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The Defense Thread, 2013


Frobby

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One of the highlights was a nice catch by Jones, nothing spectacular but the ball was tagged and Jones got a good jump and made the play look smooth and easy.

To Jones' credit, he has absolutely been a standup guy and owned his OF mistakes.

Just like slumps at the plate, it can happen in the field too. Hopefully, the nice play last night will get him back on track.

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jones_zps021e0159.png

He'll never change. :rolleyestf:

Well, he wasn't blowing one when he dropped a ball in Thursday night's game, so there's some evidence for those of us who believe that Jones' errors/poor plays are not caused by bubble blowing.

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Well, he wasn't blowing one when he dropped a ball in Thursday night's game, so there's some evidence for those of us who believe that Jones' errors/poor plays are not caused by bubble blowing.

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I love Jonesy but he's got to get it together mentally out there. He wants to lead this team so he has to show it vocally, offensively, & defensively. I think he has 2 out of the 3 down pat.

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I love Jonesy but he's got to get it together mentally out there. He wants to lead this team so he has to show it vocally, offensively, & defensively. I think he has 2 out of the 3 down pat.

The blessing and curse of the information age and every game being on TV, the fans get to see every play of every game. Which of course means things will get put under the microscope, dissected and a lot of overreaction will ensue.

I'm not arguing that AJ shouldn't have caught that ball, of course he should have. But guys make mistakes, they have bad games. If this was 20 years ago, only the people with Home Team Sports would've seen the Friday night Yankee game. Most likely, the majority of people would've glanced at the game story and box score and moved on.

Instead, a few bad plays in the field get seen and re-seen by everyone and all of the sudden Jones is called lazy and a host of other names. From all accounts, the exact opposite is true.

I'll reiterate what I posted before, hopefully that nice running, leaping grab last night gets Jones out his defensive funk and back on track.

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The blessing and curse of the information age and every game being on TV, the fans get to see every play of every game. Which of course means things will get put under the microscope, dissected and a lot of overreaction will ensue.

I'm not arguing that AJ shouldn't have caught that ball, of course he should have. But guys make mistakes, they have bad games. If this was 20 years ago, only the people with Home Team Sports would've seen the Friday night Yankee game. Most likely, the majority of people would've glanced at the game story and box score and moved on.

Instead, a few bad plays in the field get seen and re-seen by everyone and all of the sudden Jones is called lazy and a host of other names. From all accounts, the exact opposite is true.

I'll reiterate what I posted before, hopefully that nice running, leaping grab last night gets Jones out his defensive funk and back on track.

For those of us that don't like anecdotes, you can look at statistics, but you know ...... those are pretty worthless because the guy has 2 gold gloves.

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For those of us that don't like anecdotes, you can look at statistics, but you know ...... those are pretty worthless because the guy has 2 gold gloves.

I'm pretty sure we all want him to succeed. He is an Oriole after all. He has indeed shown flashes of absolute brilliance in the field. And of course he has also shown the exact opposite as well.

IMO he is still better defensively in CF (offensively he's already among the best in the league...still with tons of room to improve) than many in the league. And I know players do have bad plays/games, but I know as a fan I also expect him to be the best player out there...every game & every play (basically because I'm unreasonable).

I don't want to settle for "that's just the way he is & all he will ever be." or that "it was just one bad play in between many good ones." The stats are out there that he does indeed need to make some adjustments in his habits that he has even acknowledged.

I still think he can be among the greatest Orioles we've ever seen but he still has a ways to go to get there. And I absolutely hope he gets to that next level of greatness because I think he is a huge reason for this teams turnaround.

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I'm pretty sure we all want him to succeed. He is an Oriole after all. He has indeed shown flashes of absolute brilliance in the field. And of course he has also shown the exact opposite as well.

IMO he is still better defensively in CF (offensively he's already among the best in the league...still with tons of room to improve) than many in the league. And I know players do have bad plays/games, but I know as a fan I also expect him to be the best player out there...every game & every play (basically because I'm unreasonable).

I don't want to settle for "that's just the way he is & all he will ever be." or that "it was just one bad play in between many good ones." The stats are out there that he does indeed need to make some adjustments in his habits.

I still think he can be among the greatest Orioles we've ever seen but he still has a ways to go to get there. And I absolutely hope he gets to that next level of greatness because I think he is a huge reason for this teams turnaround.

I generally agree with this. I'm not sure Jones could make himself "above average" considering the quality of CF's out there, but I do think he has the capability to make himself better. Unfortunately the thing that seems to be preventing that is his own hubris .... and maybe our own coaching staff and organization padding it.

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4/29 (9-8 loss to Oakland)

We literally threw this game away, making two errors while twice trying to force the lead runner on a bunt play. On the first, Pedro Strop misfired to 2B, leading to runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out. He plainly had time to get the runner, but his throw tailed badly and Hardy had no chance to catch it. Then Machado attempted to force the lead runner at 3B on the next play, but the ball sailed past Hardy into the OF, and even though the runner didn't head for home initially, he still had time to score pretty easily.

I didn't see most of this game, so I don't know if anything else of note took place.

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4/29 (9-8 loss to Oakland)

We literally threw this game away, making two errors while twice trying to force the lead runner on a bunt play. On the first, Pedro Strop misfired to 2B, leading to runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out. He plainly had time to get the runner, but his throw tailed badly and Hardy had no chance to catch it. Then Machado attempted to force the lead runner at 3B on the next play, but the ball sailed past Hardy into the OF, and even though the runner didn't head for home initially, he still had time to score pretty easily.

I didn't see most of this game, so I don't know if anything else of note took place.

As ugly as the last inning was Hardy did a great job deke'ing (deking? dekeing?) the runner on third. He really thought Hardy still had the ball as it was rolling out to left field.

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April 30 (7-2 win over Mariners)

- Davis drops a one-hopper from Hardy from the OF grass in the hole. Great effort by Hardy squandered.

- Davis has a DP attempt by Flaherty tick off his glove. Throw was a little wide to the inside side of 1B but Davis didn't position himself correctly for the throw or make a good stretch.

- McLouth air mails a throw to 3B but Hammel backs up the play.

- Ball falls between Jones, McLouth and Hardy - definitely catchable and probably Jones' ball.

- Weird play in the 9th where Dickerson jumps at the sidewall in foul territory, pushes off the wall with his foot, reaches behind him to get his glove on the ball, then drops it for a foul ball.

No errors scored in this game, but we gave the Mariners four extra outs.

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April 30 (7-2 win over Mariners)

- Davis drops a one-hopper from Hardy from the OF grass in the hole. Great effort by Hardy squandered.

- Davis has a DP attempt by Flaherty tick off his glove. Throw was a little wide to the inside side of 1B but Davis didn't position himself correctly for the throw or make a good stretch.

- McLouth air mails a throw to 3B but Hammel backs up the play.

- Ball falls between Jones, McLouth and Hardy - definitely catchable and probably Jones' ball.

- Weird play in the 9th where Dickerson jumps at the sidewall in foul territory, pushes off the wall with his foot, reaches behind him to get his glove on the ball, then drops it for a foul ball.

No errors scored in this game, but we gave the Mariners four extra outs.

Worth noting, McLouth was blowing bubbles with his gum when he airmailed that ball... ;)

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I don't have it out for Davis, but I think both plays could have been made. Flaherty was on the inside of 1B by several feet after tagging the runner but Davis' foot was in the middle of the bag when he stretched for the throw instead of shifting over in light of where Flaherty would be throwing from. I'm not saying it was awful, just a play I think he could have made, like the one-hopper from Hardy. I'll be interested in what others have to say, that's why I post this stuff, to get some opinions.

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