In the first inning of their first playoff game, the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees demonstrated why NY is a heavy favorite to win their series despite the apparent equality in their talent.
The Tigers scored a run on a home run and then surrendered the tying score on a strikeout, a walk and two fielding miscues (errors, not Errors). From the other perspective, the Yankees tallied because Derek Jeter's head is always in the game. He scampered to first on a strike three wild pitch and later burst on contact towards the plate on a grounder to the third baseman.
None of what produced the run will show up in the box score. Justin Verlander recorded the strikeout. In the agate, a WP will be recorded, but it won't say that it allowed an out to turn into a safety. After the free pass, Miguel Cabrera fielded a sharply hit grounder and mystifyingly rejected a throw to second, settling instead on a flip to the pitcher covering first. The result: instead of a double play leaving a man on third with two outs, Verlander faced second and third with one down. The box score simply records an out.
The next batter bounced sharply to Brandon Inge. Jeter broke for home immediately, but should have been thrown out. Inge swallowed his Adam's Apple and fired to first. The box score credits Inge with an assist, rather than a lapse in gonads.
In a five game series between evenly-matched teams, those kinds of small distinctions can make a big difference.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are the diehard clutchmeisters continuing to keep score, or are they so locked into confirmation bias that they've stopped paying attention when the facts contradict their thesis?
I refer, of course, to Derek Jeter's indomitable clutchness, whose atomic number is so huge, whose magnetic field so powerful, that repeated failures in key situations simply get sucked into the black vortex never again to be detected.
In Game Two against the Tigers, which the Yankees lost by two, Jeter flailed with futility all five times, leaving five men on base without plating one of them. That includes two strikeouts, one of them in the ninth with a runner aboard and the game on the line.
In Game Three, a one-run Yankee defeat, Mr. Clutch whiffed with runners on to end the seventh and the game. In his final at bat, Jeter left the tying and winning runs stranded.
When clutchophiles regale us with the enduring clutchiosity of their selected hero, they rarely acknowledge all the incidents of anti-clutch, or in their parlance, choking. Those data points are inconvenient, and so are forgotten in a tsunami of cognitive dissonance.
To those of us who understand that "clutch" hitting and "choking" are really more often about happenstance (not always, of course, since psychology is part of baseball, just as it's part of life) the facts rarely support these kinds of black and white characterizations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is Tony La Russa an innovator or an egotist? Or both?
Last night in their game against the Phillies, Cardinals' ace Chris Carpenter got slapped around for five hits, three walks and four runs in the first two frames while pitching on short rest. Carpenter mowed down Philly batters in the third and appeared to have recovered his mojo.
In the top of the fourth, with second and third and one out and the Cards down 4-2, La Russa inserted himself, as he often does. this time by pinch hitting for his star pitcher. Thinking non-traditionally is always a good idea; acting on it, not always so much. In this case, bully for the skipper.
In many ways, the outcome of the game hung in the balance, despite the early time frame. A single ties the game; an unproductive out, like a whiff, reduces the chance of scoring dramatically. The Redbirds might not get many more opportunities against a clampdown hurler like Cliff Lee.
There is a cost to this decision, of course, and that's the loss of Chris Carpenter. But because he started Carpenter on three days rest, and with a day off following, La Russa was already priming his bullpen for significant involvement.
I do wonder about the specific choice LaRussa made once he weighed the utility of pinch hitting. The replacement batter, switch-hitter Nick Punto, posts a lifetime .652 OPS against lefties. That's twice as good as Carpenter, which means double the chance of scoring, but didn't the Cards have a better right-handed option on the bench? Having recognized that he stood at a game crossroad, La Russa should have been selecting his best option.
Maybe he was. Generally, I defer to managers on these kinds of questions. Punto's .809 OPS this year for the Cardinals was his best ever. La Russa might know something about him that you and I don't. Maybe he feasts on Arkansans or is seeing the ball particularly well lately right-eyed.
In fact, Punto struck out on four pitches, but a Rafael Furcal single brought home another score before John Jay was gunned down at home for the inning's final out. The Cards' bullpen zipped Philly's lineup and St. Louis won 5-4 to even the series. One incident neither supports nor undermines the decision. Regardless of whether Punto was the right choice, I like the way La Russa was thinking.
It's ironic that the manager who elevated the ninth inning to iconic status via the one-inning closer simultaneously recognizes that a game can be won or lost in the fourth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the Diamondbacks and Brewers were to effect a trade that sent Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun to Phoenix, who would the Snakes have to surrender? This is a trick question, because contract status aside, Milwaukee wouldn't swap Braun or Fielder for the entire Diamondback roster.
It's amazing to think that these two teams finished the season one game apart. As the first two contests of their playoff series seemed to demonstrate, the Brewers are the vastly superior team. Naming the 10 best players on both teams combined would involve running your finger down the Milwaukee roster, leaving room for Justin Upton.
Next year, don't expect either in the playoffs. Knowing they would lose their non-meat slugger, Brewers brass made a series of short-term moves to bolster their lineup. It's now or never for Milwaukee.
The Diamondbacks have a different problem: everyone played over his head. When the entire lineup and pitching staff returns to earth next year, some of them are going to land on cacti. It's not going to be pretty.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biblical Irony: A leading candidate for the MVP, Ryan Braun stated unequivocally that he was more focused on the batting title because he could control that. The Hammering Hebrew set his sights on becoming the first Jewish batting champ.
In order to be the first Jewish batting champ, Braun had to go three-for-four on the final day of the season, which is to say, he had to violate Jewish law. Game 162 was on Rosh Hashana, the second holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
God, evidently, is a Catholic. Braun went oh-for-four and Jose Reyes won the batting crown. L'chaim!
b
