Sat Apr 29: Game 2 of split doubleheader, 5:10 pm

[SteveA]

OK Grayson, this is where a major league pitcher pitches with the lead, attacks the plate, hits his spot, and shows he belongs.   You have a 4 run lead against the lowest scoring team in the majors -- if you are ready for MLB, you should be able to deliver a multi-run lead to the bullpen  in the 6th or 7th no matter what our hitters do between now and then,

[Winter]

there is an inning we have been looking for all day 

[jdwilde1]

That’s how you do it, 10 pitch inning after getting the lead.

[mrbig1]

Grod looking good today.

[maybenxtyr]

Very nice!

[Aristotelian]

Wait did Grayson just have an efficient inning?

[Billy F-Face3]

123 and that's the inning for Grayson. Nice to see. Ah Ah Ah...

[SteveA]

Seeing Grayson face Miguel Cabrera reminded me of the time we faced Cabrera and the Marlins and Todd Williams tried to intentionally walk Cabrera but got a pitch too close, and Cabrera reached out and got a single out of it that knocked in the winning run.

Looked it up, that was 2006.   Grayson Rodriguez was 6 years old.

[mrbig1]

Santander with a 3-1 count strikes out.

[jdwilde1]

12 minutes ago, SteveA said:

He starts most games vs lefties, and NEVER starts vs righties.

The problem is, due to a scheduling oddity, this is the 13th time we have faced a lefty pitcher in 27 games.   That is beyond fluky, we lead the majors in # of games vs lefties.  Half the teams have faced lefties 7 times or less.   St Louis has just faced 4!   If we had St Louis's schedule we would barely have seen McKenna all year.

Anyway, as near as I can tell, we face a righty tomorrow, KC's rotation is all righthanded, Atlanta has 4/5 righties and I think we are missing Fried.   So our next 7 games are all vs RH starters.   And then we play TB, who has 1 lefty in the rotation, so even if do see McClanahan, that's 9 of our next 10 games will be vs righthanded starters.

So for the next 10 days we won't have to see people reacting with surprise in the lineup thread or the game thread every time McKenna is in the lineup vs a lefty, as if it is some kind of unexpected event.   Thank goodness!

And FWIW, the lineups can't be too bad.  We are 8-4 vs LH starters so far (and up early today) and 9-5 vs RH starters.

That’s a lot of LHP, as the percentage of MLB LHP is usually just under 25%.  Regardless, McKenna shouldn’t be starting anywhere close to a quarter of the season.  He does not hit LHP (.210/.290/.331) any better than RHP (.215/.298/.288) for his career.  

[SilverRocket]

That inning was approaching the Grayson we dreamed about.

[Billy F-Face3]

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself and get too excited. Grayson has to get through the 4th and 5th innings, but he looks sharp so far. I'm getting a little excited that we might see him get his first official statistically scored Major League Win!

[Billy F-Face3]

We should get him some more run support first.

[Aristotelian]

Very exciting. Let's hope something has clicked. His command is night and day from the previous starts.

[SteveA]

4 minutes ago, jdwilde1 said:

That’s a lot of LHP, as the percentage of MLB LHP is usually just under 25%.  Regardless, McKenna shouldn’t be starting anywhere close to a quarter of the season.  He does not hit LHP (.210/.290/.331) any better than RHP (.215/.298/.288) for his career.  

He's actually only started 8 games this year.  The # was 5 before Thrsday night.   So he's started 8 of 13 times vs LH, and 0 of 14 times vs RH.  He's played in 11 other games coming in for defense or hitting vs a LH when they switched pitchers.