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I think there’s an outside chance that he wasn’t trying to groove a meatball. Let’s wait to see if we hear anything in the postgame as to whether it was intentional…

Completely agree, although I think the hope was that even bad Fuji (Mr. Nami) could get Maldonado out — and it would then be a confidence building moment for him. We’re talking about one of 2-3 worst hitting full-time players in MLB. It’s absolutely inexcusable to walk that guy. Instead of a confidence builder, at least they got confirmation that if Fuji is off, you can’t ever trust him to work out of it. If you can’t do it against Maldonado, you just can’t do it.

I’m really loath to jump in on the Melanie bashing because I don’t think she’s been nearly as bad tonight as the thread as a whole seems to… But yikes, her description of her “not-so-deep dive” into advanced analytics — particularly her takeaway from expected versus actual stats — was extraordinary. Unless I badly misunderstood her, she genuinely thinks that the “expected” stats are what they projected the player to do (i.e., his pre-season *expectations*).

Home plate ump in the Nats game trying to make this magic happen for Lorenzen

If he brought along with him the opportunity to face the Marlins and Nats offenses instead of the BJs and Astros, sign me up.

Really felt like it was an intentional pitch around with Tucker to get to McCormick. Jack Flash has gotten knocked around by lefties some this year, and Tucker has been crunching the ball for weeks. Kinda wish it had been.

5 on the 4-seamer, 3 on the cutter, 2 on the changeup, and 1 on the curve.

When Grayson got sent down, I made a post about his staggeringly high HR/FB rate and the possibility that it was evidence of the pitch tipping concerns. His HR/FB rate was 27%, which was one of the highest anyone has posted in recent memory. He gave up a shocking 11 HRs in his last 21 innings in the bigs before being demoted. Whatever they changed in Norfolk, it seems to have pretty effectively addressed this particular issue. He hasn’t given up a single HR since returning. Including his time at Norfolk, he’s now gone about 40 innings without yielding one. That’s a pretty remarkable mid-season change.

Looks like DL was sitting between 95-97 on the fastball. Slowest was 95.2, fastest was 97.1. Both Ks were looking, on what appear to have been pretty good locations. Four swinging strikes (2 on fastball, 2 on changeup). Changeup looks to have been pretty effective overall. Doesn’t seem to have thrown a breaking ball in the zone, although he did get a foul ball on one down. He pitched to the heart of the lineup — three through six — which puts a little bit of a positive varnish on the outing. He struck out Troy Johnston, who is 26 and has been raking this year, and also retired Dane Myers, who recently went 4/11 with a 2B for MIA against our ML team.

I didn’t mean it to sound like I was bagging on the guy, but…Tucker did foul-tip one into the mitt (on 102 MPH gas) and McCann just wasn’t able to squeeze it. Very tough play, but if he had been able to secure it, they’re down to their last out.

The same Framber Valdez who now has a 5.65 ERA in his last 7 starts? Gave up 4 to the Cardinals, 5 to the Angels, 4 to the A’s, 6 to the Rangers, and now 6 to us in that span? That they hung 7 runs on the last time they faced him? I wouldn’t rule that out. He’s a really good pitcher, but we don’t need to make these guys into superheroes.

No, this game didn’t really feel like a coin flip. It really felt a lot like we were pounding them most of the night, and they barely edged us at the end thanks to a bad night from our superstar closer — powered by a walk to a bum, a bloop single, a missed fly ball at the wall by our back-up SS, and a dropped 3rd strike by our backup C.

Didn’t he just have another one a week or two ago? Ole Wheels Kjerstad…

Frazier would have needed even more range than that to field that one from where he’s positioned tonight. I’m sure his OAA went down 2 runs on that play, though…

I appreciate the Kevin Brown-ness of this observation.

156 for Trout. If we go back to 2006, and expand to include anyone over 130 wRC+ at age 19, it provides the following names: 203 - - Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (2018) 190 - - Jason Heyward (2009) 160 - - Jose Tabata (2008) 159 - - Xander Bogaerts (2012) 159 - - Ronald Acuna (2017) 158 - - Justin Upton (2007) 157 - - Nomar Mazara (2014) 156 - - Mike Trout (2011) 152 - - Jesus Montero (2009) 148 - - Ozzie Albies (2016) 147 - - Rougned Odor (2013) 145 - - Andrew McCutchen (2006) 142 - - Isaac Paredes (2018) 133 - - Fernando Tatis Jr. (2018) 133 - - Jarred Kelenic (2019) 131 - - Francisco Lindor (2013)

You almost wonder about biometric data, as well. Track his pulse, BP, respiration, perspiration — whatever they can — to try to get a feel for where his head is at on any given evening. I’m not sure you could effectively monitor or draw conclusions from that in the bullpen, and maybe the mere act of monitoring would make him even more nervous/anxious. But if we’re thinking the problems may be more mental than physical, that would be an interesting route to explore.

I was curious to know how insane that is. His wRC+ thus far is 194. Sure to come down from there, probably substantially. But since 2015, only two kids at age 19 have managed a wRC+ over 150 in 50+ PAs at the AA level. Their names were Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Ronald Acuna, Jr. Putting aside that Matt Holliday missed an obvious chance to name his kid after himself, that’s pretty lofty company for the junior Holliday. Acuna is arguably the best position player in the world, and even in a dreadfully down season with the bat, Little Big Vlad would be a 4ish WAR player if he could play a passable SS.

I was just working up a post where I referred to him as Dr. Fuji and Mr. Nami, so obviously we’re on the right track here… It’s evident when you just look at the inherited runner history. He’s had 12 appearances where he came on with runners on base, and he’s stranded all of them in 8 of those 12. It’s those other 4 games where all the damage came. Twice he came on with the bases loaded and allowed all 3 to score — this might be the situation to avoid, as he’s 0/6 in stranding runners when he enters with the bases loaded. The first time, he took over for A’s reliever Dick Lovelady (technically, he goes by “Richard,” for reasons that are at least somewhat understandable) and promptly walked McCutchen and Reynolds to force in two runs for the Pirates (followed by a sac fly). The second time, he pitched a bit better: 2-run single to Stanton, followed by Ks of Bader and Donaldson. But then Rizzo blooped a single to score the 3rd runner. The two other trouble outings were the mess we saw against TOR and his second ever relief appearance. In that one, he came on with a runner on 2nd and actually performed admirably. The runner was India, and he scored after stealing 3rd and an infield hit — but Fuji pitched well in that inning. The next inning was a trainwreck, though. Walk, walk, walk, wild pitch, run-scoring single. But that was a clean inning. In sum, it’s pretty clear that some days he just doesn’t have it (or quickly loses it). I think you almost need to plan for it — whether that means having another reliever warming up as soon as he goes in or perhaps inserting him with two outs in an inning, so he only needs to get one to escape if he’s floundering. He’s an inferno when he’s got it going, but his meltdowns are worse than pretty much any ML pitcher you’ll ever see.

I dunno, I feel as though the Rays and Jays series at the very least (and maybe the Yanks series as well) were bigger than this one. It’d be cool to roll the champs, don’t get me wrong. But a 3-game set against a non-division opponent just doesn’t have massive October implications for me. I can see why they might feel that they’re the big fish circled on every team’s calendar — but I think for us, we’re in the middle of a period where the intensity level has ratcheted down a bit from it was a couple weeks ago.

It’s probably not even one of the top 3 biggest series we’ve had in the few weeks — but I guess if you see yourself as the center of the universe, you could imagine how it would be.

Wouldn’t it almost have to be Frazier or O’Hearn as the PH first?

Highest Player Winning Percentages .656 - - Cedric Mullins .634 - - Gunnar Henderson .632 - - Jorge Mateo .624 - - Adley Rutschman Our 2023 Mount Rushmore

Love that cheesedick Springer did the same thing a few innings later. Getaway Day is a helluva drug…