Letters to the Editor
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That's a _bad_ piece of commentary
I wish Joe Buck had been able to channel the spirit of his father to say something suitably sarcastic to McCarver. Jack Buck never let his partners in the broadcast booth get away with making asinine statements, which I rather suspect is what CBS meant when they ditched him from their telecasts for having "poor chemistry" with McCarver, champion of the asinine statement.
At least this time he wasn't babbling about socks....
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Still in the booth?
McCarver was teh suck back when the Braves were starting their playoff run and I was still living in Atlanta. Our solution then was to turn off the TV audio and turn on Skip Caray and the rest of the regular TBS radio crew.
If I were watching this series (and not living in Germany), I would turn down the volume on the tube and crank up that monster clear-channel signal from KMOX. Oh wait...
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Jack Buck was all about letting his partners get away with nonsense
I mean, the man worked with Mike Shannon for eons! 90% of what Shannon says is incomprehensible (and usually peppered with misused or entirely made-up words). Don't get me wrong, it's fun to listen to, but if Buck had called him on his inanity, their partnership would have lasted roughly 5 innings!
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I still don't like the line up
Everybody knew Verlander was stinking up the joint. If you throw Bonderman and Rogers in games 1 & 2, you greatly increase your chances of going to St. Louis 2-0. That changes the psychology for game 3. Carpenter has to pitch to keep St. Louis out of a 3-0 hole, rather than simply going in with the series tied, which is like throwing the first game of a five-game series. And we all know how King loves him some baseball momentum.
Plus, if King's right about the weather, you get two days of rain today and tomorrow, and then you get Bonderman and Rogers again.
All of that said, I still don't believe in Suppan as a big game pitcher.
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I actually did learn something from McCarver
When Zumaya couldn't seem to find the strike zone, Pudge Rodriguez pounded on his own left shoulder in what I assumed was some signal to Zumaya to calm down or focus or at least aim better.
McCarver then said that was a universal sign from a catcher to a pitcher to stop letting their shoulder fly out which gives the pitcher less control over where the pitch goes.
I never knew that.
See, McCarver is good for something.
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Hard to root against the Cards foes
Even as a Cards fan, I haven't rooted AGAINST the Cards foes. If it had been Houston instead of the Mets, I would have been foaming at the mouth. But the Mets and Tigers are fun teams with truly likeable guys. On the Mets, I really like Reyes, Wright, and Delgado is a special guy. The winner of the Clemente award used to bike to work in Toronto and openly protested bombing in Vieques, Puerto Rico. The bad-ass hitter is an admirable guy as well. With the Tigers, the young guns are fun to watch, Pudg-I-Rod is fantastic, and Leyland is grizzled in a great way. I almost felt bad for Zumaya last night because he made the smart decision, if not the accurate throw, when trying to take out the lead runner with no outs. Of course Tim "always-certain-in-hindsight" McCarver thought the play was dumb, but that's only because of the result.
I don't know if the cliche that Cards fans are great because they know and respect good baseball is always true, but I sure am willing to applaud other players, even when I don't necessarily want them to succeed.
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props to the fans in foul territory
Twice in the fourth inning a ball caromed near the stands down the first base line and both times the fans - instead of reaching for the ball like dolts - put their arms up and got the heck out of the way. One time the ball bounced up in the stands, the other time it stayed in play. How many times has some moron reached down for a fair ball off the ground and forced a ground rule double... often to the detriment of his/her team?
I guess in the World Series, people are paying more attention... but still, it's nice to see. On the last day of the season in 2005, a fan almost cost the Astros a run, and - potentially the game and the playoffs - by reaching for a ball in a similar situation. Fortunately, that fan missed and the run scored.
Now, if it had been a hit by the Tigers... a St. Louis fan might want to interfere to help his/her team. If you're going to interfere with balls in play, it should at least be to help your team.
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Joe Morgan Said Something Smart!
I was listening to the ESPN radio broadcast last night and Joe Morgan -- my bete noir and the frequent target of my letters here -- made an intelligent comment about the unfairness of Jeff Weaver pitching without pinetar on his hands on a cold night while Kenny Rogers -- that cheating, camera guy-shoving, can't-handle-NY-media-pressure bastard -- did.
Of course, Joe did then repeat it three times and mangle the English language once or twice, but hey, a baby's got to crawl before he can walk. A not asinine comment, even with the affront to accepted grammar and rules of suntax, is a good start for Joe (AKA The Worst Broadcaster In the History of The Game).
I wasn't rooting one way or the other before that comment, but Joe made me think that Randy Johnson and the Yankees might not have lost Game 3 of the ALDS and the whole series could have gone a different way. Now, I hate the Tigers, cheating #*cks!
GO Cards!
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Zumaya's throw
jcb wrote:
I almost felt bad for Zumaya last night because he made the smart decision, if not the accurate throw, when trying to take out the lead runner with no outs. Of course Tim "always-certain-in-hindsight" McCarver thought the play was dumb, but that's only because of the result.
I disagree. McCarver's point -- and I think he's right here -- is that Zumaya is highly unlikely to complete a 1-5-3 double play, because the third baseman has a longer throw to make and is moving *away* from first base before he has to throw it. 1-6-3 is both a shorter throw and the player has momentum going in his favor to make the throw.
Consider the expected runs of the situations. If Zumaya makes a clean throw to Inge and gets the lead runner, odds are the Cardinals still have first and second with 1 out. They could be expected to score 0.96 runs in that situation.
If he goes to second and gets the double play, the Cards do have a runner on third, yes, but they also have two outs. Expected runs in that situation? 0.37. If they only get the runner at second, the expected run situation is only 1.17.
Going to second base and trying to start the double play is pretty clearly the better play: the payoff of completing the double play is worth a lot more than the difference in a runner on second base versus third base in that situation.
All expected run values taken from BP's expected runs matrix at http://baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ (link on lower left).