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Truth vs. PerceptionI hate how Pittsburgh reporters absolve McClendon of all blame when it comes to loosing games, but it's just as bad when fans accuse him of being a bad manager based completely on hindsight. His decisions in the ninth innings of these two Cubs games were wrong, but they were wrong because they didn't work, not because he's an idiot. For once Bob Smizik wrote exactly what I've been thinking for the last two days. Bob also talks about Jacks GIDP to end the game on the first pitch of his AB:"Finally, Jack Wilson also took some criticism for swinging at the first pitch with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth. He grounded into a double play.Bob must read our blogs, because it was scary how much I agreed with him in this article. When the Pirates started their last road trip I started keeping track of how they hit after taking a pitch or swinging at one. I was trying to prove some grand point about patience proving success, but I abandoned this process after the fifth game because I was proving myself ridiculously wrong. After Thursday's debacle I feel it might be worth it to share my findings. As I paid attention to what was upsetting about first pitch swings it became clear what was annoying me about it. It's good to take if you're trying to wear down the pitcher or if you're going to ground into a double play, but otherwise it didn't really matter. There's also the case of being in a first pitch hitting slump (ie. Tike Redman) but that's something else. It was hard to accept that I didn't need to be as mad about it as I was being. I would encourage anyone who is a fan to actually document the facts of what you think a depressing trend is, you might be surprised. The numbers: during that five day stretch the entire Pirate team batted .222 when taking a first pitch strike; when jumping on the first pitch they hit a whopping .523. So can we say from this that the hitters should always swing at the first pitch? Obviously no. The reason the numbers are so different is because more then 50% of the time that we swing on pitch 1 it's because its something the hitters are looking for and can actually hit. A good manager doesn't take that away from his players, even if they are Tike Redman, and certainly not when they're Jack Wilson. posted by Rory at 5:21 AM | |
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This is a blog about the Pittsburgh Pirates. My vision: to write about the games at the games. Want to email me? Make it out to rory at bleache... you know the rest. |
