Post by philsbosoxfan on May 3, 2014 20:34:59 GMT -5
Some observations.
Wife's b'day today so I didn't listen to most of the Portland broadcast (Mets don't do TV). We were surprised by church singers at 6AM and last night were busy preparing food for surprise singers. Go figure, it's a Filipino thing.
Anyhow, Mike Antonellis credited Johnson's good start to a good job of working off a well commanded good fastball and pointed out that he was working in his curve from the start.
It should be noted that Coyle didn't appear in either game and has only appeared in one game as DH since being hit by a pitch.
On Shaw:
Like ericvan, I'm also looking for a resurgence for Travis based on the AFL but for different reasons. Travis' stats were good enough that he was the all star first baseman which I'm sure caught eric's eyes. Two things caught my eyes. First, at that all-star game they road tested the field fx system. Although he didn't have the hardest hit ball (5th I think), he by far and away had the hardest hit balls on average on either team and it wasn't close. Then this offseason I read an article that Shaw stated he had tried a completely new batting stance and liked it and planned to use it this season.
For those of you that are mechanics pureists, Shaw is going to shock you. I'm going to attempt to describe it. He stants with a spread stance but then as the timing mechanism, draws his front leg back while leaning his body back. Somewhat similar to the classic 'step in the bucket' Mel Ott or Sadaharu Oh approach. The difference though is that his front heel doesn't go all the way to the back leg, he reverses the leg and body motion about 6 inches before that. The other difference is that he doesn't then take a huge step forward, he ends up approximately where he started with his front leg on the ground when he makes contact (different from Ott and Oh). It's also straight forward. I haven't seen enough pitches to see if he opens up on inside pitches or closes down on outer pitches but I'm guessing not. If they attempt to bust him inside and low though, it's a small adjustment he could make to pull the ball. From the hits I've seen, he has every bit as much raw power as either Lavarnway or Brentz and seems to go to the middle of the field most often. On defense, he's no gazelle. On the other hand he seems to do a great job of picking low throws.
Wife's b'day today so I didn't listen to most of the Portland broadcast (Mets don't do TV). We were surprised by church singers at 6AM and last night were busy preparing food for surprise singers. Go figure, it's a Filipino thing.
Anyhow, Mike Antonellis credited Johnson's good start to a good job of working off a well commanded good fastball and pointed out that he was working in his curve from the start.
It should be noted that Coyle didn't appear in either game and has only appeared in one game as DH since being hit by a pitch.
On Shaw:
Like ericvan, I'm also looking for a resurgence for Travis based on the AFL but for different reasons. Travis' stats were good enough that he was the all star first baseman which I'm sure caught eric's eyes. Two things caught my eyes. First, at that all-star game they road tested the field fx system. Although he didn't have the hardest hit ball (5th I think), he by far and away had the hardest hit balls on average on either team and it wasn't close. Then this offseason I read an article that Shaw stated he had tried a completely new batting stance and liked it and planned to use it this season.
For those of you that are mechanics pureists, Shaw is going to shock you. I'm going to attempt to describe it. He stants with a spread stance but then as the timing mechanism, draws his front leg back while leaning his body back. Somewhat similar to the classic 'step in the bucket' Mel Ott or Sadaharu Oh approach. The difference though is that his front heel doesn't go all the way to the back leg, he reverses the leg and body motion about 6 inches before that. The other difference is that he doesn't then take a huge step forward, he ends up approximately where he started with his front leg on the ground when he makes contact (different from Ott and Oh). It's also straight forward. I haven't seen enough pitches to see if he opens up on inside pitches or closes down on outer pitches but I'm guessing not. If they attempt to bust him inside and low though, it's a small adjustment he could make to pull the ball. From the hits I've seen, he has every bit as much raw power as either Lavarnway or Brentz and seems to go to the middle of the field most often. On defense, he's no gazelle. On the other hand he seems to do a great job of picking low throws.
