Baltimore I think and he was matched up against the Sox number 5 starter in Pomeranz.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Apr 12, 2017 2:46:16 GMT -5
Speaking of that post, it's great to get a win. Wright should be better than Ubaldo who hasn't been even average for years now. You got to play the games but hopefully Ubaldo will get lit up like I think he will.
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Post by sarasoxer on Apr 12, 2017 6:55:53 GMT -5
Great game from Pomeranz....
Does it appear that the high fastball is making a comeback? Detroit pitchers looked like Jim Palmer attacking us high or above the zone and it appeared Bundy was operating there as well.
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Post by jimed14 on Apr 12, 2017 7:33:53 GMT -5
A lot of luck, obviously, but man this catching tandem is silly at this point. How long do you think Vazquez can keep his wOBA at 1.047?
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 12, 2017 7:45:12 GMT -5
A lot of luck, obviously, but man this catching tandem is silly at this point. How long do you think Vazquez can keep his wOBA at 1.047? Why, is that good?
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 12, 2017 8:30:17 GMT -5
Two games is meaningless when it comes to telling us anything about how Vasquez's offense this year. They should keep things as is... Vasquez catches Pomeranz and Erod and Leon the other 3. Keeps both fresh - which should help their bats and let's them build their chemistry with those starters. That seems to have been the plan to start things off and it's worked thus far so no reason to change things. It's too early to be messing with that type of stuff.
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 12, 2017 8:37:36 GMT -5
Pomeranz was good last night - most encouraging part was the low(ish) pitch count thru 6.... his biggest issue even when he's been on has been the ability to go more than 5 or 6 innings due to his pitch counts being so high. Last year in 30 starts he only made it 6 full innings in 16 of them.... he really needs to get that percentage up to at least 2 out of 3 starts... you can't have a starter needing almost 4 innings from the bullpen in half his starts. Well you can but it's not good. At least him and Erod are not back to back in the rotation.
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Post by raftsox on Apr 12, 2017 9:26:05 GMT -5
Does it appear that the high fastball is making a comeback? Detroit pitchers looked like Jim Palmer attacking us high or above the zone and it appeared Bundy was operating there as well. Yes, they're making a comeback. www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tampa-bays-cult-of-the-high-fastball/www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-high-fastballingest-team-in-the-league/Anecdotally, high fastballs result in more pop-ups and more fly balls (obviously). Fly balls usually result in the lowest OBA, but there is the risk of more home runs. Type AVG ISO wOBA GB .239 .020 .220 LD .685 .190 .684 FB .207 .378 .335 There's a lot of stuff out there correlating fastball spin-rate with ideal pitch location. For example: high spin rates work better with high fastballs (Koji Uehara was a good example of this) while low spin rates work better with low fastballs (think of a "heavy" fastball). Lots of articles on these subjects are out there, and the data is available to mine if you have the time and the know-how (I don't) to dig into the data.
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Post by sarasoxer on Apr 12, 2017 12:43:52 GMT -5
Does it appear that the high fastball is making a comeback? Detroit pitchers looked like Jim Palmer attacking us high or above the zone and it appeared Bundy was operating there as well. Yes, they're making a comeback. www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tampa-bays-cult-of-the-high-fastball/www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-high-fastballingest-team-in-the-league/Anecdotally, high fastballs result in more pop-ups and more fly balls (obviously). Fly balls usually result in the lowest OBA, but there is the risk of more home runs. Type AVG ISO wOBA GB .239 .020 .220 LD .685 .190 .684 FB .207 .378 .335 There's a lot of stuff out there correlating fastball spin-rate with ideal pitch location. For example: high spin rates work better with high fastballs (Koji Uehara was a good example of this) while low spin rates work better with low fastballs (think of a "heavy" fastball). Lots of articles on these subjects are out there, and the data is available to mine if you have the time and the know-how (I don't) to dig into the data. Thanks for taking the time to report this. I wasn't sure if this was a way to attack Sox hitters who, as a team, might have a discovered weakness, this was a league wide phenomenon, or the result of an increasing propensity for umpires to raise the zone calling more high strikes. It turns out once again that there is a scientific/stat basis.
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Post by Guidas on Apr 12, 2017 12:58:45 GMT -5
A lot of luck, obviously, but man this catching tandem is silly at this point. How long do you think Vazquez can keep his wOBA at 1.047? SPOILER ALERT > > > If he continues to hit at this rate he'll be the first position player to hit 1.000 for the whole season. Even Roy Hobbs didn't do that.
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Post by telson13 on Apr 12, 2017 14:16:45 GMT -5
How long do you think Vazquez can keep his wOBA at 1.047? SPOILER ALERT > > > If he continues to hit at this rate he'll be the first position player to hit 1.000 for the whole season. Even Roy Hobbs didn't do that. Hobbs. Another phenom who took forever to make the majors, had one good year, and burned out.
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Post by sarasoxer on Apr 12, 2017 14:48:09 GMT -5
SPOILER ALERT > > > If he continues to hit at this rate he'll be the first position player to hit 1.000 for the whole season. Even Roy Hobbs didn't do that. Hobbs. Another phenom who took forever to make the majors, had one good year, and burned out. Yep. The quintessential wonder boy. Played his guts out. Five tools....better than Joe Hardy but disappeared just as fast. More the legend.
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Post by Guidas on Apr 12, 2017 18:21:06 GMT -5
Well then.
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Post by bigpupp on Apr 12, 2017 18:21:30 GMT -5
Ewwww
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Post by klostrophobic on Apr 12, 2017 18:30:49 GMT -5
I guess just mitigate the damage at this point; keep Wright out there as long as you can and then mop it up with Taylor, Abad and Scott?
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