Game 88: Tribe vs. Twins
Posted by ubelmann on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Cliff Lee Is Not That Good vs. Perkins
Don't get me wrong--Cliff Lee has still be great this year, but his xFIP of 3.15 is much higher than his ERA of 2.26 and while he'll probably start the All-Star Game (and it's not a terrible idea for him to do that), I would personally choose Halladay over Lee.
Overall, though, Lee is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma...but perhaps there is a key. The Twins don't have any great right-handed hitters, so I wouldn't necessarily expect them to unearth the key, but you never know. Lee's fastball velocity seems to be up a bit from last year, but his pitch speeds aren't up across the board. He's not throwing his slider more often, but he is getting more ground balls, so he's probably throwing a two-seamer more...unless he's just found a way to get his two-seamer to dip better. (Maybe changed his arm angle to get better movement on the two-seamer?) His walk rate has gone from decent to awesome, while his strikeout rate is the highest it has been in the last five years. He's 29, which isn't all that old, but certainly not an age where you'd expect a pitcher to take huge strides forward.
So I don't get it. I don't see any good reason that Cliff Lee should be doing this well. He may well continue dominating the AL on his way to a Cy Young Award, but I'm probably going to be skeptical of his performance right up until that happens.
Although, I just found Ozzie Guillen's take on the situation:
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen had watched Cliff Lee pitch before, but not the Lee who held Chicago to one run Tuesday night in an eight-inning no-decision.
"I was wondering how he had so many wins," said Guillen, "Now I know. Lee has always had a good arm, but he could never find the plate. Now he's throwing strikes and he's got a good change-up. He's going to win a lot of games pitching like that."
The better control is obvious in the numbers (though its sustainability is not), but the better change-up is not. According to fangraphs, Lee is actually throwing the change slightly less than he has in the past, though it's possible that he's getting better movement on it now, locating it better, and/or hiding it better.
Asile 4. Sweep, sweep, sweep.
That's something I would type! And an excuse for me to try out blockquotes again.
bunty bunty!
Go-Go, making the simplest catches look spectacular since 2008
Slug bunt.
umm.... bunty bunty!
its like the teams are playing fastpitch softball today
Casilla has a surprising amount of pop in his bat. Slugging over .450, bunting balls out of the infield... Is his bat made of flubber?
That's a dumb question; how could it be? Even Gordo and Dazzle could tell if it was. The question is, is his bat flubber-filled?
Thank God for Josh Hamilton, or the whole first half of the All-Star Selection Show would have been NYY/BOS fauning. Yuck.
(nice - I googled "perkins", and the 2nd image from the list (above) was from WGOM)
Afternoon, gents. I'm back home and man is it muggy today. Temp is only about 89, but the dewpoint is in the 70s. We haven't used the AC much this summer, but it's running today.
yep, it feels like Summer today
I do not have AC
StL has had a BEAUTIFUL holiday weekend; mid 80s today, but a breeze, and virtually no humidity. We never have weather this nice for the 4th here.
It was real nice up at the lake (mom's house in Brainerd). Sunny, breezy, fairly low humidity. I repaired a toilet (replaced a worn out fill valve and flapper), the lawn tractor (broken tie rod end), and pulled down a limb that broke about 30 feet up an oak tree. Sucker was hanging by a big strip of bark and could have come down any time, so I got a rope over it and brought it down, then chopped it up with the chainsaw. It was definitely a manly weekend up north, and I even got a couple hours of fishing in.
sounds fantastic twayn!
The Nadal/Federer Wimbledon final is quite good as it just entered the 5th set after a long tiebreak in the 4th.
And now 6-all in the fifth. I like Nadal, but six in a row? That's something to cheer for.
anyone else have trouble with mlb.com the last few days? All sites, including the Twins main page, automatically load to this : http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/schedule/NULL - the NULL part sends me to a 404 error- had this problem for the last 2 days on my laptop.
I've had no problems.
meat, try clearing your browser cache.
I tried that with no luck- went as far as to reset Safari- Hrm.
that was a long inning.
glad its over
Nice. Now, if the Twins could ever mount an offensive threat...
Bremer determined to come up with a nickname for the speedy Twins. In the great tradition of amphetamines in baseball, I propose Bags of Speed. Put that on a t-shirt, Dick.
I'd like to see "Put that on a t-shirt, Dick" on a t-shirt
or perhaps 8 ball(s) of speed....
I bet we can find something here.
How about The Crank Bugs?
gogo go.
IF hit for Gomez - imagine that!
OKGo!
Our best bet today is to work as many long counts against Lee as possible and try to drive his pitch count up. Although Wedge let CC throw over 120 pitches in his last start.
Cliff Lee = jerk
jerk vs. perk
Sounds like a game show on SpikeTV
I'm sorry, but any pitcher who can't handle speedy players bunting on him is a pussy.
Ditto any bunting speedy players who can't handle pitchers
To clarify--by "handle" I mean "play the game without crying like a newborn baby whose chew toy has been taken away from him." Bunting is as much a part of the game as swinging away and offspeed pitches are, and players shouldn't be expected to not bunt any more than pitchers should be expected to not throw sliders.
I understood you better before you tried to clarify.
Lee was apparently bitching about Gomez trying to bunt. The only thing I hate more than pitchers telling the other team's hitters how to play the game is pitchers intentionally throwing at Joe Mauer twice and not getting thrown out of the game.
I'd feed Lee a steady diet of bunts, if I thought they had a good chance of succeeding. He's asking for it.
I agree. Pitchers already get a designated hitter. Until they get a designated fielder, field your friggin' position and STFU.
GoGo getting into Lee's head?
Perkins finding his groove? How's he look on TV?
ONLY two Yankees?! Bite me, ESPN. Bite me.
Jeter, blech. Michael Young should be starting at SS. Hell, I'd even rather see Orlando Cabrera there than Jeter. Similar offensive numbers and much better defense than Cap'n Dreamboat can provide. How many times do we have to hear "Past a diving Jeter..."?
There just aren't any compelling SS candidates in the AL, so I can't really blame the fans that much for putting Jeter in there.
Also, Jeter was the best SS in the AL last year, and I think that counts for something, too, especially in a year where no one has been significantly better than he has.
but voting for anyone else but Jeter IS compelling!
Even my 100 votes couldn't compel Adam Everett into the AS game.
trivia question: who was the last Indians pitcher to league the AL in ERA?
was Kevin Millwood with the Tribe when he bested Johan by something like. 05 and Johan missed out of the pitchers Triple Crown
Joe sure isn't Gary Carter with the microphone
looks like Federer and Nadal are coming back onto the court.
well, the edit button seemed to have disappeared!
Come on boys -- make Lee WORK. 4 IP, 45 pitches so far.
You can only do so much when he's throwing strikes.
making some good contact comes to mind
Yeah, that's easy.
not really, but I can wish
Okay, Lee looks unfreakinghittable today, but Perkins hasn't been too bad himself. The one run he gave up was a direct result of a catchable ball (would've been a tough play but definitely catchable by Span) that ended up a Shoppach double. If Perkins can keep this close, maybe one of those weird Metrodome rallies will be enough? You know, like what happened in this game.
Perkins just has to keep putting donuts on the board. One mistake by Lee to the right hitter and we can tie this thing up.
Um, no donut. That pitch to Jhonny was an eclair.
More like a creampuff.
Man, I thought day/night splits got retired with GW RBI.
hey everybody!
PB!
Is that Jeter injured in your pic? When was that game?
Judging by the turf in the background, it has to be the game against the Blue Jays where the catcher went over to third base and illegally blocked the base while Jeter was sliding in and Jeter injured his shoulder.
Beats me, but I liked the image, so there it is
Metrodome is really quiet this afternoon, and it looks like a halfway decent crowd
Maybe they all read The Onion -- and have an impaired sense of irony?
Why did that guy throw the ball back? He clearly didn't want to.
And risk the wrath of the dreaded LF Metrodome Bleacher* Creatures? Are you nuts, man?
*Not really bleachers, but it rhymes
Are you nuts, man?
Yes.
That's gotta be the stupidest (new) tradition in the game. If I'm that guy, I tell everyone around to kiss my @ss. Screw peer pressure.
amen to that
I like the spirit behind it, but it's tired and cliche. A variation on the theme would be much more effective, like incinerating it on the spot in a sort of cleansing ritual.
The Cubs fans have thrown HR balls back for many, many years. For that reason alone, I think it should be abandoned.
I think that's mainly my problem with it. It's a Cubs tradition. Why would we want to do anything the Cubs started?
A tradition of failure.
That sounds good in theory, but try getting the flamethrower through security.
Oh, sure, I show up and the Twins start tanking
don't blame yourself; they started when Lee showed up.
So, Lohse didn't make the All-star team... yet
This is the first time in quite a while that a 3-run deficit has looked huge...
say that again?!
o' ye of little faith (4-3)
Those are the kinds of words I like to eat.
"Circle us Bert! We want to be
inseminateddisseminated!"Finally entered the 21st Century and got real cable (not that basic stuff with just network and TBS). That means I get to watch the Twins tomorrow, and the HR Derby next Monday. Good times. Good times.
Nice wheels on that Span kid.
Woo-hoo! Span triple
Thanks for the run, Jhonny.