The defense thread, 2020

[Moose Milligan]

Pathetic play by Davis last night, hard smash to his left, all he had to do was get his body in front of it but instead he just stabbed at it with his glove and he, of course, missed it.

I think they gave the Phillies a hit on it and it probably was.  But the fact he couldn't move a couple feet to the left was bad.  Not like he had to dive to stop it or anything.

[Ballbusters]

Yeah I was really disappointed in Davis' effort, if you can't hit you better be on point with your defense.

[webbrick2010]

He's a liability on offense, defense, and the base paths

He was on first last night when someone smashed one in the RC gap all the way to the wall, and he barely made it to third. 75% of ML'ers score on that ball. He is the worst player in ML history by just about any possible metric.

[Can_of_corn]

1 hour ago, Ballbusters said:

Yeah I was really disappointed in Davis' effort, if you can't hit you better be on point with your defense.

Or have a huge contract that makes you proof from all incompetence.

[Aristotelian]

Did not see the play in question, but he did make a nice stretch on Alberto's throw to end the game. 

[Aristotelian]

August 12 vs Phillies, huge play with a one run lead in the 8th and the tying run on 2nd, Rio dives to his left and rolls the ball to Alberto for the force out. 

https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2020/2020-08/12/ceccd5b5-64d1f9d7-8926ef38-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4

 

[MurphDogg]

11 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

August 12 vs Phillies, huge play with a one run lead in the 8th and the tying run on 2nd, Rio dives to his left and rolls the ball to Alberto for the force out. 

https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2020/2020-08/12/ceccd5b5-64d1f9d7-8926ef38-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4

To save a click:

 

[Spy Fox]

The defense was awful yesterday:

• Santander misplayed a single into a triple, extending the Nats rally from 1 to 2 runs in the 2nd.
• Alberto booted a routine inning-ending double play grounder. This indirectly led to all 3 runs in the top of the 3rd. 
• On the very next play, a poor throw by Davis and failed transfer by Iglesias combined to prevent another would-be double play. This could have held the 3-run rally to 1 run.
• Hays, Smith, and Ruiz converged but failed to catch a routine popup in the 8th. The ball should have probably been Hays'. This would have been the 2nd out with only 2 runs across, and the next hitter flew out, so this indirectly led to 4 of the runs against Carroll in the 6-run 8th. 

That's 8 runs pretty squarely on the defense, not the pitching, in a game where Washington scored 15 despite only one home run, a solo. 

[MurphDogg]

34 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

• On the very next play, a poor throw by Davis and failed transfer by Iglesias combined to prevent another would-be double play. This could have held the 3-run rally to 1 run.

Disagree that the throw was poor. It was exactly where you want that throw to be, leading the shortstop toward right-centerfield so he clears the runner. Had nothing to do with Iglesias failing to get the ball out of the glove.

[Aristotelian]

47 minutes ago, MurphDogg said:

Disagree that the throw was poor. It was exactly where you want that throw to be, leading the shortstop toward right-centerfield so he clears the runner. Had nothing to do with Iglesias failing to get the ball out of the glove.

He had to stretch way too much. He had to make an acrobatic play just to get the one out. There was no way he could get a throw off with his momentum going into the outfield. 

[MurphDogg]

57 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

He had to stretch way too much. He had to make an acrobatic play just to get the one out. There was no way he could get a throw off with his momentum going into the outfield. 

I am as down on Davis as the next guy, but it was a perfectly fine throw, Iglesias just double clutched it. To say there is no way he could get the throw off is absurd, he just didn't get his hand on it out of the glove.

 

[Aristotelian]

3 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

I am as down on Davis as the next guy, but it was a perfectly fine throw, Iglesias just double clutched it. To say there is no way he could get the throw off is absurd, he just didn't get his hand on it out of the glove.

 

As the tweet says it was a tad high not "exactly where you want it". Sure, a perfect play by Iglesias may have turned the play but it also wasn't a great throw.

[Frobby]

Game 21, August 16

Defense cost us the game today.   I didn’t see the first inning, but apparently there was a ball Smith allowed to drop in LF plus a poor throw from him on another play.  And Nunez apparently let a bloop over his head fall in that a good 1B might have caught.    I’m getting all that from the game thread.   Maybe someone else can elaborate.

Then in the 8th with a runner on 1B and one out, Nunez bobbled a grounder and had to take the out at 1B rather than cutting down the lead runner.    That became important on the next play when Ruiz made a double-clutch short-hop throw way to Nunez’s backhand side that skipped off his glove and allowed the runner to score from 2B to give the Nats the go-ahead (and eventually winning) run.    
 

Too bad, because erasing a 5-1 deficit to Max Scherzer is not an easy thing to do.   The O’s did it and then literally threw the game away.
 

[Oriole1940]

This one was  really hard to swallow seeing as the team fought back from a multirun hole against one of the very good pitchers in all of baseball.  I hope they shrug it off,  but I have seen similar situations  cause the start of a losing streak.  This team is nothing if they are not scrappy, so maybe they will say to themselves,,  to hell with it, lets start winning again. 

[WillyM]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

Game 21, August 16

Defense cost us the game today.   I didn’t see the first inning, but apparently there was a ball Smith allowed to drop in LF plus a poor throw from him on another play.  And Nunez apparently let a bloop over his head fall in that a good 1B might have caught.    I’m getting all that from the game thread.   Maybe someone else can elaborate.

Then in the 8th with a runner on 1B and one out, Nunez bobbled a grounder and had to take the out at 1B rather than cutting down the lead runner.    That became important on the next play when Ruiz made a double-clutch short-hop throw way to Nunez’s backhand side that skipped off his glove and allowed the runner to score from 2B to give the Nats the go-ahead (and eventually winning) run.    
 

Too bad, because erasing a 5-1 deficit to Max Scherzer is not an easy thing to do.   The O’s did it and then literally threw the game away.
 

I saw the first inning, and the three base hits to left field looked pretty legitimate to me.  It looked like the Nats' scouting report said to run on Smith's arm every chance you get - Cabrera did that to score from second on Robles' single, and Smith's throw was weak and off-line.

The bloop that fell over Nunez' head was definitely not a routine play - if it had been, the umps would have called the infield fly rule, because there were runners on first and second and only one out.  Nunez was playing in, the ball wasn't hit very high, and he would have had to make a really good play to get back quickly enough to catch that one.  Alberto was overshifted to the third-base side, so he had no chance to get to the ball.  If the Orioles had been playing straight-up infield defense, Alberto probably could have caught it easily, but whoever plays straight-up infield defense these days?

Edited August 17, 2020 by WillyM