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2nd and 3rd, nobody out; Jones, Markakis and Wieters all K


Frobby

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It's Bard redux. The thing about guys with plus-plus stuff is elemental: if a guy has a plus-plus fastball and a plus-plus breaking ball (let alone a third "show-me" pitch), then the hitter is at a significant disadvantage. If that pitcher is commanding those pitches (and Bard and Burnett were commanding the heck out of their pitches) then the hitter is, almost as a rule, helpless.

True.

And look at it this way:

Jones strikes out more than a fat man at a bar. He's a strikeout machine, has no plate discipline whatsoever. If I had to be the farm on ONE THING happening during an Orioles game, I'd bet EVERYTHING on Jones striking out at least once.

Nick has been super hot lately. IIRC, someone posted that he hasn't struck out in his last 31 at bats. While that's a pretty awesome stretch, I'd say that he was due for one. As SilentJames would like to say "It was bound to happen."

Wieters has been struggling lately. One might even call it a slump.

Add those things up and combine it with Burnett having ridiculous stuff, it's not totally unfathomable that he could strike out all 3.

Frustrating, yes. Especially when it's been magnified against our year long RISP troubles. And it was definitely a turning point in the game, no doubt.

But that's why they're the Orioles, he's AJ Burnett and they're the New York Yankees.

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Well you completely missed the point of my post. I'm not really talking about this specific instance, but our recurring problems in these situations. That's the real problem.
These problems are recurring because no one changes their approach according to the situation. This is common in baseball today. Miss Payroid is a prime example of not changing her approach.
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Really? We could have scored up to 3 runs that inning, putting us up 3-0 with Matusz pitching. You can't assume they score 4 runs last night if we had a 3 run lead.

And let's say that just Nick grounds out and we end up with 1 run...What does that do?

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Helpless my ass. If Jones and Markakis lay off those breaking pitches like they should have after seeing the first one break in the dirt and only be looking for them above belt high, then Burnett was in trouble, not the other way around. That is total balderdash.
True.

And look at it this way:

Jones strikes out more than a fat man at a bar. He's a strikeout machine, has no plate discipline whatsoever. If I had to be the farm on ONE THING happening during an Orioles game, I'd bet EVERYTHING on Jones striking out at least once.

Nick has been super hot lately. IIRC, someone posted that he hasn't struck out in his last 31 at bats. That's a pretty awesome stretch and I'd say that he was due for one. As SilentJames would like to say "It was bound to happen."

Wieters has been struggling lately. One might even call it a slump.

Add those things up and combine it with Burnett having ridiculous stuff, it's not totally unfathomable that he could strike out all 3.

Frustrating, yes. Especially when it's been magnified against our year long RISP troubles. And it was definitely a turning point in the game, no doubt.

But that's why they're the Orioles, he's AJ Burnett and they're the New York Yankees.

I look at this way: as good as Nick has been recently - against everyone - his helplessness against Burnett is indicative of how good AJ's stuff was last night.

There are hitters who might have stood a chance through those sequences - a handful - and in some respects it supports JTrea's theory about an impact bat. Someone with plus-plus bat speed could likely wait on the fastball long enough to lay off the slider. They are few and far between, and having one in the line-up only gives you about a 11% chance of being the guy up at the right time. I had hoped Wieters would morph into that over time, but right now his batspeed makes him look to me to be something a little less than that. To be fair, however, A-Rod doesn't have the greatest batspeed in the world anymore either -

- the difference is, Burnett was commanding his pitches (like Bard). The key to any AB against pitchers like that is limiting their options by getting ahead in the count. And the only way to do that is if they miss. Once they get strike one on you, you're in trouble.

They were two terrible innings against two pitchers with among the best stuff in all of baseball.

This doesn't excuse any other instances of bad clutch play, mind you. But those complaining about those two innings really need to think about what they saw (if they saw it).

For those who didn't see it, both Kay and Leiter said last night that AJ had no-hitter stuff going, with an explosive, running fastball and a hard, sharp slider that he was commanding at will. His best stuff of the year, they said. I agree. I'd never seen him throw with that kind of movement and command.

And he clearly picked it up in that inning. Before then, he'd been leaning heavily on his FB. That inning he just threw devastating slider after devastating slider to a line-up that had to start early to try to catch up with his FB. Normally, he doesn't command that pitch (his BB/9 last year was over 4, this year under 2.5), but when he does, he's the ace that he always had the potential to be.

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I look at this way: as good as Nick has been recently - against everyone - his helplessness against Burnett is indicative of how good AJ's stuff was last night.

There are hitters who might have stood a chance through those sequences - a handful - and in some respects it supports JTrea's theory about an impact bat. Someone with plus-plus bat speed could likely wait on the fastball long enough to lay off the slider. They are few and far between, and having one in the line-up only gives you about a 11% chance of being the guy up at the right time. I had hoped Wieters would morph into that over time, but right now his batspeed makes him look to me to be something a little less than that. To be fair, however, A-Rod doesn't have the greatest batspeed in the world anymore either -

- the difference is, Burnett was commanding his pitches (like Bard). The key to any AB against pitchers like that is limiting their options by getting ahead in the count. And the only way to do that is if they miss. Once they get strike one on you, you're in trouble.

They were two terrible innings against two pitchers with among the best stuff in all of baseball.

This doesn't excuse any other instances of bad clutch play, mind you. But those complaining about those two innings really need to think about what they saw (if they saw it).

For those who didn't see it, both Kay and Leiter said last night that AJ had no-hitter stuff going, with an explosive, running fastball and a hard, sharp slider that he was commanding at will. His best stuff of the year, they said. I agree. I'd never seen him throw with that kind of movement and command.

And he clearly picked it up in that inning. Before then, he'd been leaning heavily on his FB. That inning he just threw devastating slider after devastating slider to a line-up that had to start early to try to catch up with his FB. Normally, he doesn't command that pitch (his BB/9 last year was over 4, this year under 2.5), but when he does, he's the ace that he always had the potential to be.

Fantastic post. Can't give rep but I wish I could.

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I watched Frank sonny boy, when you weren't even on the planet yet and he might swing at the first pitch like that but he would rarely if ever get caught doing it twice in a row, especially with RISP.

Frank struck out 435 times in RISP situations -- once every 7.7 times he came to the plate. Markakis has struck out once every 7.4 times he has come to the plate in RISP situations. I'm sure Frank had plenty of at bats where he swung at pitches he wished he hadn't.

You have this tendency to deify the great players of the past, but nobody's perfect, or even close. And my guess would be that you didn't see that many of Frank Robinson's at bats. The guy was my idol, I followed him as intently as I possibly could, but let's face it, how often were the games on TV from 1966-71? Including the post-season, maybe 25-30 games a year?

By the way, I'm not comparing Nick Markakis to Frank Robinson as an overall player. There is no comparison. I'm just using these numbers to illustrate that Frank wasn't perfect.

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Frank struck out 435 times in RISP situations -- once every 7.7 times he came to the plate. Markakis has struck out once every 7.4 times he has come to the plate in RISP situations. I'm sure Frank had plenty of at bats where he swung at pitches he wished he hadn't.

You have this tendency to deify the great players of the past, but nobody's perfect, or even close. And my guess would be that you didn't see that many of Frank Robinson's at bats. The guy was my idol, I followed him as intently as I possibly could, but let's face it, how often were the games on TV from 1966-71? Including the post-season, maybe 25-30 games a year?

By the way, I'm not comparing Nick Markakis to Frank Robinson as an overall player. There is no comparison. I'm just using these numbers to illustrate that Frank wasn't perfect.

Nice post..too bad it will be ignored.
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Frank struck out 435 times in RISP situations -- once every 7.7 times he came to the plate. Markakis has struck out once every 7.4 times he has come to the plate in RISP situations. I'm sure Frank had plenty of at bats where he swung at pitches he wished he hadn't.

You have this tendency to deify the great players of the past, but nobody's perfect, or even close. And my guess would be that you didn't see that many of Frank Robinson's at bats. The guy was my idol, I followed him as intently as I possibly could, but let's face it, how often were the games on TV from 1966-71? Including the post-season, maybe 25-30 games a year?

By the way, I'm not comparing Nick Markakis to Frank Robinson as an overall player. There is no comparison. I'm just using these numbers to illustrate that Frank wasn't perfect.

True, plus I probably forgot a lot of those times because Frank had the superbly clutch Brooks hitting behind him to pick him up.

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Burnett found his curve last night,

Just when A.J. Burnett was starting to resign himself to the idea that he'd be pitching all of 2010 without his curveball, guess what decided to show back up? Joe Girardi sure remembered it - that sharp breaking pitch was the same one that gave him cold sweats when Burnett was wearing a Canadian flag on his cap in 2008.

"I really found it tonight," Burnett said. "It came up big in big situations with guys on."

Sure did, like that little sequence in the third inning, with a run already in and the Orioles banging on the door for more. With second and third and none out, Burnett whiffed Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters in order to survive for another frame.

"It just doesn't get any better than that," Girardi said. "He used his curveball effectively, he got ahead, he threw strike one. When he had a chance to put them away, he expanded in the zone and had great depth tonight. That's what we want to see out of his curveball."

http://bombersbeat.mlblogs.com/

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Burnett found his curve last night,

Just when A.J. Burnett was starting to resign himself to the idea that he'd be pitching all of 2010 without his curveball, guess what decided to show back up? Joe Girardi sure remembered it - that sharp breaking pitch was the same one that gave him cold sweats when Burnett was wearing a Canadian flag on his cap in 2008.

"I really found it tonight," Burnett said. "It came up big in big situations with guys on."

Sure did, like that little sequence in the third inning, with a run already in and the Orioles banging on the door for more. With second and third and none out, Burnett whiffed Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters in order to survive for another frame.

"It just doesn't get any better than that," Girardi said. "He used his curveball effectively, he got ahead, he threw strike one. When he had a chance to put them away, he expanded in the zone and had great depth tonight. That's what we want to see out of his curveball."

http://bombersbeat.mlblogs.com/

In other words, what I said. ;)

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You mean the one with the sub-.800 OPS in clutch situations for his career?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=robinbr01&year=&t=b#clutc

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=robinbr01&year=Career&t=b

NEver had a career BA of over 270 in any clutch situation...Interesting...That is pretty much is his career BA...Who would have thunk?

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And let's say that just Nick grounds out and we end up with 1 run...What does that do?

Oh, I think that could have made a difference. First, it relaxes the team just a little. Now it's 2-1 instead of tied, maybe Wieters relaxes a bit more in his AB, maybe Matusz is a little calmer when he fields that bunt in the bottom of the inning, etc.

Even if not, at least as a fan I'd feel we scored when we had an excellent opportunity to do so.

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