[THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss The Math Of The Steal, Kazmir’s Shoddy Mechanics And Balfour’s Velocity
Evan Longoria, Shawn Riggans, Uncategorized May 5th. 2009, 8:00am
Time to bring back the GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
click above image for boxscore
THE GOOD: Evan Longoria. Hit his 8th home run in the first inning.
THE BAD: Scott Kazmir. It is never the home run that kills you. It is the walk, or in this case, the walks (2) before the home run…Joe Maddon’s Faith In Joe Nelson. We are not sure what Maddon saw in Nelson in the 7th inning that convinced him that Nelson was a good choice for the 8th inning. Maybe it was the walk or the double or the stolen bases…Carlos Pena. He must have left his gold glove at home as he committed 2 errors in a game for the first time since 2003…Dioner Navarro. We appreciate that he is trying to help, but is he so lost that he won’t even try to get a basehit? It seems like he is bunting every time up…BJ Upton. Amazingly, Navarro doesn’t even have the worst batting average in the lineup. That belongs to Bossman who is now hitting .152 after an 0-5…Grant Balfour. Maybe he was holding back in an 8-4 ballgame. But The Mad Australian’s velocity was once again down in the 90-92 range. He pitched 4 perfect outs last night, but this has to be worrisome moving forward.
THE TELLING: Pat Burrell had the day off after being hit in the ribs with a pitch on Sunday.
SUNBURST PLAYER OF THE GAME: Evan Longoria.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- We are mesmerized by this photo at Her Rays. It looks like four guys tried to set their own personal records at White Castle and then…we have no idea. Are they supposed to be superheros? Knights? [Her Rays]
- Scott Kazmir isn’t happy with his mechanics…This is where we grow sour on Kaz. Most pitchers when their mechanics are off, they are missing their spots by an inch. A foul ball becomes a base hit. The occasional borderline pitch is a ball. When Kazmir’s mechanics are off, he is toilet and he doesn’t even look like a big league pitcher. [St. Pete Times]
- John Romano writes about the importance of the stolen base to the Rays and Joe Maddon comments about the statistical implications (something we addressed a while ago). [St. Pete Times]
“I know the sabermetrics, in regard to how ineffective base-stealing actually is, but I disagree because I don’t think you can evaluate the importance of it just based on if you’re successful or not,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s about the mind-set. It’s about what you do to the other team, it’s about the better pitch you get as a hitter at a specific moment, it’s about the pressure applied on the defense, it’s about the error that you create, it’s about the extra bases you take. There are so many other ways to look at it…It is really generalizing one little bucket way too easily, and I never really agreed with that component of the numerical world.”
- Shawn Riggans will begin a rehab assignment with Montgomery this week. [Biscuit Crumbs]
- Evan Longoria was named AL Player of the Week for the second time this season. [The Heater]
- Buster Olney argues that Carl Crawford has a shot to reach 100 stolen bases. [ESPN]
- David Chalk defends the actions of Evan Longoria and Joe Maddon from Sunday’s game. [Bugs and Cranks]
- In the latest “Rank the Rays,” the Rays jumped up a couple of notches. [The Rays Party]
- Here is an interview of Rocco Baldelli for a Rhode Island newscast. [ABC6]
- Tampa Bay Rays Fan explains their selections for the “Trade Pool” contest. [Tampa Bay Rays Fan]
Related posts:
- [THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss Kennedy’s Brief Tenure, Burrell’s Fear Of Big Babies And Kid K’s Mechanics
- [THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss Niemann’s Potential, Balfour’s Velocity And Kevin Kennedy’s Flavor
- [THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss The Demise Of Balfour, Longo’s Opportunities And One Fake Twitter Account
Mercury is retrograde…..lets move on……..;o)
speaking on mesmerizing photos, any word on the winners of the facebook contest?
just waiting for votes from the 4 other judges. We should have something at the end of the week.
I said it last year and I’ll say it again. Kaz is the guy who should have been traded. What’s our mantra? Buy low and sell high? Well, Kaz probably peaked in 07 and his stock (in some circles) was still high last year. We probably could have gotten a Joyce and a Closer (Rodney?) for Kaz, provided Leland was one of those who still believed this guy was “at talent waiting to happen”.
Who knows? Maybe he is. Maybe with another team and another coach he blossoms into what we’ve heard he is supposed to be. But here? I don’t see it happening.
Mechanics? Perhaps. But the biggest mechanical flaw with KAZ, IMO, is between the ears. This guy simply does not have the “step-up” gene. He looks scared, and when he has a bad inning, he looks like he wants to cry. Seriously, he looks like he’s going to fucking cry! And let’s look at when Kaz was good. 1997, with no pressure. Team sucked, nobody expected Rays to win, all he had to do was go out and showcase with little or no pressure to actually win or contribute to a winning team.
I’ll take Garza’s flaws over Kaz’ all day long. At least he steps up. At least he gets pissed. And at least he seems to rebound and do something about it. Those are emotions that can be controlled and harnesed into something good. “Overt Pussyness” is a critical flaw that, IMO, is not easily corrected in professional athletes, let alone MLB starting pitchers.
I’m not sure we could really get anything for him now. Maybe. But if this crap continues, his stock just sinks lower and lower. And then we get crap, when at one point we could have gotten a lot.
they still should have gotten to Eaton a lot more than they did even with Kaz’s awful start. There were some hard hit balls that were caught, but come on guys you’re better than this. And upton 0-5 what is going on here? It might be time to move him back in the order and put maybe Bartlett leading off? Something to mix it up cause they sure as hell need something other than playing the red sox to get them to want to win